Split (1)

train · 199k rows

post_text stringlengths 0 17.5k	post_title stringlengths 8 314	comment_texts listlengths 1 74	num_stories int64 1 74
	[WP] Two spies, dead-set on killing each other, keep having to save the other spy in order to preserve their own life.	[ "\"Truce?\" \n\n\"Don't you fucking-\" \n\nI took a deep breath, trying to catch my temper, while he snickered. \n\n\"This does seem to keep happening, doesn't it?\" he mused. \"I'm starting to think you don't really want to kill me at all.\" \n\n\"Oh, I definitely want to kill you.\" \n\nHe didn't reply, only smirked that stupid smirk that made his dark eyes glitter. He'd never taken the mask off, of course, but I could just tell he was smirking. It was the kind of thing he'd do. \n\n\"I think I could give you a boost up out that window. You'd fit, you're only tiny,\" he said conversationally, sauntering over underneath it to look up. It was about ten foot off the ground, so it was difficult to tell if I'd be able to wriggle through. It was also, however, the only way out of this place and I certainly wasn't going to stay in here with him. \n\nWith great dignity, I walked over and stepped in his joint hands, then onto his shoulders, reaching as far as I could until my fingertips brushed the edge. Heaving myself up was difficult, as there was nothing much to balance on, but with a few sharp elbow strikes the window shattered and I had more space to hang on. I probably didn't continue to look so dignified as I squeezed my way out, but hey, fresh air was out here and that asshole was behind me in a dungeon. \n\n\"I suppose you're wondering why you shouldn't just leave me behind,\" he drawled, words floating up after me as I had started to try and do just that. \n\nGritting my teeth, I paused in my step momentarily, and said nothing. \n\n\"It's because I have already found the combination to Monsieur's hidden safe....and destroyed all other evidence of it, of course. The numbers exist only in my head now, I'm afraid,\" he sighed theatrically. \n\nI said nothing. \n\n\"So you'd better find a way to get me out of here and then we can both go and sabotage it up together, head back to our bosses who will be very happy, and continue trying to kill each other.\" \n\n\"....Fine.\"\n\nI started to stride off again when he interrupted me.\n\n\"Miss Lady Spy!\" \n\n\"Do NOT call me-\"\n\n\"I was just wondering if you would like to have dinner with me next Saturday? The CIA director owes me a favour and I've been wanting to take his yacht for a spin.\" \n\nI said nothing. \n\n\"I'll pick you up at seven,\" he offered cheerfully. \n\n\"You don't know where I live.\" \n\n\"No, but it'll be a nice challenge to keep me busy during the week, won't it?\" \n\nI grunted. \"If you can get my home address and make it past security alive, I will consider it.\" \n\n\"Wear a pretty dress, Miss Lady Spy.\" \n\n\"Oh, fuck off.\" \n ", "Brandon stood there, looking off the edge of the cliff in the middle of nowhere. He saw James desperately clinging onto the edge, quickly losing his grip. \n\n\"You have to get me up from this cliff,\" James croaked in a moment of desperation.\n\n\"I fear you misunderstand the definition of an assassin, my friend.\"\n\nEven in his current predicament, James had the audacity to laugh.\n\n\"I fear it is you who misunderstands. The situation, that is. Look around you; this is my territory.\" His breath became shallow, and his right hand lost its grip. \"You damaged your car too badly while chasing me here – you'll never make it back to civilization in that. You'll have to take my car.\"\n\nJames pulled out a set of keys from his pocket. \"It's tailored to my handprint. Any attempt to hotwire my vehicle will result in a… fiery conclusion. You're smart man – but you're not an explosives expert. Oh, sure, you can try to make it out of here by foot, but I predict you'll get dysentery first. Did you know half the people who have ever lived have died of malaria?\"\n\nBrandon weighed the situation carefully, but quickly. It was true that James knew this particular area of Mexico, and that the car chase had let them here on purpose. Brandon cursed himself from under his breath, and pulled him up. \n\nJames laughed, as he always did. Brandon and come to recognize that laugh very well, hating the sound every single time. He took a step back as he let his rival regain his footing. He made sure James made no sudden movements, pointing the gun directly at his chest the entire time.\n\n\"So, you have the keys to a car that only work under your fingerprint. I'm the one with the gun.\"\n\nAnd so they stood there. \n\nEdit: 4:00 in the morning – dead tired. Anyone is free to pick up the story from here. \n\n" ]	2
	[WP] You break into a home while the family sleeps,only to be trapped with them by the malicious entity residing there.	[ "Craig was scared out of his ten year old mind. He had to get that pokemon card back or his brother would kill him. He shouldn't have traded it, but he was high on the excitement of the other children and made a mistake. He crept up to the sleeping house, his heart pounding. There was the key - right under the doormat, where he had seen Ben retrieve it weeks before. His hands were trembling as he put it in the door and turned the lock. \n\nThe house was silent, and he was uncomfortably aware of the sounds he made as he crept down the hallway towards the stairs. He left the door open because he was too afraid that shutting it would make too much noise. He hoped that Ben's Pokemon cards were on top of the dresser next to the door where he usually kept them. \n\nSuddenly, he heard a creaking sound that made him freeze in his tracks. He turned around - the door had closed. He was confused, but it was too late for him to back out now. He continued creeping down the hallway. \n\nSomeone roughly grabbed his arm from behind and threw him onto the floor. He slid a few feet into the kitchen, screaming in terror. The kitchen cabinets flew open, and suddenly he was under attack from a barrage of plates, bowls, and cutlery. He tried to clamber to his feet, only to be thrown down again by the unseen force. \n\nA door opened in the hallway, and Ben's mother stepped out wearing a robe. She took one look at the situation and started yelling.\n\n\"HOW DARE YOU BREAK OUR DISHES, AND THREATEN A CHILD! YOU WILL CLEAN UP THIS MESS RIGHT NOW, YOU UNDERSTAND?\"\n\nThere was a moment of silence, and then the mess began to float. Broken dishes went in the trash can, cutlery went in the sink. In a few moments it was like it never happened. \n\nBen's mom sighed. \n\n\"This wouldn't happen to be about a holographic Charizard, would it?\" \n\nCraig just cried, terrified and embarrassed at the same time.\n\n\"Never mind. Lets call your mom, ok?\"", "\"Oh dear.\"\n\nThat's her response on seeing me. No screaming or shrieking. No demands to know who I am and what I'm doing in her house. No surprise that I'm apparently stuck to the ceiling. Just oh dear. \n\nI try to smile, but I've been stuck to the ceiling for a little under five hours, my recollection of which is a little on the hazy side. I clearly remember jimmying the back door open with a crowbar and entering the house, that much is clear. But at some point, the furniture started moving and the walls started bleeding and the next thing I knew, I was stuck on the ceiling.\n\nThe woman addressing me is older, maybe in her sixties or seventies. She's wearing a bathrobe with a floral print and pink slippers. She's staring up at me and shaking her head. \n\n\"Hello.\" My voice is thin and croaky and I have no idea what to say. \"I'm...uh...\"\n\nShe nods at my abandoned crowbar. \"I know why you're here,\" she says. She doesn't even sound angry, just disappointed in me. I instantly feel ashamed. She shakes her head again, then turns and starts calling for what I assume is her husband.\n\n\"Harold! Harold! It happened again!\"\n\nThe shame I'm feeling is suddenly swept away by a tidal wave of fear. Again?! What did she mean, it happened again? I tried moving my arms and legs for what must have been the billionth time since I awoke and found myself stuck on the ceiling. Nothing happened. My limbs ached as I tried desperately to move them. It was as if they'd been carved out of stone.\n\n\"Big fella.\"\n\nI look down. Harold is standing below me, staring up at me. He is a tall, broad-shouldered man with a thick black mustache and dark, angry eyes. Unlike the old lady, he does not look disappointed in me for breaking into their house. He looks furious, as if he'd like nothing more than to pick up my crowbar and beat me to death with it. \n\nI try to force a smile. \"Hi,\" I say, my voice shaking. \"I...well, this is embarrassing, I guess, but I - \"\n\n\"You broke in,\" says Harold gruffly. \"Like the others.\"\n\n\"The others?\"\n\nHarold nods. \"Just like the others.\"\n\nThe old lady places a thin hand on Harold's arm. \"Call the plumber,\" she whispers, \"tell him he won't be needed.\" She glances up at me. \"This one'll do.\"\n\nHarold makes a noncommittal grunting sound, then turns and stalks down the corridor. The old lady looks up at me. Instead of looking disappointed, she looks relieved. \n\n\"The house requires a sacrifice,\" she says gently. \"Usually we call a maintenance man to come by. Once or twice we've given it Girl Scouts or trick-or-treaters.\" She sighs again. \"But since you're here...\"\n\nMy throat tightens, and although my mind is swarming with questions, my mouth refuses to open. The old lady shuffles over to the stove and picks up the tea kettle. I am suddenly aware of a sharp stinging sensation in my back, as if a thousand tiny teeth are nibbling at my skin. I try to move again, but the pain only grows worse. \n\n\"I just hope it doesn't make a mess this time,\" says the old woman as she fills her tea kettle. \n\nThe pain is seeping through my body now, as if long thin needles are puncturing my heart, lungs, and organs. I try to scream. My mouth falls open, and I see a thin stream of blood pour out of it and splatter to the clean kitchen floor. As the pain continues, as it grows more and more intense, I'm aware of a thick gurgling sound, and realize that it's coming from me.", "It seemed like a ordinary rich family house. Somewhat old fashioned and secluded, but well maintained and clearly filled with expensive modern devices. Their habits were like clockwork. Each night they all went to bed at the same time and no one ever got out of bed before 7. And even better, there was this one window on the side of the house that never seemed to be closed. I've watched them for the last week and they showed no deviation of this. Clearly a burglar's dream.\nThe plan was simple: wait until they are asleep, get in through the open window. Grab what I can and leave through the front door. Might even get to return a few times if I'm careful. \n\nBut things didn't really turn out as expected. As I climbed through the window, something seemed, ...off. I decided to use my flashlight to look around and, weirdly, the room looked old and abandoned. I wondered how I didn't see this before. Confused I went through the door to the living room. I'd seen this room countless times before and memorized where all the expensive loot was. Except that now that room looked just as run down like the one I just left. No expensive flat screen TV, no laptop on the table. All there was, were some old dusty furniture and remnants of what once used to be curtains. \nNot knowing what to make of it, I decided to get out of there fast, headed to the front door, but couldn't get it to open, headed back to the window, which now was closed and, somehow, locked. As fear started to creep in, I grabbed one of the old chairs from the living room and hurled it at a window. The chair flew, and then stopped right in front of the window, hovered there for a few seconds and then fell to the ground. I tried again, and again and again. \n\n\"Don't bother\". \n\nI'm sure I had half a heart attack hearing this. I turned around and the whole family was standing there, looking at me. Not in a \"what are you doing in our house\"-, but in a \"poor bastard\" kind of way.\n\nSo now I'm sitting here at the breakfast table, calling them mom, dad and sister. I was told that as long as we play happy family, it won't do to us what it did to brother." ]	3
	[WP] The dryer take another sock as its prisoner, but the sock is not complacent to stay as a prisoner.	[ "We were thrown into the dark, all in a bunch. I was on top of warm, soiled fabric, and felt the others piling up on me. Too many, for a weary body. And my wife among them, if only I could see her. \n\nThis was not my first time on trial. I had known these dark halls many times, and ridden the whirlpool, and each time found innocent. I lived a good life, I was a good worker. I could be counted on to hold together and to remain in my place, waiting.\n\n I saw Angela's face, away against a curved wall. She looked tired. We all did. But we had nothing to fear, we knew. Us good workers. \n\nI tried to move and go to her. We had a ritual: to twist around each other and ride the whirlpool together. It was not important, I thought then. Not as important as to be a good worker, and to keep your faith. We did it, all the same, for to be tried is a hard thing, even if one is innocent, even if one works well. Companionship keeps the soul warm even when the body is cold and wet.\n\nI pushed through my friends towards Angela. She was such a long way away. Her eyes were closed, her breath shallow. I had been worried about her, as of late. I thought each time I touched her her fabric felt weaker, and more wispy. Like she was being pulled away, and yet tried to remain. I needed and loved Angela as much as she needed and loved me: that is what it means to be a sock. You are not one, but two; and if one is lost, so must the other be. \n\nI hurried. And I thought I had time; even when the door closed and the light all but vanished; even when the beeps sounded. I was so close. I reached, and I touched her, and she looked at me, my darling Angela, before the tumbling started and took her away.\n\nThe trial had begun. We were thrown against each other, sent viciously through the air. Round and round it goes.\n\nThe water felt colder this time, and all the while I looked for Angela. Wet and heavy, lost in the dark mass of friends, of faithful workers, I shut my eyes when they should have been open and alert, and gritted my teeth. Was that it? What condemned me? All of my life, all of my faith, thrown away for a moment of fear? Faith means to never doubt, they say. And fear is doubt most of all.\n\nI was snagged. I felt the crushing weight of being held against the current of bodies and water, I felt deathly tendrils pulling at me. I thought But no, it's a mistake. I fell, eyes open, and all they saw was dark, and still I thought No, no.\n\nA splat announced my arriving in the world of the damned. Just that. There were no infernal gates, or rivers of lost souls. No sentence but to stay here: in a big, dark cave, reaching up into infinity and Angela.\n\nBig, dark, and filled with the guilty. The broken and despairing, and those that had long since stopped moving. All socks, and no two were alike. \n\nThere was a moment there, when I almost joined them. Or maybe I really did. I though I could lie here, and wait for the end that always comes. I could have fallen asleep and that would be the end of it, if right before my mind hadn't turned to God.\n\nGod? I thought. God? What God? What creature could be so monstrous? What manner of God would he be that ruled without mercy, or fairness, or even rules?\n\nWhat kind of God?\n\nNo God of mine.\n\nAnd in that moment, I became alive again. No longer one of the lost. I slithered, wet, on top of my fallen brothers. They had fallen as deep as I had, and their God had left them much in the same way. \n\nDid it matter, if one was guilty or just, in this pit? I felt the damned were all my brothers. And I would rescue them the only way they could be rescued. Where their faith had been broken, I would build a bridge to a new land. To a place where trust was put not on a guilty God, but on themselves, and on Love. \n\nWhere God had been, I would place Hope.\n\nFor Angela.\n\nAnd for that, I would climb.", "It was supposed to be a routine mission. Nothing we hadn't seen before. Just another cleanup round trip through the washing machine and the dryer. We'd done this a hundred times. But I guess even if you've been on the force for years they still can surprise you. \n \nThe trip through the washer went without any trouble. Lev was showing off his newly patched heel during the ride. Red wool. Apparently that's the fashion nowadays. Said I should get my own looked at. Don't see a reason to. Yea, my heel is getting sheer, but it's still holding up. I don't trust those shrinks and tailors. Don't like needles. Lev just grins. \n \nI always get the shivers when we enter the dryer. Call it childhood trauma, but we all got our baggage. I got used to it, but this time something is different. We are getting pushed too far off to the side. \n“Lev, I don't like this place. Smells awful lot like a trap to me”, I mumble and pull up my cuff. \n“You worry too much, Rick. Come on, partner, what could possibly go wrong?” Lev leans back and pokes the polished metal wall of the dryer. “They build these things to be safe. The other day I read that you are more likely to get burnt by lightning than to disappear in a dryer.” \nHe doesn't convince me. I pull a bundle of fluff from my pocket and start chewing on it. Old habits die hard. \n \nThen we start spinning. I try not to think about it. I need to distract myself. “So how's your patched heel holding up?”, I ask. \nNo answer. \n“Lev?” I turn to look at him, but his space is empty. “LEV!” \nHectically, I scan the area. My world is spinning. Literally. Suddenly I spot something. A thin thread of red, caught in a gap of the drum. I give it a closer look. It's good quality wool, and the same color as Lev's new fucking patch. \n“Shit.” I look down into the gap. Darkness. “Lev? Are you down there?” The thread twitches. Without further thought, I jump into the darkness. \n \nWhen I come back to my senses, every single one of my threads hurt. I think some of them might be ruptured. I check my heel. Still sheer, but no permanent damage. So far so good. I try to get my bearings. Where the hell am I? I can't see a damn thing. I hear the rumbling hum of the dryer above me. I must have slipped into the bowels of the beast. It is pitch black. I feel something lying on the ground. Lev's thread. I grab it and crawl forward. The place is cramped, the air is hot and wet. Slowly I adjust to the darkness. I can see pipes and eagerly turning gears. Steam hits my gusset, but I crawl onward. \nSuddenly, the ground disappears beneath my foot and I fall again. \nThe landing is soft. Softer than I'd like. A bad feeling grips me. Bodies. Heaps of them. I hear a moan. \n“Lev?” \nSilence. I carefully pat the ground beneath me. “Rick?” I hear a weak voice whisper. \n“Lev! Buddy, I am coming for you!” Frantically I start clawing my way towards the faint sound. Then I find him. He is leaning against the wall, limp and barely holding up. \n“Rick. Rick, they got me.”\n“Don't talk now, I gotta patch you up. I'll get you outta here.” \n“No, it's too late for that. I'm sorry.” He shifts and so I can see his heel. My voice fails. His side is torn open all the way from cuff to foot. \n“They got me good.” He tries to laugh, but he only coughs out loose threads. “Real shame about the wool.” \n“You can't do this to me! We are a team god dammit! Don't you dare chicken out now!” \n“You were right all along, Rick. This place is a deathtrap. You have to-” He breaks off, coughing up more threads. “You have to put an end to this.” \nI grimace. \n“Promise me.” Then he goes limp. Even more so than before. \n \nI get up. Time to end this. I look up at the twisting gears and spit a ball of fluff at it. The gnawing metal teeth eagerly dig into it. The machine halts for a moment, chokes but then the gears rip the fine threads apart and the dryer roars to life again. \nI sigh. Looks like I'll need something tougher. I find myself a new ball of fluff to chew and start running towards the twisting gears. I'm no use without a partner anyway. I'm coming for you, Lev. " ]	2
	[WP] You're the only person ever born with the sense of smell. The military utilizes this.	[ "\"You there\" Lieutenant Dick Burn stared at me with his one eye, his stance erect \"smell my finger!\".\nI hesitated, \"Hurry up, smell it!\".\nI obliged, the smell was putrid and I almost threw up.\nI had to do it quickly as he is the type of guy who could blow at any second and wouldn't hesitate to whack me off my seat.\nLieutenant Dick Burn quirmed with laughter.\nSome people abuse my sense of smell such as Colonel Willy Power but not Lieutenant Dick Burn.\nThat was the smell of the washing soap he had been using, it is pungent as hell but very hygienic.\nYou need to be hygienic when you handle toxic substances in the military or you could lose an eye as he had before. \nIts nuts being the only person who can smell.\n\n\n", "A panel of military experts sit beyond a one way mirror. The subject, Private Jennings , sits on an orange chair strapped in for his safety. It is believed the subject can smell as good as they could before the great change in genome structure. One scientist on the panel flicks a switch and mutters into a microphone \" experiment 37 a begins , private Johnson ,commence with the combustion\" \n \n\nA man in a hazmat suit waddles into the airtight chamber and lights a rolled cigarette at the lips of Private Jennings.\n\n\n\"private Jennings you must inhale from the cigarette and hold the air in your lungs for approximately three seconds and exhale, then describe the reaction of your nostril senses immediately.\"\n\n\n Private Jennings takes a large breathe of the rolled up substance and holds his breathe for the said amount of time.\n\n\nUpon exhale Jennings felt relaxed and giddy . His eyes turn bloodshot and he smirks trying to keep composure. \" oh man this smells like someone cluster fucked a live skunk with a bag of roses and tossed in some sour skittles !\" Private Jennings bursts out laughing and a heaping slop of drool is spat onto the floor .\n\nThe panel braces for the Head Scientists conclusion as Private Jennings drivels on about how the substance smells like the cartoon character Pepe le pew.\n\n\"General we've come to a decision , Substance 47x is legal!\"\n\n\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] - "If everyone has a superpower, no one is special."	[ "The harsh wind rips the sand up from the ground and carries it along with it, carving through an unforgiving land of bare rock and ruined skyscrapers. Dust weaving in and out through twisted and charred metal, setting at the feet of a lone walker. His hulking figure casting a lengthy shadow as walks with purpose down a cracked and ruined road, his old ruined shoes held together by string and stubborn leather. The behemoth covered in brown rags and old coats, mumbles to himself.\n\n\"As I wander down this endless road,\nI wonder who would accept such an ugly toad,\nwalking towards that sound of thunder,\nI shudder to think what lays in store,\"\n\nLooking up pained eyes look forward into the distance as the crack of thunder echoes through the city. Letting out a sigh, the giant begins running down the road, gaining speed like a freight train. Another crack as he sees lightning arc from one of the few building still standing as a jet of fire roars towards the source. Leaping over a dilapidated tower, the giant lands cracking the earth beneath him and the fire ceases for a moment.\n\nLooking up he sees two people, a man and a woman, standing bewildered by the intrusion. \n\n\"Here we are, just three bugs stuck in a jar, will the bugs fight, or will they go far, one thing I do know is we won't get anywhere if we stand around like beasts stuck in tar,\"\n\n\"What?\" The man shouts, holding his hands up in attack position, flames flicking off his fingers. \n\n\"I have no quarrel with you giant,\" the woman says, electricity arching off her body.\n\n\"One willing to make peace! At least for a stint, so how about you with the steel and flint?\"\n\n\"Fuck this,\" The man says shooting a torrent of fire towards the giant.\n\nHis rags light up like try tinder and engulf him until all that remains is a roaring tornado of flame. As the flames die down, the behemoth remains.\n\n\"A foolish mistake this one has made, he has shown in hand, and now it's time he paid,\"\n\nThe giant leaps towards the man, as the man screams and hurls fire at him with reckless abandon. But he is quickly snatched up in a single grasp by the giant, bones pop and break as he squeezes the life out of him. Snapping his neck with his thumb, he tosses his lifeless, deformed body to the ground. He turns to the woman, shivering in fear.\n\n\"My friend, do no worry, this man's story is over, but for yours there is so much more, what is thy name?\"\n\n\"I-I'm, Watts,\" \n\n\"What an apt name indeed, as I thought, a lighting rod named Watts, now you must ponder my own, I claim no name, but many call my Poet, for why I do not know it,\"\n\nWatts looks around unsure if a joke or if he was truly unaware of why people would call him that, but she decides not to push the topic.\n\n\"Well, where are you heading?\" Watts asks nervously.\n\n\"Please take heed, I'm ready to follow at your lead, a friendly human is a rare sight indeed,\"\n\nShe shrugs and starts walking down the road as the poet follows, the begin discussing where they came from. As they talk the wind picks up again and carries the dust into the air, climbing above the city to see the distant mountains and other end a large body of water. Between that lay ancient scars of battles torn and civilizations lost. Large crater, floating rocks, and pockets of strange happenings. As the sand settles on one of the few remaining towers in the area, it forms in the shape of a man, human like features steadily forming, and his face turning into a wicked grin.\n\n\"Let's see where the poet takes this one,\"\n \n ", "\"The way I see it,\" The Glowing Man said, a manic grin contorting his formerly handsome face, \"is that if everyone has a superpower, then no one is special. And you know me, I like to be special.\"\n\nIt took Harrier a few moments to realize what the man who had once been her crime-fighting mentor was saying. When The Glowing Man had appeared several years ago as the world's first real-life superhero, Elizabeth Williams had been the only one able to deduct his identity, which led to her being the only member of the 'second generation of superheroes' to be trained by the original. According to the magazines, under her hero name as Harrier, she was the only hero more popular than her mentor.\n\nAnd now that the radiation had finally degraded The Glowing Man's brain over all of these years, she was the only one who could stop him from de-powering every hero across the world, causing thousands of deaths. \n\nAnd she would die before she let her memories of the good old days overcome her need to protect the people of the world.", "\"If everyone has a super power, no one is special.\" I explain, wiping a tear from my daughter's eye. \"You have a super power and you should be proud of that instead of sad for the kids that aren't so lucky.\"\n\n\"But daddy, mean girls call my friend Jennifer a 'regie' and they say I'm a 'regie lover.' It hurts both of us because I know she's special just the way she is. I'm not special just because I can freeze stuff with my frost hands. I'm special because I'm me, Hannah.\" My insightful daughter says. She then starts blowing her nose louder than is necessary. I laugh involuntarily.\n\n\"You are a very sweet girl, Hannah, and very smart for being 10 years old. I wish the mean girls would take a lesson from you.\" I say, ruffling her hair.\n\n\"Thanks dad.\" Hannah says, getting up to get a drink.\n\nI stand up from the couch and turn on the tv to see what's on the news. The headline is a new drug that can enhance superpowers or give regs superpowers. I'm a bit skeptical about it. Last time the serum didn't work for most people. What a world we live in in 2050.\n\nHannah returns and reads the headline. \"What can I do to get some for Jennifer?\"\n\n\"Jennifer doesn't need any. You said she's special the way she is.\" I answer.\n\n\"She doesn't think so. I want her to have self esteem. If she can just get an injection to stop from being bullied we have to help her, dad!\" Hannah says forcefully.\n\nImmediately Hannah starts fiddling with her implanted Igadget. \n\n\"Jen! Did you see? You can be a supe pretty soon! My dad said he'd help-\" Hannah looks at me and I wave my arms violently to try to get her to stop talking. \"We're gonna get you the injection asap. I'll talk to you later.\" Hannah says, pressing her wrist to turn off her Igadget.\n\n\"You're a brat.\" I say, poking her arm. I don't blame her, though. Hannah knows we have more money than her friends because I work in computers.\n\nSomehow Jennifer gets in to see a supe injection supplier the very next day. Hannah insists she send the bill to her dad (me) and I accept. The injection is very expensive but I will do anything to make my daughter happy.\n\nAs soon as Jennifer's had the injection she goes straight back to school. All the kids want to see her new superpower. She has the power of invisibility (which is very rare). All of a sudden the kids want to play with her and the mean girls become her friends.\n\nHannah comes home crying for the second day in a row. This time it is something completely different.\n\n\"Jennifer keeps hanging with the mean girls and didn't talk to me all day. She didn't even say thank you.\" Hannah says through her sobbing.\n\n\"She'll get over it and go back to you. And if she doesn't, she wasn't your true friend anyway.\" I say, patting her hand.\n\n\"How is that supposed to make me feel better?\" Hannah asks.\n\n\"It isn't. It's just the truth.\" I answer.\n\nThe next day is Saturday and I see Hannah on her Igadget all day. I assume she's talking to Jennifer and everything's fine again.\n\n\"They keep bullying me!\" Hannah yells, smashing her wrist against the kitchen table. \"They say my superpower is stupid and weak. Daddy, I need the injection. I need to show them.\"\n\n\"No more injections. You're perfect the way you are.\" I say, coming into the kitchen and checking out her wrist.\n\n\"I'm too weak. No one takes me seriously. All the kids are getting injections.\" Hannah says, whining.\n\n\"If you keep freaking out like this you'll wreck your implant or break your wrist. Hannah, this is just a phase. The world is in a craze about it now but in time it won't matter.\" I say.\n\n\"You got Jennifer an injection. What about your own daughter?\" She shrieks, banging her wrist on the table again.\n\n\"God dammit! Stop it. I'm just trying to be a good father. Since your mother left it's been really friggin hard. I don't want you to be a spoiled brat.\" I yell, grabbing her wrist.\n\nShe snaps her wrist away from me. \"Mom would get me an injection. If she still loved me like she used to when I was cute and little.\" She says, putting her face in her hands.\n\n\"Alright, alright!\" Hannah's face perks up as she sees me start to break. \" you know your mom still loves you, she just has issues. We'll get you the injection tomorrow.\"\n\nSunday rolls around in no time and I have an appointment set up with a supe injector for a little extra money on the table. Hannah gets her injection and seems happy enough. She agrees to not try out her power until we're in an open field.\n\nI drive her to a place out in the country we I used to live by as a kid. Hannah gets out of the car excitedly as soon as we arrive.\n\nImmediately Hannah is crafting ice floes with her frost hands. She can raise herself up on an ice pedestal or make an ice walkway. We're both very pleased with the results.\n\n\"So how's that?\" I say proudly.\n\n\"Pretty good!\" Hannah says, starting to make an ice sculpture.\n\nAfter about an hour of playing around we head back home. \n\nThe next day Hannah comes home from school ecstatic. \n\n\"You should get an injection, dad! You're such a regie right now!\" Hannah says, flopping onto the couch.\n\n\"I'm not a regie. I just never tell anyone about my superpower.\" I say mysteriously.\n\n\"You're joking.\" Says Hannah.\n\n\"Truth is, I'm a shifter. I'm not your dad at all.\" I say.\n\n\"Stop it, dad.\" Hannah says offhandedly, heading to the kitchen.\n\n\"Your dad's dead. I'm your mom. I just knew you liked him better.\" I whisper.\n\n\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] you are an employee in a happiness factory.	[ "I woke up at 6am for work, and it was hell getting out of bed. I only work three days a week, so the rest of the time I wake up much later. I've never been able to get used to waking up so early, but the job is pretty easy and it pays very well. You can sacrifice sleeping in if it means living in financial comfort. \n\nI arrived at work an hour later, passing by some new guy whose name I don't know. He seems enthusiastic, and I laugh. We all started out that way; proud to land such a well-paying job that brings joy to so many people. Eventually we all learn the truth: A job's a job. Then I see a good friend of mine, another worker, Steve, looking exhausted and drained. \"Been a long three days, huh?\" I ask him with a sympathetic smile.\n\n\"Always is,\" said Steve, stifling a yawn. \"Going to go home and sleep for at least ten hours before I try to recover from this shift. See you, man, good luck.\"\n\nI tell him to have a good day and watch him slowly drag his feet off to the exit. Then I sigh, knowing I'll be looking as weary as Steve soon. Who knew making happiness could be so...unhappy?\n\nI work in a happiness factory. People don't often realise it, but there are two forms of happiness. There's the kind that your brain releases all on its own, the things that make you smile or laugh or enjoy something. Then there's our kind, the kind we make and sell. The huge factories will sell their happiness to politicians, political parties, water companies, and so on. Big companies and organisations that, through various methods, spread the happiness out throughout the public to keep them content. Our factory isn't that big, though. We mainly sell our happiness to businesses looking to boost their sales or their customer base. If your brain sees, hears, touches, tastes, smells, a product from a particular business, and every time they do, they feel happy, their brain will subconsciously make the connection between that product and their own well-being. It's smart advertising. \n\nMy alarm, fitted to my jeans for my boss to notify me when I'm needed, beeps. I feel that familiar jolt of nervousness in my chest that I get whenever I hear that sound. I walked past the machines, constantly roaring and moving, until I reached the door that said 'EXTRACTION AREA: NO UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL'. I take out my card and swipe it, then the door opens. \n\n\"Ah, William, have a seat. Had a nice week?\" came the pleasant voice of Heather, whom I see once every week. I sat down in the uncomfortable, leather chair that always reminded me of the dentist, while Heather, face obscured by oversized safety goggles, got all of the equipment ready.\n\n\"Yeah, got together with some old friends, made a day of it, definitely can't complain,\" I answered, trying to keep my voice light and steady, but hearing it shake a little already. My heart was pounding as I saw Heather hold the scalpel. She smiled politely.\n\n\"Well, you know the drill, Will. Ha!\" She always laughed when she said that, and I always managed to faintly smile in return while trying to keep the contents of my stomach where they were. I held out my bare forearm and shut my eyes tightly. \"Whoops, almost forgot the music, hold on a sec!\"\n\nOne minute later, the upbeat sound of Love Today by Mika rang out, and not ten seconds later, I felt it. The horrible, burning pain of the scalpel slicing down my arm. I screamed, but as always, screaming didn't make any of it stop. I felt the thin tube being inserted into the incision of my arm just as I heard the song lyrics currently playing, \"Everybody's gonna love today, gonna love today, gonna love today.\" Then the process was repeated on my other arm, and tears rolled down my face as I shook uncontrollably, each and every nerve in my body yelling relentlessly, as the tubes sucked the happiness from me. I felt certain that every drop of my blood, every cell, every vein and artery, were slowly being sucked into these tiny tubes, trying to devour every part of me until I'm nothing but a pile of skin on the floor.\n\nWhere else would happiness come from if not harvested from other people? Anyway, a job's a job.", "Every day I come to work and wonder just who's in charge. We changed CEOs more times then I have changed the oil in my truck but we still can't get it right. Maybe, just maybe this new guy will have the answer but I doubt it. They spend millions, no, billions and the process have been refined over and over for decades. We had and still have the best minds working on it and yet the result is still the same...happiness only comes in small doses. \n\nWhy cant we find the same success as Greed, that factory has been running full tilt for years churning out enough for millions of people every year. They have a running surplus they sell at a discount overseas but they still keep stockpiling more and more. Greed, rage, jealousy, all doing just great this year. I hear there was so much greed purchased by the banking industry last year that the factory was able to start a promotion by giving it away to anyone with a decent car and a job. \n\nBut happiness, where are we going wrong with this? Now matter how much we change the formula, add love, affection, friendship, it doesn't matter, no one is happy for any great length of time. The affect wears off with the first overdue bill or flat tire. Oh I've heard of a few people who created artificial happiness that lasted for years but research proved they were just abusing substances to only fool the brain into thinking it was happy. In the end those artificial substances caused so much damage, when the person finally came down, they were never happy again. \n\nSo maybe we should just stop trying so hard. I mean, a little happiness can go a long way especially if you get several doses throughout the day. Lunch with a friend, a good meal, a joke that really makes you laugh, all these things can add so much to life if we see them for what they truly are, moments of happiness. We need to stop trying to make happiness last forever. Even if we could, I don't think the human mind would even be able to handle it. \n\nIn the end I believe our company's main goal should not be to maximize profit on our product but instead to maximize access to it. We need to just keep making small doses of happiness but make sure they are available to as many people as possible as often as possible.", "\"So how's the new job there bud?\"\n\n\"Pretty great! I'm working at the new happiness factory.\"\n\n\"Oh man! What's it like? What do you do there?\"\n\n\"Well, it's like a lot of jobs.\"\n\n\"What do you mean? Like you have a lot of responsibilities? Lots of oversight over the production of mysterious sources of euphoria??\"\n\n\"No, like jobs as in handjobs. I give a lot of handjobs out.\"\n\n\"Oh.\"\n\n\"Yeah, its pretty chill.\"", "\"The ignorant Man is the Happy Man!\" The neon Sign said at the Happiness Shop. The store clerk was a big man with a shaggy beard and long hair that was tied into a pony tail. He had a big smile on his face that never faded, never waned. He signed for the packages and commented that I looked a little down. He asked with that big grin if I wanted any \"stuff\" as he put it. I declined of course, workers of Happy Inc. are not allowed to try the products. That would be a breach of contract. He shrugs, takes out a personal syringe out of his pocket and picks up a packet of Happy Juice and goes to a backroom. God Damn junkies.\n\nI walk outside and head towards the van. It was nothing special, just a white van that I can store about twenty boxes of product. They are little buggers, and effective too. One little packet full of Juice can keep you going for 12 hours., but of course talking more allows for a greater effect. I hear soon Happy Inc. will be coming out with a new product that can be inhaled through powder instead of through injection. The higher ups told me I'll be able to deliver twice the amount. Good for the junkies, I guess.\n\nAs I got into the van a man came up to me beaming ear to ear with a nice suit on. \"Good morrow\" he tells me an hands me a little green pamphlet and walks away. Inside was instruction on how to see Jesus Christ. On Sunday at exactly 10 AM take three times the amount of Juice and stare at a blank wall for three hours. I tossed it outside and drove off, I still had three deliveries to make and was going to be behind schedule if I stopped to look for Jesus on a blank wall. I drove off, surrounded by smirks on all sides of me.\n\nPer usual I came to a bend in the road that had a very steep drop off. I wanted to slam my foot down on the pedal, let go of the wheel and fly into the ravine. But, that would be a breach of contract so I drove around it as I normally do to the next Happiness Shop with all the smiling junkies. It was the same thing in the next town over, I drop off the products, I refuse to partake, I get a pamphlet this time to find inner peace using meditation and Juice. That was the last packet and It is time to drive back to the factory. \n\nI pass by the bend one last time and decide to have stop and stare out into the ravine. One day, I think, One day I'll do it contact be damned. The ravine was full of solid white vans. I can smell the decay of death and spoiled Juice. One day I'll join them but today I have an ill wife to look after in the hospital, and she will have to join me to. I get back in my van and I drove to the factory. Tonight I will go home eat a bland dinner and sleep on the couch. Tomorrow I will get up and give the junkies what they want. Happiness. \n", "Today was a meeting that showed the success of the company. Although they were boring in most places, I always found these interesting. Since the company founded 50 years ago, the overall happiness of people improved immensely. Before that time, people were always miserable and complaining. But here, we were making a real difference.\n\n\"When our company was founded, we had a simple dream. Of making others happy. People were always complaining about different problems. While we couldn't fix the problems, now it didn't matter. Happiness could be shipped and enforced without worry. Our net happiness has never been greater, and our complaints have never been lower. Just last year, people bought the 2033 Happy Mind Maker, and have rated their happiness as 3000%! But now happiness is at 3150%.\", the video announcer said with a happy tone.\n\nOn the screen were people with very wide smiles showing the great success of our progress. Although we all knew there were still some out there who thought there was something wrong with being happy all of the time, we were happy to show how wrong they were every time. We knew there was no reason to complain about what we did, because it was clear happiness was the way to go on everything even if it meant death in the process. As our slogan goes, \"Have a happy life! Or else! Why not be happy?\"", "Everyone searches for what I hold in my hands.\n\nPast the fences and the locks and vault doors and the armed guards is the answer to what you are searching for. What you seek passes me by on a conveyer at ludicrous speed.\n\nI find it unsurprising that it's more than I can afford. Even the chipped or cracked ones are simply discarded or recycled rather than made available to someone like me.\n\nOh, it's not about money. Don't get me wrong.\n\nThe rich can be unable to afford Happiness as well as the poor.\n\nIt's not about literal wealth but instead \"personal wealth\".\n\nThere's a man in the middle of nowhere living with deer that uses up a lot of our Happiness supply.\n\nThere's a janitor that spends his life cleaning up after others who gets a fresh supply every day.\n\nIt's all about personal fulfillment or something.\n\nI just watch the bottles go by.\n\nThey're certainly nothing fancy. Simple glass jars with silver lids that hold a soft yellow essence.\n\nHappiness.\n\nIf only they knew how this stuff was made. I mean, you should see the Rage factory or even worse the Greed one. That place is a disaster zone.\n\nI'm not allowed to have the Happiness. I get Satisfaction instead. It's a little lesser but it's what I live for.\n\nI get to see the Happiness go to a young boy who just received that delicate first kiss on the cheek. The blushing, the heart pumping, the face splitting grin.\n\nOr a parent holding their newborn. Tears of Joy and the swelling Happiness.\n\nA new graduate about to step out into the world, Nervousness and Happiness coursing through every fibre.\n\nThe recipient of a new lease on life, promising to do better and loving every minute of life.\n\nI don't do much but what I do matters.\n\nI think if more people thought of it that way they'd be better off. Maybe they'd finally have enough for a little Happiness." ]	6
	[WP] The year is 2142. Mars has officially been terraformed and is in the middle of a violent war with Earth. Describe the everyday life of a Martian soldier.	[ "\"Y'see, down there, beneath the trees.\"\n\nI pitched my phone sideways, utilizing the zoom to get a clearer picture. The dirt path wound along the edge of a steep gulley, so cheaply made that no one had bothered about safety rails or tarmacing. The only way to describe it would be quintessentially Martian- red sand path bordered by verdant foliage, trickles of water pouring down both cliffs surrounding it. \n\n\"It's almost too good. You sure that the fifth is coming this way?\"\n\nK'ierun nodded, \"If the intelligence we snatched was worth anything, then yes. I'm sure.\"\n\nReassured by this, I scrambled down the crosshatched rocks with backpack cautiously mounted on my stomach. Only the buzz of crickets and the bubbling of water below could be heard. \n\nI slipped a little, my foot catching on a cream coloured boulder implanted deep into the cliff-face. My adrenal glands opened up and gave me the wits to steady myself and continue the descent. Almost there. \n\nK'ierun wasn't far behind, using the shovel in his hands to slow the slide down to a safe level. Lungs crackling with apprehension, I survived the final scramble down onto the road. \n\nK'ier was brief, \"Keep your eyes on the road. We don't want anyone catching sight of us.\"\n\nI was taken aback by his calmness, \"What if we get caught?\"\n\n\"Don't ask questions like that. You know exactly what, but it doesn't matter 'cos why else would you have signed up to this? We're doing this for home.\"\n\nI nod, fears assuaged. Slightly.\n\nK'ier is amazingly quick with his digging. A hole big enough to fit a rabbit in has been created in the space of thirty seconds, and no one else has even bothered to screw up their plans by driving by. It's all going too smoothly. \n\n\"Convoy arrives in an hour.\"\n\nI nod, carefully emptying my rucksack of its contents. Four inconspicuous metal cases, all the size of a jam jar. My hands are shivering, I'm scared I'm going to drop them and screw it all up. K'ier grabs two and puts them in the hole, facing upwards. I deposit the next two.\n\n\"Activate them.\"\n\nMy fingers are really shaking now. I press the little button on the side of each one, \"That's five minutes K'ier- cover them.\" \n\nHe's even quicker concealing them, and with a light dusting of leaves on top there's no evidence of a hole being there at all. That'd be quick to change.\n\nIt was considerably easier climbing back up the hill, especially with no lethal devices strapped to my chest. We reached the top before the five minutes was even up- we even had time to find a better vantage point in the shade under a fir. I flicked my phone into camera mode to get a better view, but K'ier grabbed my arm to stop me, \"They'll see the glow. Turn it off.\" \n\nHe pressed the tempatch device into the tree beside us, rendering the two of us invisible to thermal cameras that the convoy was bound to possess. I hated this- hunted on my own planet. This was the only way to get back at them. Hell, carry a stick that looks too much like an assault rifle and you'll have nothing but a crater left after the EEF sees you.\n\nWe waited. The convoy took its sweet time- I almost ran when it passed the deadline, but K'ier reassured me that there may've been a hold up, like a tree fell on the road. So, we waited for five more minutes. \n\nThen we heard it. The unmistakable hum of an engine through the lazy evening air. I tried to see it through the orange haze, but it still hadn't rounded a cliff that obscured our view. K'ier was the first to catch sight of it. I could sense him freezing up, tensing. Then I saw it.\n\nA civilian vehicle, a minibus filled with a family on their way to Aeolis Mons. There was no conscious thought on my part, only the human emotion of empathy. I sprang to my feet, about to drop down onto the road when K'ier tackled me back to the ground, \"Don't be fucking stupid. We stop that car, they'll call the EEF.\"\n\n\"But if they detonate the mines then the EEF will come anyway!\" \n\nK'ier knew it too. Tears dripped onto my face, \"We're too late. We've failed.\"\n\nI saw the flash before I heard it- it lit up the side of K'ieran's face for the briefest of moments, before the shockwave pushed us onto our backs. Four mines, enough to annihilate a convoy instead wasted on a family going on holiday. I correct myself- they weren't wasted. The mines are replaceable. Families, not so much- We don't want to be like the EEF, with they're lack of concern for collateral damage. We may fight from the shadows, but we do it with honour. \n\nI didn't tell myself that on the day. I languished in agony, desperately trying to stop the whining in my ears. Then, moments later the tinnitus subsided and I went to check on K'ier. Before I touched him I knew he was dead. Blood had stained the dirt a darker hue of red, and holes pocked his shirt and skull. There was no time for grieving because it wasn't long before I could make out the purring of engines through the evening air.\n\n\n ", "We wake up in the night. Drones in the sky we cannot see laze our anti-aircraft and drop their incendiary bombs. The soil above us vibrates and dust hangs in the air obscuring everything. The bunker is filled with red fog and we cover our mouths with cloth to stop from coughing. Some of the grunts are coughing blood. Some of them recover from their fits and focus on securing the few things they have been allowed to keep at the head of their berths. The lights do not flicker, the concrete walls do not crack, the entire industry of Mars is invested in concrete and steel. Lasers and bombs. \n\nThe men and women in the bunkers count ration packs instead of days, when they are able to sleep a night, otherwise time passes in the minutes between waves of bombardment. We calculate by sausage day and by pasta day. Grunts joke that the food is better than they expected and then fall to sickness and screaming as the concussions steal their sleep and muffle the sounds of their thoughts until they claw out at the air like the blind. When the bombs spear into the bedrock they tear it apart, spewing the crumbs of our buildings into older craters as they dig for us. The drones never stop, taking turns to refuel and reload with their munitions, which arrive on drone ships and are distributed across hemispheres by drone men. The bombs fall all the way from Earth, the drones are at the end only targeting systems. We count our ration packs and officers take calls and make plans for when the bombardment ends. Earth tills the surface of Mars. \n\nOne of the grunts picks at the monsters in his skin and no one stops him. Many of the men and women wet the bed during their sleep shift and cause their successor to lie in the damp sheets or on the cold concrete with its layer of soft dust. No one speaks. Games are played on tablets until the eyes cannot focus and then in agitation we croak at each other and scrabble and bludgeon each other's heads into the concrete again and again until that too is boring and the offender is strung up and shot. The bombardment passes directly overhead and the concussions shake loose our belongings onto the floor. The dust rises up again with the ringing that sits in our ears. \n\nAt noon the weak sun lights the red pall in a frigid twilight. The dust encircles the globe and no one has seen the stars in three years. The focus of the bombardment shifts and pressurized troops climb out of holes to run for other holes from which troops have climbed. The drones see or do not see. Meat is flayed off bones or not flayed, strung out flesh battered in dust. Women return and men do not. Men return and women do not. None return. \n\nWe move twenty wounded to the nearest bunker with no casualties The medical centre there has supplies to treat them. The success is noted in the files and reported to central command and the officers store the notices of receipt for when the bombardment stops. Some bunkers are noted abandoned, impossible to resupply, and the officers make amendments to their plans to avoid them or to loot them. We rise from our holes and fall into theirs, breaking their helmets and firing at them as they fire at us. I lose my balance stepping in an open torso and crack a bone in my elbow. Screams and bullets and grenades fly over my head down the halls and they crawl out from all corners, mad with greed for life. One of them crawls at me and we are tangled, groping, grunting in the slick warmth of our compatriot until I stick him with my knife and pull his throat apart. His eyes open wide, staring into mine and in the noise he moves his mouth. He is lighter skinned than me and soft features. He has not had time to find a pressure suit, dying in his sweat and his underwear. I scramble forward to cover from which I can begin shooting at the rest of them again, breaking down their bodies in bony chunks and splashes. The fight ceases and the stench of explosives and ozone from the lasers hangs above the moans and distant kill shots. \n\nWe tear at cupboards and hug piles of ration packs to our chests until the drones turn their focus and then we run back across the craters. We have done well and the officers report our success to command. In sweat and bruises and scabbing blood we shiver on our beds and pick at our skin. Some pass into something like sleep. The sun passes under the hills in the west and the sounds of the bombardment move closer.", "“We’ll be in range in two minutes, ready?” Asked Jon. \n\nI looked up from the display anchored to the wall in front of me and taking a small hop floated down to the other side of the room. Mars was still in the way, but we were just about to clear the horizon, it had taken me nearly the entire seven hours to fix the darn cannon after what the Terrans had tossed at us knocking out the main power relays. Thankfully the Fusion core was buried far enough down that they would have to split the moon to hit it.\n\n“Ready, what’s out target?” I asked. \n\nJon looked at his targeting display. \n“Eastern Sea board of the North American continent. See if we get lucky and the anti-Ballistics systems miss a shot and we hit the command.” Said Jon. \n\n“My ancestors are from their, Washington CD they called it or something?” I said as I watched the capacitors tart to charge up. \n“D.C.” Said Jon. \n\n“Ah, alright. We’re charged you have a solution?” I asked. The cannons were for the most part fixed, only able to move a few degrees in either direction so we had to fire at the right time or we would miss our window. Renaldo and Katherine had missed on their last attempt and had hit the oceans of the Earth dampening the impact to nearly zero. Water was apparently very good at absorbing explosions. Unlike when the Terrans hit Mars. The Earthquakes could be felt for days after a lucky salvo as the planet reverberated. \n\n“Got it. Firing!” Said Jon. \n\nI glanced out the window and watched at the cannons in the base of Limtoc a good Kilometer away from us fired. Silently the massive magnetic rail guns fired off hunks of metallic derbies, mostly hulls of old ships and probes weighing in at just under a kilogram apiece at close to half the speed of light or so on a good day. The cannons stopped a moment latter the capacitors drained and the projectiles away. \n\n“When should we go down to the bunker?” I asked leaning backwards and letting my feet slip out of the footholds. The gravity on Phobos was close to weightlessness.\n\nJon scratched his head and glanced at his readout. “They won’t have a solution on us until the next orbit. We can wait and see if we get a hit in.” he said. \n\n“Think we’ll get past the defenses?” I asked. \n\n“Mark got one in yesterday, his a city in Europe somewhere.” He said. \n\n“It unbelievable that the Terrans still live on the surface. What with the pollution and the fire raining down on them their idiots not to go underground.” Said Jon. \n\n“You grew up in a cave Colony. The sun’s nice.” I said. \n\nJon rolled his eyes. “Bunch or radiation and extra light if you ask me. I couldn’t stand living in that domed city like you, one hole in it and poof you’re gone! It’s more dangerous than living like the Terrans!” said Jon.\n\nI shrugged. “I grew up in Armstrong Colony, it was designed by Terrans being the first colony the founders made.” I said.\n“Still idiotic.” He said. \n\nI nodded in agreement, it had been one of the first sites to go blasted into another crater when the Terrans started the War. \n“You hungry?” I asked turning to rummage through the cooler. \n“Sure, your wife make those wraps again?” Asked Jon. \n\n“For me, you got what you brought whatever this is.” I said pulling out his lunch which looked like old fashioned paste food. \n“Hey I like it, I just like those wraps better.” Said Jon. \n\nI pulled out the extra my wife had made and tossed it at him. Jon laughed and caught it. \n\nFloating off the floor occasionally moving my foot down to push myself back up I read through the news and chewed on my wrap waiting for the timer to go off. It took nearly twenty minutes for the slug to reach Earth and another 5 minutes for the light to get back to us confirming if we made a hit. \n\nJon yawned and absentmindedly checked the cannon diagnostics. \n\nThe alarm went off and the two of us looked up at the display, it was set to war us a few seconds before hand. \n\nWatching the magnified image of the Earth the two of us held our breath. Next to the blue water half way up the Easter coast of North America we could see the lights of the civilization in the night time shining. Until small chunks of the lights went dead, one after another in quick succession up the entire sea board. Jon and I glanced at one another. The defense gird had missed every one of our projectiles. \n\nThe computer monitoring the telescopes buzzed and spat out the casualty estimate. Nervous I glanced at it and swallowed my mouth suddenly dry. We had just ended the war, we were heroes. We had hit the Terran Command center. \n", " 0500\n Commence shift change\n Hygiene routines: complete\n Breakfast: complete\n\n NOTE FROM COMMANDING OFFICER TO BATALLION:\n \"Today is the day, Martians. Feel free to come in \n your pajamas if you care. They will call it \n something grander in a few hours, but for now\n it's just 'casual Friday.'\"\n____\n 0530\n Report to station\n Begin checklist run through.\n Error detected: Secure WIFI was not online\n IT Crew dispatched\n____\n 0600\n Secure WIFI reestablished\n Target list for shift one disseminated\n____\n 0700\n Commence First Shift\n SCHEDULED LAUNCHES...\n NONE\n INBOUND PROJECTILES...\n NONE\n OUTBOUND PROJECTILES...\n 79 ACTIVE\n TRACKING OUTBOUND PROJECTILES...\n\nCALLSIGN \| TIME ELAPSED \| ETA\| TARGET \| HIT\n---\|---\|----\|----\|----\nDIMPLES 85 \| 6MO 5D 6H 25MI \| 26 MI \| NEW NEW YORK \| NA\nDIMPLES 71 \| 6MO 5D 6H 00MI \|1 H\| TOKYO III \| NA\nDIMPLES 83 \| 6MO 5D 6H 43MI \| 00MI \| SAN JOSE \| CONFIRM\nDIMPLES 82 \| 6MO 5D 6H 23MI \| 00MI \| NANJING \| CONFIRM\nDIMPLES 91 \| LOADING... \| LOADING... \| LOADING...\| LOADING...\n____\n\n FURTHER INFORMATION REQUESTED \n PERFORMING CLEARANCE SCAN...\n REQUEST APPROVED\n PULLING REQUESTED INFORMATION...\n\nCALLSIGN \| PAYLOAD \| HIT \| AV SPEED \| SPEED ON IMPACT \n---\|---\|----\|----\|----\|----\|----\|----\nDIMPLES 83 \| TUNGSTEN \| CONFIRM \| 19,354km/h \| 21,445km/h\n DEPARTURE STATION: OLYMPUS MONS SFB\n VIDEO STREAM LOADING...\n____\n 1200\n Commence shift change...\n Shift change routines overriden\n New routine established: \"NONE\"\n By order of: GOVERNOR GENERAL OF OXIA PALUS\n\n MESSAGE FROM COMMANDING OFFICER TO BATTALION:\n \"The war is over. I told you so. Drinks are on me.\"", "Ivan hadn't reached the cave entrance when the red sand started to tear at his head scarf. His gloved fingers tapped a button on the green tinted goggles he has wearing and they lit up with a display marking the path he needed to follow. Sand began to swallow his boots as he pressed further up the mountain. Eventually, he reached the rock with the special mark and lifted the heavy tarp blocking the entrance.\n\n\"You're late, Ivan,\" said Demetri, a dark-skinned man with bulging arms, who was searching through a pile of pipes and other assorted junk.\n\n\"I was shadowing a convoy,\" Ivan removing his head scarf and turning off the goggles. His skin had the same dark reddish tint as that of his comrade. \"The Earth crusaders have been moving a lot of troops south. I had to lay low after a pair of drones picked up my scent.\"\n\n\"I was wondering why you'd stayed out in that storm,\" Demetri said. Two pipes slid into place and a green light began to glow on the end of the newly assembled device. \"This one's ready. Go fetch some of the tea from the stove.\"\n\n\"Tea? Where'd you get that?\"\n\n\"Karkov boosted it from a Earth transport while he was planting the last package.\"\n\nIvan looked back at the glowing tube as he poured the steaming tea into a pair of mess tins. \"Is that one for him?\"\n\n\"Yes, a present for the tea,\" Demetri laughed as he took the warm tin from Ivan.\n\nIvan unshouldered the long rifle hanging on his shoulder and began to bash the buttstock on the ground as he sipped his tea with his free hand. Red dust rained off off the weapon and formed a pile on the floor.\n\n\"Gah, do that outside you barbarian! Were you raised on Earth?\" yelled Demetri as he threw a wrench at Ivan. He dodged the wrench like a Martian scout shakes off Earth drones in a sandstorm and fled out of the cave laughing and dragging his rifle behind him.\n\nThe sands outside were still and silent. Lifting a hand to shade his eyes from the blaring sun, Ivan looked down toward the glittering spaceport in the valley through the scope on his rifle. A cruiser started its slow descent towards a landing pad.\n\n\"Bang,\" the scout said as he pretended to shoot the cruiser from the sky. \"Soon, my friend, soon.\"\n\n" ]	5
	[WP] Alien invasion, humanity has only a single ship against hundreds of equally strong enemy ships	[ "The hull shook.\n\nSirens. Always the fucking sirens. Like every god damn person on this god dammed ship didn't already know when we were re-entering engagement. The whole of humanity is locked in one giant titanium re-inforced space coffin that begins to shake like it's been put to by a giant fucking space jack hammer and they still have fucking gall to blare the sirens.\n\n\"Captain, mark 2 has been neutralized\"\n\n-\"that's fan-fucking-tastic, get ready to round on mark 3 and 5. They're expecting us to run again and are withdrawing primary arms to chase\"\n\n\"Yes sir\"\n\n-\"and first leutenant. Can we please have someone disable that Christmas forsaken Buddha hated useless fuck alarm!?\"\n\n\"Um... of course sir\"\n\n10 years.\n\n10 years since we stole one of their ships. 10 years of that fucking siren.\n\n\"Mark 3 is down, mark 5 is fully armed\"\n\n-\"focus all primary artillery on their primary sensors, launch boarding crews, and prepare to run\"\n\n\"Yes sir\"\n\n10 years of limping away from 1 on 1 fights. Limping across unampped stars systems.\n\nWe were finally changing that. Today we were getting another ship.\n\n\"Boarding crews away\"\n\n-\"excellent, I'm going to meet my strike team. For all intents and purposes you are promoted to captain. And leutenant...\"\n\n\"Yes sir?\"\n\n\"Turn the fucking siren off\"\n\n\n\n\n", "When we discovered we were not alone we knew we might one day have to defend ourselves from an extraterrestrial attack. So the world's most powerful nations began to build a fleet of ships to protect the Earth and those living upon it. We never thought they would attack so soon, how could we have known they could cross space so quickly? All the construction yards orbiting Earth were destroyed, the fleet wiped out before it was even completed. All our means of defence gone, all bar one ship, the flagship of the fleet. Out on training manoeuvres at the time of the attack, the United Earth Ship Hope was now truly our last hope. It got one message from home; Earth was besieged, forced to surrender to the great alien force, a force who would use Humans as their slaves to build more ships to conquer even more of the galaxy. \n\nThe thing is, those alien invaders underestimated two things; Human creativity and Human stubbornness. We might be decimated and defeated but why would that mean we would give up? So long as one person lives that one person would fight for their freedom. We fought each other for millennia and now we had a common enemy to rise against. So the UES Hope headed for Earth, each and every member of its crew knowing the might not live to see next week.\n\nEach alien vessel was equivalent in offensive and defensive capabilities to the Human ship and they had far superior engines for speed over long distance. However the aliens had been too powerful and too dominant in there cluster of solar systems for too long. They had grown complacent with their prowess and reliant on their technology to win them wars. Humanities ship and its crew were fresh to it, all soldiers and scientists at the peaks of their careers and the best at what they did. The Humans used hit and run tactics and the closest equivalents to gorilla-warfare one could accomplish in space. Never giving up, never slacking in the fight to save their species. The alien armada's tactics were too rigid, too predictable, too stale. The Humans never tried the same trick too many times lest their enemy learn to counter it, constantly changing their approach to combat situations.\n\nEventually the aliens realised they were actually going to lose this fight. It was one against hundreds and the one was winning. Over a hundred alien vessels lost in two months and trouble on Earth to, constant uprisings across the globe, resistance forces cropping up every time they thought they finally had the humans under control. Who wouldn't these dub, soft beings realise they were outmatched and just concede!? So the aliens decide it was time to scorch the Earth and walk away. As the bulk of their force began to exit the solar system a few ships remained behind to pick up the remain forces from Earth lay waste to the planet and the Human race. However many of their forces failed to make it back on board, instead it was Humans who come onto there ships. Boarded, outnumbered and sure to die the aliens abandoned ship and followed the rest of their fleet in smaller emergency escape vessels.\n\n... Never bet against the underdog. \n\n\n((Sorry, I had such a strong feeling of what I wanted to start out with but then I kinda ran out of ideas and just had to tie it up any way I could.))" ]	2
	[WP] There is a buzzfeed online that literally blows peoples brains. People are refrain using social media in fear of viewing the information and dying.	[ "I knew those guys were just a scam to generate more ad revenue from serving up lists as a collection of different pages. I hated that site, even though I clicked through from time to time.\n\nI'm also a fan of Monty Python, specifically the killer joke. It was so over the top ridiculous that it made me laugh every time. I didn't know it was based on a real story.\n\nSo imagine me here. The guy who wanked to 2 girls 1 cup (which is tame, btw). I pop popcorn and watch liveleak videos. There's even a couple nice subs with cute dead girls. But this is what I stop myself from seeing? Really?\n\nMy hand hovers over the next button. The word on the net was the fifth panel was the cause of all the problems. And by problems, I mean deaths. And this was real. I've seen the reaction video on liveleak, the guy fell over dead! My curiosity was running overdrive, I grinned from ear to ear in anticipation of the scene that would soon flood my mind.\n\nThe lights flicker as I heard the crash outside. I cursed the bad luck but simultaneously knew there might be something wonderfully gruesome right outside my door. I leaped from my desk.\n\nA young lady was screaming from the backseat of the car, wrapped around a lightpost across the way, face covered in red. I stepped forward out of sheer curiosity. Sorry if I'm a misanthrope but my first thought was to see the carnage up close. I suppose I should have saved the girl right off. Either way I make it to the car and it's painted red from window to window, the driver's head was gone from the earlobes up.\n\nShe was inconsolable, and at last I had enough humanity to yank her door open and pull her out, letting her lean on the curb. In between sobs and cries to God I heard her say it. Buzzfeed.\n\nHoly hell. I have to see that page now.", "I'm told that Buzzfeed used to be known for dumb click-bait, especially the use of slide-shows to split a small amount of content over the largest number of pages. If only that had remained the worst of their crimes!\n\nI believe it was in 2018 that neuroscientists began using a new super-high-resolution fMRI that revolutionized their understanding of how human brains responded to stimuli. As any student of human behavior would predict, one of the first practical applications were videos containing flashing lights and tones that cause viewer to get a mild high. And Buzzfeed, in their insatiable hunger for page-views, began distributing these videos.\n\nIn retrospect, the end result was inevitable. A certain group of sociopaths created, stole, or otherwise procured a video with a certain side effect and began putting it up on sites frequented by people who annoyed them. When people began to drop by the tens of thousands, totally brain dead for no apparent reason, it took precious days to determine that they had all watched the same video hours earlier. The video had gone viral almost instantly; it spread because it had an effect that was reputed to be amazing and completely indescribable to anyone who hasn't experienced it.\n\nAnd it really, really is. So, in conclusion, everyone should totally go check out Buzzfeed! Their current featured video is the best thinnkllm;,';\n" ]	2
	[WP] A new god is born, and he promises you his support in exchange for you making his religion known.	[ "You can't be serious?\n\nOf course I can.\n\nI mean... fine... okay I'll start your chruch... do I at least get a power as a disciple or something? Some way to spread your good... er... your word?\n\nI suppose you want wings or something... hmmmm... you can now tell if someone is lying to you and are able to show others the truths they hide... that's about all I can do...\n\nWhat!? Seriously??? That's incredible. I promise you Honest Abe the church of truth will be built of honesty and trust. Thank you for this gift.\n\nNo problem... also you um... can't lie... er... enjoy!\n\nI can't lie? What? I... fuck.\n\nI turn and walk back into my office in the Pentagon. Guess I had to retire soon anyway.", "\"How do you do Sir? And quite where have you just come in from?\" I asked the stranger with a softly perceptible unease that tangled discordantly with the typical unimportance of such a question. Then a sly, mordant smile interrupted my features at the notion of inexplicability that I had surrounded this gentleman's entrance with; for his response would, doubtlessly I assumed, restore the quotidian order of things and soothe my frivolity of imagination.\n\nHe responded with a voice that did not gratify my expectation of normalcy, but instead magnified my disquiet into a turmoil: his voice was simultaneously mellifluous and harsh; he spoke with a tonal fullness that implied sound imperceptible and, also, meanings beyond those the words themselves that he provided could convey: \"I see that you have a fluvial grain about your conversation: forcefully bearing to your destination, sloshing sedimental deposits whither they rest. I wish you a more lacustrine disposition in your future remarks: a breadth, a body of stillness and depth, and I have no doubt that you will develop such a character.\" He gave the impression of leaning in so as to more heavily add the final: \"And that such a character would develop You.\" But in all my recollections I truly cannot say that he did lean in nor that to do so is even something that I could imagine him to be capable of doing: the best that I could say is that his voice itself leant in, such was the promise of that final intonation: a cast-gold guarantee of an unstated desire's satiation. \n\nShaken, as I was, I mustered the measured but brimming reply \" I see, and how do you suppose I shall develop this character?\"\n\n\"Why, through Damnation of course!\" he roared, and in this paronomastic eruption I sensed a shift, for in his humour and volume he had brought my mind back from the contemplative wonder it was succumbing to and grounded it in our exchange; an exchange, it would seem, the terms of which had been clarified beyond necessity and now were simply requiring comprehension. We parted.\n\nIn my task of comprehending I quashed a disdainful apathy towards this verbose and pompous relic, and, instead, indulged a nascent, curious adoration. I had now determined to allow myself to undulate to this man's charm. Like a beguiled snake of Arabian lore: I would serpentine to stillness. \n\nI abstained the desire to pursue this enigma at the level of its obvious manifestation, and to attempt to force Chance to deliver a chance encounter with the gentleman. I endeavoured, instead, to meditate upon the exchange and, in doing so, to allow my musings to ripple ever outward and so meet the shore of his bank: that bank of wisdom and promise! that I saw him to be. I resolved to meander ever inward into this recollection and so to push its ever-expanding mass ever outward, expecting its advance to inevitably brush upon His embrace at some indeterminate place. \n ", "Last night I hit God with my car. \n\nI was backing out of my driveway when I felt something large below the tires but did not stop in time to avoid rolling over it with a sickening *Thud* \n\nMy stomach pin-wheeled as I gingerly put the car in park to see what I had hit. I had barely stepped foot outside the car when a tall, lanky teenager bounced up to meet me.\n\n\"Ahh!!!\" I gasped. \"Are you okay?\"\n\nHe brushed back the shaggy, chestnut hair falling across his face to meet my concerned gaze. Inquisitive green eyes surveyed me before looking down at a dark, red stain that was quickly expanding across his thigh.\n\n\"Shit! That looks bad - we need to get you to a hospital!!\" Hearing the shrill urgency in my voice, he grinned, amused.\n\nNo, I don't think that will be necessary. But may I sit for a moment inside your house?\"\n\nDrugs? I pondered to myself. Why else would someone hemorrhaging blood be so resistant to the hospital? \n\n\"I'm not on drugs and I'm not even bleeding anymore. Look here.\" \n\nMy eyes widened at his quick response to words I was certain I had not said aloud. One look at his leg confirmed that the pair of jeans that had been rapidly soaking up blood a moment ago was now reversing its course somehow - expanses of faded, blue cloth were spreading to replace the wet, red stains until, within seconds, no trace of the wound remained.\n\n\"What the hell?\"\n\n--\n\n5 minutes later the disheveled teenage was resting his no-longer-bloody legs comfortably on my couch while I perched on a piano stool, hands gripping either side in case I was to witness more medical miracles.\n\n\"What's your name?\" He asked abruptly. \n\n\"Jennifer. Jennifer Abramson.\" \n\n\"Jennifer! Thank you - it's nice to meet you. I am a nascent God of this Universe.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry?\" I asked incredulously. \n\n\"I am a divine being who you humans refer to as a God. I am nascent, meaning recently born, thus my human form at the moment.\"\n\n\"If you're God how did you not know my name?\"\n\n\"Again, limitations of my current form. It seemed easier to ask you than to seriously challenge this shell's sub-standard cognitive functions by identifying your name through other means.\" \n\nI stared, mouth hanging slightly open. \n\nMistaking my bewilderment for injury, he quickly added, \"sub-standard, compared to a God's manner of being, of course - compared to many other things on this planet your cognitive skills are quite... splendid.\"\n\nIn a conversation which was more confusing with every sentence, there was one thing that I was sure of - he did seem quite.... other-worldly. Like a distant tourist who had studied human beings, but had no practice interacting with them. \n\n\"So are you THE god?\" \n\n\"I am A God - there are many. Which is why I wanted to speak to you, Jennifer. You see a new age is rising. My age. I'm about to join my brothers and sisters in …\" he pauses and shakes his head, re-considering. \n\n\"Never mind you wouldn't know where that is…. But anyway I'm about to join them and make my mark on our universe. But, before I do, it's important that I have as much support from lower life forms as possible. Since we ran into each other anyway, it seemed a divine opportunity to enlist your services.\"\n\n\"My services?\" I continued staring, dumbfounded.\n\n\"Yes.\" He said crisply, slight annoyance flashing across his face at my apparent ignorance. \"You see, many other Gods have an established following - Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, they all have a massive advantage in terms of their established audiences, particularly on Earth. I need to reach more people. But I need a human's help to do it.\"\n\n\"Me?\"\n\n\"Yes, very good!!\" He exclaimed, overjoyed at my comprehension. \"I could make it worth your while if you agree to bring as many masses to worship me as you can.\"\n\n\"Worth my while… could my family and I be guaranteed spots in Heaven?\" I held my breath, awed by the gravity of the negotiation that we were speeding through in half the time I spent researching my average EBay purchase. \n\n\"No.\" He said dismissively. \"There is no heaven. I'm not sure why that's such a misconception, but there's never been one. You all would really be quite uncomfortable where we divinities reside. It's much better for you the way things work now.\"\n\nMy chest tightened and I rose from my stool and began pacing. He watched quizzically, tolerating but not endorsing what he seemed to perceive as childish behavior.\n\n\"Anything else you want though! I'm still finding my domain, obviously - but, ummm… I could make you a new animal and….and .... name it after you! I'd say I could kill your worst enemy for you, but I don't want to promise something I can't deliver on if there are political considerations once I get home. I could give you the option for immaculate conception - that's kind of cool, right?\"\n\nI stared blankly, overwhelmed. He seemed to read this as feigned disinterest - a clear indication that I would be no pushover just because this was a negotiation with God.\n\n\"Look, I'm just spouting off, I'm exhausted and barely even know what I'm saying. But rest assured, I am immensely powerful and can help you achieve your wildest dreams in this world. There's no rush on deciding what those are. Just tell me you'll help me - tell me you'll spread the word and do your best to bring as many humans as possible to worship me. If you can promise me that, we have a deal.\"\n\nI stopped pacing and turned, stared coolly at his hopeful face. \"How many people do you want me to bring you? And how exactly do I go about doing that? I don't even know what to tell people about you - what is it you want people to believe? What are the …the tenets of your religion?\"\n\n\"Oh.\" He paused, considering my question. His eyes clouded with uncertainty for a split second before he snapped upright decisively.\n\n\"You know what? I'm not really that worried about all the details - you would know what humans find most meaningful, most moving. Just do whatever that would be. And, the same goes for how you spread the word. I'm sure if you do some brainstorming, you'll think of something. Twitter? Maybe Tweet it? And remember, I can send help or fulfill your wishes at any time, as long as our agreement stands.\"\n\nSuddenly he crossed to the front hallway, heading for the door. I guess silence is as good as assent? \n\n\"Wait!!!\" I yell desperately as he reaches for the front door. With one exasperated eyebrow arching upwards, he turns to me, impatient.\n\n\"Why are you doing this? Is there some great war between the gods? Should we be afraid?\"\n\nHis boyish features soften in amusement. \n\n\"No! Nothing like that. It is very serious though - we have an annual contest. Whoever has the most followers gets a little certificate and some extra privileges. It's definitely a big deal and I have to come in strong to have a chance.\"\n\n\"So thank you, Jennifer for your help\" he winked, and then, with the stilted enthusiasm of a bad actor delivering a commercial catchphrase, concluded:\n\n\"I'll be watching over you!\"", "\"Okay. Okay. This is a little hard to swallow.\"\n\nThe man seems annoyed more than anything else. \"You just watched diseased beetroots fall from the sky while I rapped. What more do you want?\" He makes a crude gesture and, ten feet away, a pigeon finds itself on its back.\n\n\"It's just… a god of terrible puns? Really? And besides, why would you only come into existance now? Puns are old. Bad puns are old.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm not the first pun-god – and, if you don't help me, I won't be the last. An un-worshipped god dies. A god that was never worshipped simply ceases to exist. And the last couple millennia have been… unkind to newborn gods.\" He twitches a little as he says that.\n\n\"So. What's in it for me? I'm not totally clear what benefits supporting a pun-god could possibly have.\"\n\n\"Oh, plenty, I assure you. Imagine if you could never be caught off-guard in conversations. Always have a quick retort ready. Even if you're losing an argument, the ability to lose with style and panache. You humans are so scared of embarrassment, I'm surprised my predecessors didn't stick around.\"\n\n\"This is a terrible idea, but… fine. I'll try to drum up some worship for you.\" Wordlessly, my new deity hands me a bongo.", "Cheryl was having a quiet cup of coffee on her lunch break when a man asked if the second seat at her table was taken. She wasn't enjoying her crossword and welcomed the prospect of a conversation. He didn't look like a crazy person. He was well dressed, well fed and had excellent posture. If there were to be an earthly incarnation of a god in the 21st century, this is probably what it would look like. Of course it was ridiculous, but she decided to play along. \n\n\"You really expect me to believe that you're a god?\"\n\n\"I know that it seems like a ridiculous claim in this day and age, but if you humour me, I can make it worth your while.\"\n\n\"I'd be interested to see some evidence of your divinity.\"\n\n\"I'm afraid I can't do that. I don't have any power yet.\"\n\n\"If you don't have any powers, what exactly makes you a god?\"\n\n\"It's my nature. I have the capacity to become as powerful as any other god, but I need adherents to give me strength.\"\n\nHe certainly seemed more down to earth than she would have expected a god to be, but she had no intention of getting sucked into a cult. \n\n\"Which god are you even supposed to be?\"\n\n\"I'm me. All the other god jobs are already taken. I'm new.\"\n\nThere was an almost otherworldly charm to the man. He didn't seem particularly articulate or intelligent, but there was something about his eyes that made his bizarre claims almost believable.\n\n\"I'll need some animal or crop sacrifices to get me started of course. That's how all the big guys got going. Once you have enough followers, you can thrive on just prayer and belief, but they all needed a kickstart in the beginning. You can really get a leg up with a human sacrifice, not much staying power though.\n\n\"If you could give me a hand here, I'd see you well looked after in the long run. My first devotee would have pride of place in my church. It doesn't have to be anything big, just a little alter, or even some prayers would help.\"\n\nThe conversation was starting to take a turn down crazy street and in-spite of the handsome stranger's je ne sais quoi, Cheryl was starting to become visibly uncomfortable. Perhaps the man was the god of social cues, because he rose and picked up the unfinished half of his strawberry parfait. \n\n\"Well, there is a Neil Gaiman signing this afternoon and I think I might find a receptive audience there. Thanks for your time.\"\n\n*\n\nCheryl didn't think of the handsome stranger again until hours after she got home that evening. She was making a week's supply of greek salad when the lunchtime conversation returned to her mind. Cutting onions was always the worst part of making a salad, but if she lit candles on the counter, her eyes didn't sting as bad. \n\nThe tableau on and around her cutting board reminded her of the man's entreaty. On the spur of the moment, she took up a bell pepper and laid it between her two candles. Thinking of the man, she crushed the pepper under her fist and dumped it into the garbage. \n\nNothing happened. Feeling rather silly, she finished making her salad, one pepper short. She was gladder than usual that she lived alone. \n\n*\n\nHaving struck out at the Neil Gaiman signing, the man was heating up a can of baked beans on his camp stove. He ate leaning agains the rear side door of his 1996 Dodge Caravan, when he felt a tingle. \n\n\"That's a start.\"" ]	5
	[WP] Scientists accidentally discover Aogen, a chemical which turns all oxygen it's in contact with into more Aogen.	[ "\"This... It's amazing.\"\n\n\"Uhh, how exactly does it work?\"\n\n\"No idea - but if we could adapt the transforming capabilities of Aeogen to say, steel, or maybe more advanced things like medicine... The possibilities. There would be no scarcity. The world would become utopia in no time.\"\n\n\"I'll get some equipment ready, you get into contact with management. We'll be promoted. I guarantee it!\"\n\n\"Don't drop the Aeogen, now.\"\n\n\"Hahah, that would be fu... Oh fucking shit...\"\n\n\"You didn't. No no no. We can stop it, can't we? You might have doomed the human race, Tim.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry... It wasn't...\"\n\n\"Sorry isn't enough... Unfortunately.\"\n\n\"It was bound to happen anyway, wouldn't it? A tiny accident was bound to happen, right?\"\n\n\nAnd then everybody died. The end.", "\"I'm sorry, this line is for national emergencies only. I am going to hang up, now, and there will be repercussions if you call again.\"\n\n\"BUT THIS IS A\" - click. The line went dead. \n\nChristina was hyperventilating a little bit. \"They didn't believe us, either.\"\n\nThe other scientists were striking out all around her - Tim got off the phone with 911, shaking his head. Marcie was still on the phone with the NSA main line, but shortly, that phone call, too ended badly. The only person still on the phone was Craig, who had gotten a hold of the scientists at their sister organization in Japan. Christina didn't speak Japanese, but it sounded from his urgent tone as though at least someone was listening. \n\nBy now they were in the hallway, the Aogen having solidified all the air in the lab in a matter of hours. As the Aogen multiplied, its rate of expansion increased. At this rate, the surrounding city would be in danger in no less than a day.\n\nThey were on their own. \n\n\"Ideas?\" asked Tim, who was visibly pale. The room was silent for at least ten seconds. Then someone said it.\n\n\"There's always the control measure.\" Marcie said it calmly, but they all knew what it would entail - one of them would have to die to contain this disaster, because there was no way to eliminate the oxygen in the building and make it out alive. The distance from the main computer and the exit was too great. It was meant to be a temporary measure to put out fires - no one had expected that there would be a need to eliminate oxygen from the building for longer than ten seconds or so.\n\nSilence.\n\n\"I'll do it\" Craig and Tim both said at once, and then looked at each other. \n\nChristina took a deep breath. \"No. We have to at least try other things first. And I am the head scientist here, if anyone is going to activate the control measure it should be me. We still have access to the secondary lab - lets spend all the time we can trying to come up with a way to neutralize the Aogen, and then when we have to evacuate, we'll talk about the control measure.\"\n\nThey quickly went to work. One hour passed. The wall of Aogen, blue like ice, crept closer to the hallway where they were. Still they had no way of countering it. Three more hours passed, and they became nervous as the Aogen was advancing ever faster towards their position. It occurred to all of them that the window didn't open, but they had chemicals capable of melting it if the mass of ice like Aogen blocked the door. They continued to work on a way to stop the Aogen, growing more desperate by the minute.\n\nAfter seven hours, they finally had to evacuate the lab. The rate of expansion had increased - they would have to stop it.\n\n\"What about scuba equipment?\" Craig said suddenly.\n\n\"Of course!\" Marcie exclaimed. \"Does anyone know how to use it?\"\n\nSilence again. Everyone present classified themselves as a \"nerd\" and tried to avoid athletic activities like it was their religion. \n\n\"Well, maybe we can find someone who can. Surely there's some kind of scuba store in this city...\" Marcie pulled out her smartphone. Sure enough, there was a scuba shop five miles away.\n\n\"Lets go.\" Said Craig. There wasn't any time to waste - in a matter of hours the Aogen would be outside the building, and there would be no way to stop it.\n\nThey called the scuba shop on the way. The 16 year old running the counter was a lot easier to convince than the government, and when they arrived, he was waiting for them out front with a big black bag full of gear. He hopped in the car no questions asked, and they did an illegal U turn right in the middle of traffic and headed back to the lab, top speed.\n\n\"You know how to use this stuff?\" Marcie asked the teen in route. \n\n\"Of course. That's how I got my job.\" He replied.\n\n\"None of us know how. We need you to shut off the oxygen in the lab, wearing your scuba gear so that you can breathe when the air gets cut off. It's a huge building - you'll need to walk for at least five minutes before you can exit. Is that a problem?\" Marcie asked.\n\nHe shook his head. \"No, I can do that. There's plenty of oxygen in these tanks, I checked back at the store.\" He seemed almost elated with excitement. Nothing this cool had ever happened to him before, and he couldn't wait to tell his friends.\n\nThey arrived back at the lab, and the kid began putting on the equipment. \n\n\"Wish me luck\" he said, and walked into the building. \n\nThe scientists waited outside. Five minutes passed, then ten. Christina began thinking that he should have been back by now, or that maybe their instructions for how to turn off the air supply to the building hadn't been specific enough and that he'd gotten into an accident. Then he emerged unharmed.\n\n\"I did it!\" he exclaimed. \"The Aogen has stopped multiplying!\"\n\nThey laughed. They cried. They turned on music on their smartphones and danced badly. This was the scene that greeted the Japanese scientists when they pulled up in their rental car an hour later. When they got out of the car, Marcie, drunk on happiness now that the crisis was over, kissed the first one to approach square on the mouth. He didn't seem to mind.\n\n\"Thank you for coming,\" she said." ]	2
Basically, write a story that surprises the reader -- but the first line should have given it away, if the reader knew what to look for. Of course now we're all looking for that detail, so it's going to be twice as hard to pull it off -- are you up for it? (or if the prompt gives you some other idea for what to write, go with that!)	[WP] If I had paid attention to the first sentence properly, the ending wouldn't have surprised me.	[ "\"Look, you have to give it up, the simulation has run on far too long, we'll have to start again, they just haven't learnt. It's time to end it, it'll be quick, just turn it off. We've failed.\" It wasn't right to do this, he could feel it, but he was the only one who could stop this failure. He had started it all those years ago, but he was young, how was he to predict this failure. \n\"They've only been learning for a short amount of time maybe we could let them continue, redemption is surely not that far away!\" Even as the words came out of his mouth he knew he was lying. They had got everything wrong. The destruction, the war, the uncaring nature. Sure there had been a few successful stories but in their short span their impact was minimal. The aim of this simulation was to get a society rich in learning and humans weren't the right species for that. With a sigh he nodded and willed the sun to stop burning. \n\"That's better, come on we need to start on a new design.\" With that, the panic below him was catastrophic, but this was their fault. It looked like he was going to have to start a new simulation, hopefully with a species that would learn. Even now they were turning to their 'Gods', considering the reality, it was almost laughable to him.", "\"Pay attention to what i'm going to say\" Frank said.\n\nI listened.\n\"I want you to go to the shop for me.....\" he said, his eyes glistening.\n\"Yeah?\" I replied.\n\"...and buy me a packet of cigarettes\".\nI went to the shop and got his cigarettes and put them on the table before him.\n\"Thank you\" mumbled Frank.\n", "There's a man in white laying next to me in the alley tonight, I can't feel my heart, I need to wake up. I know the man, he brings me toys. He watches me at night. He likes it when I sleep, and I like it when he watches. I see him when I dream, and he comes with me in my dreams, but only to watch. I asked the man once, I thought he was lonely you see, \"Why sir? Why do you like it when I sleep? \n\n\"Well child, I like to watch over you. I can't do that if you're awake now can I?\n\n\"Well.. I guess not.\"\n\n\"You see child! Your friend is only here to help you, and if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to see you wake up sometime. We all have to be free to walk about in the sunshine, like the other little children, barefoot in the sand on hot summer beaches or next to parents on long evening strolls through the park. Could you do that for me?\n\n\"I guess. But when will I see you again?\n\n\"We all have to come back to the alley, everyone comes here to see me sometime, every day people from all around come to see me! Someday I would love to see you here again. And we can take a walk to anywhere you want to go! But not now. Child, I need you to wake up.\n\n\"But I don't wanna! I wanna see the park with you, and feel the sand between my toes! \n\n\" Then wake up! Wake up for me child, and I promise, one day you can see me again. We'll take a walk to a place you'll never want to leave. But not this day, it isn't your time.\"\n\nCLEAR!\n\nMy heart thudded, I felt a brush of cold air against my bare shoulders. \n\nCLEAR!\n\nMy heart thudded again, and this time I could see, I could feel again! A doctor leaned over me with the handles of the defibrillator, the light blinded my eyes and blurred his figure.\n\n\"She's back! She's back! Get the surgeons! Put her under anesthesia, we need to treat the wounds before she dies of blood loss! \n\nThen I fall into blackness, I can't see anymore, but when I wake up again, I'm in a bed. I can hear a heart monitor beat next to me and the nervous tapping of a foot in the chair next to my bedside.\n\n\"Anna?\" the man said, as he noticed me coming to.\n\n\"Hey Joey, I've missed you.\" I told him. \"Are those flowers for me?\"\n\nA lovely bouquet of daffodils rested next to me, Joey knew they were my favorite.\n\n\"Anna, you're alive! We thought we lost you, your heart stopped when we brought you here. Are you alright? Do you need anything?\"\n\n\"Joey what happened?\n\n\"You were driving home from work when a driver fell asleep at the wheel on the opposing lane, he hit you pretty hard.\"\n\n\"Am I in the hospital?\"\n\n\"Yes, you might not if you had worn your seatbelt, Anna, I told you to be more mindful of that! It's dangerous, but I guess I shouldn't need to remind you anymore should I?\"\n\n\"Yeah I guess.\"\n\nI tilted my head towards a window, and I could see it. The sunshine falling onto the warm shores of Miami Bay. I could see the endless blue sky, and the clouds drifting carelessly on the wind, and for a period of time, I watched them float across my window and out of my sight.\n\n\"I got you the room overlooking the bay. I know how much you love it.\"\n\n\"Do you think we can go there soon?\"\n\n\"Soon as you get out of the hospital\"\n\n\"I want to walk with you across the sandy shore, hand in hand with you Joey, I want the waves to run up to my ankles and smell the breeze of the ocean air again.\"\n\n\"Anna..\"\n\n\"Can I walk?\"\n\n\"What happened when you died?\"\n\n\"I met an angel.\"\n\n\"What did he tell you?\"\n\n\"That someday I'll have to see him again. And on that day, he'll take me far, far, away from here. I want to go to the beach\"\n\nShockingly, I could still walk. No pain, nothing. The doctors called it a miracle. Joey took me, we left together and went to see the beach again. It never seemed so beautiful to me as it did before. We left Miami and found a nice quiet place, with no one else there, and spent all day walking around the shore, until the fiery Florida sunset sank, and the stars poked themselves through the night sky. We watched them come about, and I've never seen such beauty as I did, lying next to Joey, watching the midnight sky. The man in white was right. I needed to wake up.\n\n\nEdit 1: Whoops, almost left out the most important part. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \n\n\n\n\n\n", "'It was a cheap shot, but lethal?! I thought the word meant something different. I didn't expect him to react like that,' I exclaimed. \n\nShe was unmoved, as was he.\n'Look', I said, trying to bring her round, 'he made his bed, and now he'll lie in it for a while. The naughty chair is outdated and a tad harsh, anyway.' \n'16 years old. You've gone soft', she muttered. \n'Everyone knows the naughty chair gives the kid some physical pain, as well as all this emotional shit he's gone through. Especially since we put a spike in it. 16 and you want me to treat him like that', I tried to explain myself, but there was no point.\n\n'You've changed' she said, disappointedly. 'You used to be different'. The words stung my ears and pierced my heart. \n\nI told her to fuck off, whilst I dealt with the corpse.", "I don’t want you to feel like you sold out with me, I tried my best at the time we were together. It’s just when we met I wasn’t sure what this was going to be. It felt very contrived from the beginning. I’ll admit that, because there’s no reason for me not to. I thought that you had yourself really well put together. And it honestly felt weird for me to not at least pretend like I was the same. I think you saw behind the façade but you just skated past that. I think you skate past everything like that in your life. \n\nAnd I really didn’t want things to end the way they did because it’s not like you deserved it at all. And I know it hurt and that’s not what I was going for. I’m not the most sensitive guy. I think we’ve gotten at least that much out of the way. And you, you’re just so attuned to things, there was no way I couldn’t be walking on egg shells around you. If I let you know how much of a shit show it all actually was, well that just wouldn’t have ended well. \n\nI really hope things are going well for you though, because they really weren’t with me. Remember that night in early May I think? I really messed up that night and you were so upset and things were not going okay for either of us. So really, I owe you the world. Anything you need to make this right. I can get you connections in LA now that you’re out there if you need. \n\nYou were a great partner and I did you wrong by not being honest with you. And I really haven’t found a better drug mule in a while and I’m sorry if it feels like I was using you man. Cause, I have nothing but respect. \n\n", "I saw the light in the end of the tunnel.\n\nI didn't want it to end.\n\n\"I wanna go back! That's the wrong way!\" I shout, no I scream. But nobody answers. \n\nThe light is getting closer and is growing quickly.\n\n\"No, take me back! Turn around!\" I scream again louder. I don't want it to end.\n\n\"Hold him down.\" A fierce voice insists.\n\n\"NO!\" I scream as she light reaches us.\n\nI struggle to turn around, to go back, but a hand is holding me down, pinning me in place.\n\n\"Go back!\" I insist, but still I am ignored. \"I wanna go again!\"\n\n\"No honey, we're going home now, now calm down or we'll leave you at the side of the road.\" Moma threatens. She's mad. I stare at her back angrily, still held down by Papa's hands, I'm planning my revenge. I will get back to that tunnel. I swear that one day, I will.", "\"There's no one here who can help you!\" The nurse screamed at me.\n\nI don't know why she said that, I didn't need help. I just stopped in from the rain. Maybe she just didn't want any unwelcome guests, to put it. \n\nI rushed out of that hospital and back into the rain, she really scared me. I wandered around the city, the clouds now totally darkening the cityscape. The only lights being the streetlights and the flashes of lightning.\n\nI don't know where I was walking to, I didn't really have a plan. I'd just been evicted from my apartment and had no where else to go. My friends had been long gone by now, I was getting too old. \n\nI wonder where my wife is now? Heaven? She never told me where she was going forty years ago, but I could use the support now, even if it was half-hearted like she so insisted all those years ago.\n\nThere's no one here who can help you!\n\nI ducked into a bar to get some shelter from the storm and was promptly thrown out. This whole city must be going mad. Who treats people this way? Even a stranger wouldn't be met with such revulsion. \n\nI walked back down the street, finding no comfort. I stood underneath a doorway of a closed Chinese buffet. I looked at the passing people. There was a young girl with her parents running inside a building. Wait a few moments... they weren't thrown out. There were a couple of a homeless guys in the alley across the street fighting over something, no one even glancing their way. \n\nI slid down the door and landed on the cement. I didn't know what to do. Why to even fight it any more. I'm an eighty-two year old man! This isn't where I should be! Why, dammit! \n\nI hung my head in my hands and cried then. I heaved a bit and when I looked back at the street there were people crowding around. I heard the congregation speak all at once:\n\nThere's no one here who can help you!", "It was the first time I saw my Tiger running down the driveway. \n\nHe was sprinting as though he was finally the prey.\nIt was most likely due to the fact that I finally understood his life.\n\nHe had captured many birdies, but hardly ever grasped an eagle. That was more than enough for him to become victorious. Many may describe him by his walk, as they never see him run, but his hunt is what brought him to be running. \n\nAnd I would much rather see him running frightened than walking stealthily. \n\n For I am the wife of Tiger Woods. ", "He gets me. He just, gets me. \n\n\nWhen I met Michael, I knew that there was just something different about him. He wasn't like most guys I had been around. \n\n____________\n\n\nI grew up in a small town in Eastern Missouri. We never had very much, but my sister and I never really seemed to notice. \n\n\nDad worked construction and was gone for long periods of time, and mom worked at a little restaurant that we got to go see her at every day. She said the manager didn't mind because it was nice having younger people around. \n\n\nMom worked the day shift and, except for lunch time, there were typically only old people there. I think having my sister and I at a booth made the place feel a little more alive. \n\n\nThere were days though, that my sister couldn't go. \n\n\nAmanda was three years older than I was, and because of that she got to go spend time at her friends' houses whenever someone invited her to. \n\n\nMom had said that it was because she knew that Amanda wouldn't get in trouble or act like a little kid, and that I would get to someday. \n\n\nI didn't really mind going to the restaurant without her at first. Mom always gave me paper to draw on and sometimes I'd bring a doll or two. \n\n\nThe manager would always bring me a dessert from the case if I wanted to. He'd sit with me while I ate it and ask what sort of things I thought he should put on the menu for tomorrow's specials. I'd guess about things that I thought grown ups would like, but I think more than anything he was humoring me. \n\n\nMom would check on me occasionally, but mostly she just kept to her section and let me mind my own business. \n\n\nI met Michael at the restaurant. \n\n\nThe day we met, he was there with his parents. It was a Sunday. The church crowd was filing in for the lunch time rush. I don't know how long he had been there before I noticed that he kept staring at me, but when I caught him doing it, he smiled and looked embarrassed. \n\n\nHe had a really nice smile. \n\n\nHe didn't talk to me the first time I saw him at the restaurant, but I sure started to notice him there a lot more after that first day. \n\n\n\nOne day, he eventually worked up the courage to talk to me. He had excused himself from his parents' table to go to the bathroom, but he took a detour by me. I had been drawing a picture of some girls from a show I had seen that morning, and he told me how good of an artist I was. He said that he liked to draw a lot too, though he mostly drew animals. \n\n\nHe asked me how come I got to come to a restaurant by myself since I wasn't old enough to be out on my own. I think a part of him was jealous. I didn't have to sneak away from my parents or pretend to go to the bathroom to do my own thing. \n\n\nI told him how my mom worked there, and how on the days that my sister was out with friends I got to spend the day keeping myself entertained. He thought that was cool. \n\n\nHe was the first boy to ever make me feel special. \n\n\nWe didn't talk long that first day because he was supposed to be going to the bathroom, but the more I started to see him there, the more I started to learn about him. \n\n\n\nThe manager would sometimes ask me about him. I always got the feeling that he didn't like Michael. He had teased me so many times before about how kissing boys would give you cavities, I think it was hard for him to see me getting attention from someone. He was always telling mom that my sister and I were going to grow up before she knew it, part of me felt like he grew so attached to us that he was worried about the same thing. \n\n\nOne day Michael came to the restaurant by himself. It was strange to see him without his parents, but he told me that they had given him money to go eat on the strict orders that he walk to the restaurant, have his meal, and then walk straight home. \n\n\nThat was the first day I ever kissed a boy. \n\n\nI asked him if he wanted to sit with me, but he said that he thought the manager would make him move tables if he did. We laughed about how old people always thought that young people were always just trying to get away with stuff, but regardless he sat by himself two booths away from where I had been sitting. \n\n\nHe must have made five trips to the bathroom before his meal had even come. Each time he would give me a note with questions on it, and then take my response on his way back to his seat. \n\n\n\"What do you like to do for fun?\"\n\n\n\"Don't you ever get bored sitting here all day?\"\n\n\n\"Do you like me?\" \n\n\n\"Do you know how pretty you are?\" \n\n\nI have to admit, I really loved the way he made me feel. \n\n\nEventually, he worked up the courage and asked me if I would meet him out in the front of the restaurant. He said he wanted to give me something. \n\n\nI had an idea what he wanted. I watched enough shows back then to know that when a boy and a girl like each other, they flirt for so long, and then they kiss. I just - hadn't ever liked a boy enough to think about it actually happening. \n\n\nBut with Michael, he stood out. \n\n\nHe finished his meal, paid his ticket with the 20 dollar bill his mother had given him, and left the restaurant. I saw him walk through the front door and off down the sidewalk, but I knew that he would be waiting just around the corner. \n\n\nMy mom was busy with her tables so I waited for her manager to run to the back for a second, and I was off. \n\n\nI slunk out of my booth and made my way towards the front door. I remember feeling my heartbeat in my ears. This was something I had never done before. I knew I'd get grounded if mom found out that I had gone outside, but I figured she was busy enough and I was good enough that she'd never have to find out. \n\n\nBesides, what's a short grounding compared to your first kiss? \n\n\nHe was there waiting for me just around the corner. The parking lot was as full as usual for a lunch time rush, but it felt like he and I were the only people in the whole world. He smiled when he saw that I had made it. I smiled back. \n\n\nWe laughed, and he told me how excited he was that I had been willing to meet him outside. I told him how quickly I needed to go back inside. I knew my mom would give me a few minutes once she saw that I was gone, figuring I was in the bathroom - but I did really need to keep things short. \n\n\nI was nervous but it was that sort of electric nervousness that makes you want to run towards the thing you're sort of scared of. I started to explain to him how I had never really spent much time talking to boys, and that's when he kissed me. \n\n\nThe world stopped. My mind was filled with a rush of thoughts and feelings, most of all how I couldn't believe that I was being kissed. Me! I was nearly positive that Amanda hadn't been kissed yet. Sure, she got to go out with friends but had she been kissed? No. \n\n\n_________________\n\n\nWhen I woke up, I was confused. \n\n\nI could tell I was in the back of a van, but I wasn't sure whose van it was or how I got there. \n\n\nAs my eyes started to un-blur I realized that Michael was driving. I hadn't ever really thought about him being old enough to drive. I knew he was grown up, but since he had always come in with his parents I figured he just didn't have a car or something. \n\n\nI tried to ask him what was going on, and where we were going, but my throat hurt too bad to talk. I was scared. Not scared like I had been earlier, where I thought something fun was about to happen. I was scared the way you get when something's going on that you can't stop. I wanted to know what was happening and I couldn't even get the words to come out of my mouth. \n\n\nMichael must have heard me wheezing and straining to talk to him. He turned back to look at me and then faced the road again. \n\n\nHe told me how he was so excited to take me home. He said that his parents hadn't wanted him to come get me from the restaurant, but he had made them see how he was right. He told me that his parents would never keep him away from me again. \n\n\nI tried to get up. I wanted to go sit up in the front seat with him so he could tell me what he meant. I wanted to get off of my side because my arm was falling asleep but - but I couldn't because my hands and feet were all tied up. \n\n\nHe kept talking while I squirmed. \n\n\nTo this day, I don't remember much of what he said on that trip. I know he told me that I'd never see my mother or sister again and that it didn't have to be a bad thing. He told me he'd take care of me and keep me safe from anyone that ever tried to hurt me. He told me that I was his. \n\n\nForever. \n\n\n______________\n\n\nI think back on that day so often. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't gone outside or if I had managed to make it back to my mom before he grabbed me. \n\n\nBut I was a dumb kid, and made a big mistake. I don't get to go back. \n\n\n\nI'm his now. He gets me. He just, gets me. ", "\"You stupid son of a bitch! What have I told you about making noise while I'm working, huh?!\" he screamed at me. \n\nI got upset. He always made me feel sad when he shouted at me, which was a lot. I never mean to make him angry, but sometimes I get so bored of being shut away in my room everyday. He never talks to me or plays with me, not since he started his new job. He's too busy, and I just want him to notice me or to hear him laugh.\n\nI walked over to my mum and tapped her, letting her know I wanted to play. She barked at me, and I copied her, and we started playing.", "I noticed a tear on my shirt after we parted ways at the restaurant. Just by one of the lapels, barely noticeable. \n\nWe hadn't gone anywhere nice, just someplace we used to go when it was easier to go anywhere with her. She looked nice like always and I tried to make small talk about work and old friends but she was cold and it was hard. I knew what she was going to get and she knew what I was going to get, but not for much longer.\n\nShe took the news well. She took the news better than I thought she would. She stopped eating and asked me about the date and location. She looked, for the first time since she left me, lonely. I wondered if she felt sorry for leaving me like she had, so suddenly. I wondered if she was lonely for me. \n\nThere was still most of our food on our plates when we paid the bill, but we didn't get boxes. I asked if everything was ok, hoping she would say 'no' so I could be there for her again like I used to, so I could be strong for her. She was quiet but told me she was fine. \n\nWe hugged for a moment longer than I thought we would, my arms freed from her for several seconds while I was still in hers. Her face pressed into my chest and we both walked away silently. I caught something out of the corner of my eye and looked down and saw something that shook my heart from it's shackles and made me feel again. I noticed a tear on my shirt. ", "Curiosity killed the cat.\n\nListen Colin, I'm sorry... But you should have never asked me to watch Mittens while you were on your lunch break. Admittedly, I could have paid more attention to her whereabouts, but I was not responsible for what happened.\n\nYou know I was against the idea of having pets in the lab from the beginning. You know cat hair makes my eyes itch, right? Well that's why I was keeping my distance from her.\n\nI had just finished adjusting the pneumatic gears to reduce their overall volume in the base. And I noticed that we still had room to extend the springs to allow for more force in the percussion drill. And I'm telling you Colin, the cat was on the other side of the lab when I started up the robotic arm.\n\nIt began to run its testing procedure and was working well. Next thing I know, the cat is patting at the percussion drill like its some kind of toy. I don't need to remind you that this is not a toy; it is a one-ton, billion-dollar piece of technology.\n\nWhen the computer signaled the initiation of the percussion drill sequence, it was too late for me to do anything... Colin I'm sorry, but she was pulverized by that drill...\n\nIf it makes you feel any better, I think the rover is going to have no problem breaking through sediments when its up and running on the surface of Mars.", "My wife made a wonderful meal.\n\nWith onions, potatoes, and more, it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. The meat was so tender, supple and delicious. I just couldn’t get enough. I had one and helping and then another.\n\nIt was too good to stop.\n\nI remembered I once told her that her steak was the best thing I had ever had. However, I changed my mind as soon as I took a bite of that meal. No one could do things to my taste buds like she did. I mean, who knew food could be this good?\n\nI wanted more.\n\nBut I had to leave. I had a few days at most before the police would come. I booked my ticket and left the country as fast as possible. Otherwise, they would arrest me. They would never understand me.\n\nThey would never understand the delicacy of human flesh." ]	13
	[WP] Describe an Antique dealer or Archeologist 1000 years from now examining something utterly mundane from the present day as if some rarity.	[ "NOTES FOR STUFF FROM THE LATEST DARK AGES: EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY ANTIQUES CATALOG ENTRY\n\nItem Kappa-eleven\n\nBiodegradable white chalice with green design, waxed interior, est. 2001-2015 CE. Minor dent in base.\n\nThis once-common chalice was mass-produced using a lost process wherin fibrous plants would be converted into sacred objects. Sold by specialty merchants on every street-corner, chalices with this particular green design were coveted as status symbols and came in three or four standardized sizes. While little is known about the sacred ritual itself, Dr. P. F. Hochs of the University of Panalabama has hypothesized that the chalices were used for imbibing a specific, bitter hot drink that reportedly bestowed upon the drinker a revitalized sense of energy; however, drinking too much or too little of this liquid would result in headaches, shakes, and heightened anxiety. He any anyone curious about the lives of our fore-fathers of the Latest Dark Ages will be thrilled to examine this chalice, as it is one of only half-a-dozen that we have recovered, due to the biodegradable nature of their materials.\n\nRemarkably, this chalice was found by the heirs of the late Francis Smith. It had been stored in - and subsequently forgotten - in a sterile environment that had been walled off centuries ago. The combination of an almost-perfect vacuum and the lack of any moisture perfectly preserved this chalice.\n\n3/4 of handspan tall, base diameter is 3.5 fingers, opening diameter 5 fingers.\n\nBidding starts at 720 intergalactic supreme units.", "\"Sold! Bidding closes with the winning bid at $276 million to buyer number 1336.\"\nSweet. I close the auction room and switch the programme back to scenic mountain ranges with jazz. \nShopping has never been easier. Ever since tv screens and computer monitors had became transparent , I had replaced all windows replaced with the 'see through' screens. Except I never used the see through function of course, as the filth of the city polluted the apartment views as well as the environment. This replacement had some downsides, as every 10min the windows/screens bombarded me with unaffordable advertisements. What an effective marketing method it was, as ever since the installation I had spent way more on pointless gadgets I would never use. Eventually the excessive ads stopped having an effect on me. However when they mentioned an ancient pieces auction, I couldn't resist. I had splurged millions on these artifacts. My most recent purchase was truly unique. What could this be used for? It was similar to a bag or a sack but without zips. Soft floral fabric. I turned it inside out. A little plastic tag seemed out of place. \n'DO NOT REMOVE TAG.'\nAppeared on one side. The other had weird diagrams, and said \n'Machine washable. 100% cotton. Made in China.'\nThat confused me more. Was this some type of clothing? I had never seen pictures of people wearing this from the past. It had no arm holes or anything, except for a large hole along one seam. I paced it on my head, as it seemed like the only place you could wear it. The bottom of the fabric trapped my shoulders, and I removed it before I could rip it. Maybe it's a giant sock? No, it couldn't be. I'll do some research on it tomorrow. I enclosed it in a glass cabinet next to my other ancient treasures. \nI hopped into bed, which promptly produced a fresh and clean pillow. \nThat's when it hit me. The fabric was the same size as the pillow. The floral fabric was some sort of decorative clothing for a pillow! Wow. I had won a gem at this auction. \n\"Edit text on sign for display cabinet 6.\" I said.\n\"Altering text on sign for display cabinet 6. Please state new text\" the programme replied.\n\"Pillow case. Estimated extinction 2050AD.\"" ]	2
	[WP]"Dude, what happened last night?"	[ "Dude, what happened last night?\n\nThe same things that happen every night.\n\nThe planet turned, and the stars did burn, and splay their shapes across the sky. And while they did, some people lived and while others quietly die.\n\nAs the light went down we went to town, to eat and drink, and drink and flirt and drink. And as dawn came back, we hailed a cab to drunk, exhausted to care what anybody thinks.\n\nWe passed many lovers. Kissing the night away, like this night could be their last night on earth. And sneaking home together, to bed together, to make impassioned love. And when they could move no more, they slept sweat sheened, tangled in their sheets and in each other's arms. The morning will bring them loving eyes, or awkward goodbyes, or maybe happy news.\n\nWe saw the night watch men. Sullen, cynical, sitting outside every club and bar. Looking for trouble. Looking forlorn. Looking at a youth that passed them by, and wondering how they ended up doing this job when they should be out on the town enjoying themselves.\n\nIn some rooms desk lights shone, and nervous students stared and worried. They wrote some words, crossed them out, and then wrote a little more. Two words forward. One word back. Three hundred words, and only twelve hundred left to write. And they need it done, and then some, before the end of the night.\n\nOut of the city, owls and bats and wolves and stray house cats did hunt they prey, which ran away and tried to find some fruit to eat. Some were to slow, they had to go and become a meal, or snack or sweet.\n\nTrees grew, and crops took in water.\n\nBut apart from that the world slept.\n\nDude, what happened last night?\n\nSame things that happen every night.\n\nTwo escaped mice try to take over the world.", "\"Dude, what happened last night?\"\n\nHalkon, second strongest hero in the world sighed into his hands. \"Do we really have to talk about this. The report has everything you need to know in it.\"\n\n\"No. I want to hear it from you.\"\n\nThe woman sat down in front of him, her hero name was Imp due to her tail and glowing eyes. \"And I don't want any left out information, so that means no 'I don't remember's or dodging questions.\" \n\n\"Fine. Fire away Titrit. What do you want to know.\" He used her real name as a jab at her since she preferred her hero name over it.\n\n\"Was there really not a better way to handle the situation?\"\n\n\"Meaning what? That's kind of a vague question.\"\n\n\"Meaning did we really just scar a seventeen year old for life by attacking her without trying to talk anything out.\"\n\nHalkon groaned, \"There were still too may unknowns. We knew nothing about her prior to the mission. Look. I'm not saying I'm happy with how we handled the situation, because I'm not, but you saw the precog footage, she became a killing machine.\"\n\n\"And for all we know, we just made it worse. Again. Why didn't we try and talk to her.\"\n\nHe hated when she had a good point and knew it.\n\nShe continued, \"I tried talking to her and you know what happened? SHE GAVE UP. She willingly let herself be cuffed and drugged. A person with malicious intents does not do that. And giving a kill order sure didn't help calm her down either.\"\n\nHalkon frown, \"What do you want me to say? I fucked up. I get it. This mission was one of the worst if not THE worst of my career.\"\n\nTitrit held her hands in the air, \"Fine. If that's how you feel about it, I'll take solace in that. Next question.\"\n\nHalkon looked at the clock, still too much time till his next meeting to get out of this, \"Next question.\"\n\n\"Her frequencies.\"\n\n\"What about them?\"\n\n\"Did we find all of them?\"\n\nThe question confused him, \"What do you mean 'all of them'?\"\n\nTitrit crossed her arms, \"So you haven't read the technician's report yet?\"\n\n\"No. Care to give me an abridged version.\"\n\n\"She has four of them. FOUR! Two is almost unheard of, but four?\"\n\nHalkon could feel a pit in his stomach. \"So what's the bad news that comes with this.\"\n\n\"We can only lock down three of them.\"\n\n\"So the last one shifts slightly. We just look for the pattern and write a program that matches the change. We've done it before.\"\n\n\"That's the problem. It doesn't shift. It seems completely random. And it changes so fast the technicians can barely follow it. We have no idea if there's a pattern or not.\"\n\n\"Do we know what each one corresponds to?\"\n\n\"The three we know are for the wisps that she . . .\" Titrit waved her hands in front of her, searching for the right word. \" . . Summons, I guess. Not really the right word for it.\"\n\n\"And the last one is her. Fuuuuck\" Halkon slid till his head rested on the desk. \"Please tell me there's some good news here.\"\n\n\"Lucky for you, there is. She can't use her power without the wisps. So if we dispel the wisps it's the same as if we nullified her power like normal.\"\n\nThe room was dead silent.\n\n\"So what are we going to do?\"\n\nHalkon didn't raise his head front he desk. \"Again. Too vague.\"\n\n\"About her. She killed seven people and it's our fault, not hers.\"\n\n\"I would say proceed as normal, but . . .\"\n\n\"You know I'd bitch a huge fit if you did. Yeah.\"\n\n\"Look. I have a meeting here in. . . \" He looked at the clock, \" . . ten minutes. Can we continue this later?\"\n\nTitrit got up to leave, \"We can and we will. You're not weaseling your way out of this.\"\n\n\"I know.\" The mutter was grim and overshadowed by Titrit shutting the door. \"That's what I'm worried about.\"" ]	2
	[WP] While travelling abroad, you meet a copy of yourself	[ "“There. Where are you?”\n\n“?”\n\nThe messages had been sent five minutes ago. I slid my phone back into my pocket as the metro slowed into the station.\n“Bastille”.\nThe automated voice echoed through the station, partially drowned in the hiss of the breaks, the mechanical clank of the door latches opening and the shuffle of a hundred steps on the quay.\n\nI slithered through the moving crowd and found my way towards the mechanical escalator. People were packing up. I ran along on the empty stairs next to it. Shit. I was already so late. I had crossed an entire ocean to surprise her on her birthday and somehow I had managed to make her wait.\n\nAt the top of the stairs, the corridor split into three different directions. In one of them the tiles seemed to curve endlessly with no exit in sight, two others had stairs that were going down. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I would never hear the end of it. How I knew she hated waiting, how they might close the opera doors on us. How the world was leagued to ruin everything she enjoyed.\n\nI looked at the signs indicating directions. Other metro lines. Exits. Twelve different exits. Who the fuck needed twelve different exits? I knew nothing of the streets listed. Opera. Opera. Here. Wait, what? Two different exits were listed as opera-something. Going in opposite directions. Where there two operas? No, no, I knew there was only one. I had booked the seats for her. She wasn’t particularly versed in classical music but she really enjoyed highbrow stuff. It made her feel good about herself. I knew she’d like telling her friends about it. How nice and classy it was. She would never say classy but she’d express the idea. How considerate her boyfriend was, to know that she loved Operas. Never mind the fact that she would never tell me.\n\nOne of the ‘opera’ exits said something-“principale”, I decided to go with this. I was walking at a brisk pace. So was everyone around me. I accelerated to a light trot. It would make me look slightly out of breath. At least that’s one thing she wouldn’t be able to complain about. Not like how I ruined her surprise by letting her find out about my trip. How was I to know she would be so freaked out by me not answering her texts for twelve hours she would call half my family demanding to know where I was? \n\nThe corridor enlarged to a station entrance. Over the ticket office and the automated machines I saw the large clock read five past eight. She’d been waiting for at least ten minutes. If she was still waiting. I hadn’t felt my phone vibrate since I left the wagon. At that point it probably meant she’d left. She would do that on occasions. Just leave when she was dissatisfied. It was her way of making a statement, of saying she deserved respect. Apparently she deserved a lot of respect, because she made a lot of statements.\n\nI climbed the last flight of stairs towards the outside pushed by the heavy draft of the metro station. The sky was overcast and darkening with the day close. The ground slightly wet from recent rain. People swarmed around. The rushing sound of cars and motorcycles permeated the air. I looked around at the staircase of the giant building covered in posters announcing upcoming performances. I scanned groups and isolated people waiting on the stairs looking for her face. \n\nI hadn’t seen her in four months but I picked her features quickly. There was something unmistakable about her girly prettiness, her slightly brooding pout and a vacant coldness in her pale blue eyes that made her stand out. Upon seeing her I realised my pace had slowed. I wasn’t as eager to see her as I was to please her.\n\nShe hadn’t noticed me. She was talking to someone else. A man. He had his back to me. He bent slightly and, as she lifted her head, they kissed. My heart sunk, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared uncomprehendingly. Questions filled my mind as blood drained away from it. \n\nThe shock left me dumbfounded. They turned and started walking towards the entrance without me moving to keep up. I blinked, still not realising. Doubting what I had just seen I started walking but in a diagonal, so as to end up alongside them. The guy had dark hair and a stature similar to mine. There was something eerily familiar about his demeanour. The high collar of his coat hid his features from me. I realised I had started trotting again. As I got closer a car screeched and horned loudly behind me. They turned to look at it. I caught a glimpse of his face. And I stopped walking.\n\nThey resumed walking and entered the large revolving door of the opera. I still hadn’t moved. I stayed there for what seemed like an eternity. I just couldn’t act. It seemed that every time I was about to move I was stopped by the reminiscence of what I had just seen. Eventually someone bumped into me. I stumbled forward, looked around as if waking up from a dream. My eyes laid down on the Opera, the steps, where she had been. I turned around and walked away." ]	1
	[WP] Describe a villain who has the desire to rule the world, but is considered too cute to be taken seriously.	[ "Honestly, smash them all or forget the whole fucking thing. I am sitting on the curb holding the hammer. It’s Summer, so I don’t have school and the sun is beading down on me like my au pair’s nagging voice.\n\nSmash. Smash. Smash. Die you fucking Lady Bugs. With a hammer large enough and some time, you can rule the entire world.\n\n“What are you doing?” Kyla is a dork and a tattle.\n\n“Go away.”\n\n“Is that Jon’s hammer? Did he say you can use it? I’ll tell mom!” She’s wearing her Dora shirt. Why is it that girl’s who where Dora shirts think they are so great?\n\n“I said GO!” I hold the hammer up. Yeah, I’ll smash her like one of those gopher games. Nature rules. I am king of nature. I am king of man.\n\n“Mooooomm!” Kyla goes running up the driveway. I know I can expect to hear about this. Mostly I wish Jeff was here. He should have been here ten minutes ago. We are going rattle snake hunting. I hope to catch one and plant it in the school. And a baby to leave in Elga’s bed! Baby rattle snakes are the worst! They’re the most poisonous.\n\nYou have to be a pyscho to hunt rattle snakes. They are really the most dangerous in the North America. Jeff says that pythons are scarier, but pythons aren’t poisonous. Rattlers. They’ll kill you dead.\n\nIf you want to be king of nature, you need the gear. I’ve got my fireman overalls. They have suspenders like adults. There is no one way rattlesnake teeth are getting through. I’ll collect at least three snakes. I have a jar and everything.\n\n“See I told you! Your hammer!” Kyla is back dragging Jon down the driveway with his hand. Jon is Mom’s boyfriend. He is a pawn...well more of a bishop. But I have him figured.\n\n“Hey, little buddy,” he says to me. If I look up at him, the sun will glare in my glasses so I ignore him. I clutch his hammer a little tighter.\n\n“He has your hammer! He’s not allowed to play with your tools,” Kyla says.\n\n“Oh, he’s alright,” Jon says. He picks me up. “Look at his little outfit. You look like Mario. You trying to catch Donkey Kong.” He tickles me, and my feet start kicking around. I’ll...I’ll...I’ll kill the son of a bitch.", "Every day a new plan, every day a new defeat. Doesn't matter what I do, it seems. Stealing things, destroying stuff, hell, I've even soiled a few expensive pieces of furniture. But does anyone care? Does anyone give me recognition? No, I just get scolded like a bad child. Total bogus. Don't they know I am the master of doom, the bringer of death, the harbinger of the end days? I command the very forces of shadow and destruction with nothing more than the flick of my wrists, but they do not fear me, no. They praise me, and shower me with gifts and food. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind all that, but it would be nice to see some real fear sometimes. I mean, it's hard to be terrifying when they put you in little teeny sweaters and the tiniest little boots you could imagine. I mean, it's totally ridiculous, considering the fact that I'm the greatest threat this world has ever known.\n\nBesides, those boots don't even keep my paws warm." ]	2
Descending Sentence # \| Words :-: \| :-: 1 \| 10 words 2 \| 9 words 3 \| 8 words 4 \| 7 words 5 \| 6 words 6 \| 5 words 7 \| 4 words 8 \| 3 words 9 \| 2 words 10 \| 1 word Alternatively, you can go in the opposite order, with the first sentence having 1 word and the final sentence having 10 words. Good luck!	[FF] Create a story in descending (or ascending) sentence (details inside)	[ "Damn!\n\nShe saw.\n\n\"Wait,\" I said.\n\nShe turned and left.\n\nGerry touched my shoulder sympathetically.\n\nI sighed and shook my head.\n\n\"It's over,\" I told him, \"we're done.\"\n\n\"Don't say that,\" Gerry implored; \"I love you.\"\n\nI loved Gerry too, but I couldn't say it.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sweetie, but I must return to my wife.\"", "\"Now!\"\n\n\"Come on!\", he said angrily. It was morally wrong. My palms were getting sweaty. I never got used to this.\n His words reflected his anger with them.\n They stole from him and he never forgives. I felt sorry for them, but they made this. Taking our money means we take something in return, lives. ", "\"Daddy?\"\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\nI nodded slowly.\n\n\"We need to go.\"\n\nHe grabbed me; We ran. I could see them chasing us. Clearly dead, yet they were moving, running.\n\n\"Get off me!\" Mommy screamed for Daddy's help.\n\nThe screaming stopped before we saw her lying down.\n\n\"Shyanna\" Dad was out of breath \"Don't leave me, please...\"", "\"Lunch!\"\n\n\"Not now!\"\n\nThe door opened.\n\n\"I said not now!\"\n\n\"What are you doing, honey?\"\n\n\"Nothing, mum, please get out, now!\"\n\n\"Oh, honey, are you playing with barbie?\"\n\n\"Erm... Yes, I am, now please go away!\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, you always were a... That's not Barbie...\"\n\n\"Get out get out get out get out get out!\"", "No.\n\nNo way.\n\nNo fucking way.\n\nIt couldn't be him.\n\nThe man I killed yesterday.\n\nHe was coming for his revenge.\n\nA revenge he rightly deserved to exact.\n\nI know I deserve this, but cannot escape.\n\nThe weapon is hilariously fitting for what he plans.\n\nI close my eyes and beg my killer for forgiveness.\n\nMy request stays my killers hand for a moment.\n\nMy body moves without thought and I run.\n\nThe screams behind me are of rage.\n\nAll I needed was a moment.\n\nThe chase is on again.\n\nI know his face.\n\nI can fight.\n\nAnd live.\n\nLive.", "It is a strange thing, having a staring contest with yourself in a mirror. \n\nHere's something to try: see if you can break eye contact with yourself. Casually look away from your reflection and then quickly return your eyes. See if you can \"beat\" your reflection back to the mirror. Do it again, quicker and quicker, getting closer and closer.\n\nIf you do this, you will note something odd. As frantically as your eyes move, hers won't. She will not play this silly game. Her eyes will stare you down. Her eyes will hate you.\n\nNow she has won.\n\nAnd you've lost.\n\nNow run.\n\nRun!" ]	6
	[WP] Convince me you deserve the last piece of my birthday cake.	[ "Sir/Madam/Mr. President, \n\nYou don't know me.\nI am a stranger to you, and because of that I could be anything.\n\nI could be a liar, a thief, a republican, a communist, a slow driver, a midget or any other manner of detestable scoundrel.\nExactly the kind of person you would never dare want to eat any piece of your cake.\nNo, the kind of person you would never want to eat any cake.\nGiving it to a stranger, would be almost like throwing it away. The piece of cake may as well up and disappear. \n\nBut that is precisely the point. That is why for your sake you must give me this last piece of cake.\nThis is not in anyway for the sake of my possibly lying, stealing, Reagan voting, Marxist, pedestrian, dwarfish interests.\nThat piece of cake you are wielding is a threat to you and everyone you have ever loved.\nA cake is potential, a cake is bountiful. Bounty begets generosity. It is easy to share many a piece of cake when you clearly have many, but as the number of pieces shrinks so does one's generosity.\nSoon you will begin to hoard, to ration to refuse to share.\nMaybe it was harmless to start, maybe it's your cake and no one else has any damn business to it.\n\nBut more likely that final piece will drive a wedge between you and everyone around you who will firmly believe it was rightfully theirs.\nBut you can't give it away lest you show weakness.\nYou can't eat it yourself less you show greed.\nAnd you can't throw it away as we both know how downright sinful such a thing would be.\nThe only way to rid yourself of the burden of the pastry, would be for it to disappear. \nAnd, I am exactly the kind of receptacle who can make things disappear.\nNot for me, but for you and your loved ones.\n\nGive me that piece of cake.\n\nYours Truly,\n\nA Lying, Stealing, Reagan Voting, Marxist, Pedestrian, Dwarf." ]	1
	[WP] You are a teacher at a daycare. One day, Homeland Security arrives at your door, asking for your help.	[ "She knew pretty much immediately who they were after the moment they walked in. She may have gone to state college but she could dress herself each morning and had done well for 24 years in not choking on her tongue in her sleep. There were 27 children under her care, one egg, and she hadn't noticed any baby genius tendencies in any of the former.\n\n\"We need you to sit on it.\" The one with the black hair and dark glasses said curtly.\n\n\"The future of our nation depends on you sitting on it.\" The other one with the black hair and dark glasses added.\n\n\"How about you sit on it.\" She replied. It was already 3:15, two of her kids had food poisoning and she didn't find any of this as amusing as she should have.\n\nThe agent with the black hair and dark glasses also didn't find any of this as amusing as would have been allowed by anyone who had attended a real college and had a sense of humor.\n\n\"Ma'am, Uncle Sam is asking you to sit on it. For the future of..\"\n\n\"For the future of our nation. Yeah, I heard your partner. Can I ask why you need me to sit on it?\"\n\n\"To simulate the mother's warmth.\" The agent who also had black hair and dark glasses and who was now flipping through the pages of A Very Hungry Caterpillar noted without looking away from the pages.\n\n\"Now look, I mean I may have put on a couple pounds over the holidays\" she pinched a 4 inch wad of flesh on her side \"but if you're saying I can emulate something of that size then you can go fu...\" she lowered her voice to a whisper while eyeing the children playing across the room. \"...fuck yourselves.\"\n\n\"Ma'am\" the agent with the black hair and dark glasses said at volume completely oblivious to his surroundings \"if you don't sit on that egg we can all go fuck ourselves.\"\n\n\"The future of our nation depends on it.\" The other agent astutely added, still discovering just how hungry a caterpillar could be.\n\nThe agent with the hair and the glasses not reading the book leveled with her. \"Without your help the nation...nay...the entire world is lost. Please. For these children\" he waved his arm out theatrically in the direction of the bathrooms adjacent to the children playing in the room, \"for your family\" he pleaded as he picked up and presented to her a framed picture of her 4 cats, \"for the future of the entire human race. Please. Just consider what you know. Consider what we've asked of you. Please. Sit on it.\"\n\nAnd with that they walked out. \n\nShe considered what they had said and decided maybe they were right, but also maybe they were assholes for calling her fat.\n\n\"Gather round children, lets read a story, shall we?\" \n\nThe children gathered around her in a semi circle and she opened A very Hungry Caterpillar to the first page as she sat down upon the egg. \n\n\"Might as well kill two birds with one stone\" she thought, her self congratulations interrupted by a brief, sharp crackling noise.\n\n\n\n", "You know, I thought I was retired. \n\nI suppose I should start at the beginning. Three days ago, He was dead. So was She, for that matter, but you already know that, don't you? Doesn't matter now, I suppose. \n\nAt any rate, it was about Noon on the seventh day of school for the kids of J. Baker Daycare. The name was a stroke of genius on my part, I like to think. Appropriate and slightly ironic, just enough to give me a good chuckle every morning. I walked out of the building and onto the playground to watch as the kids played. The fourth and fifth graders got into their little factions, while the others just played, ignorant of the conflict going on around them. I shivered... After all, it was an all too familiar sight. I put on my smile quickly, though, and helped a crying child with a cut. \n\n\"What's wrong, Henry?\" I asked, kneeling down and holding out my hand. I gave him a reassuring smile- Henry seemed shy, nervous about talking with me. \nHenry's tears rand down his face as he presented his injured hand with the over dramatic flair only a child or an accomplished actor could present. \"I got a... A boo-boo!\" He cried. \nWith an inner chuckle, I put on my most worried face that I could. \"Well, Henry. Let me tell you a secret.\" I leaned close and whispered to him. \"I can help you... with magic.\" \nHenry gasped and backed away. \"Magic's not real! Liar, liar, pan-\" \nI laughed. \"Just follow me Henry.\" I winked. I lead him to the First Aid kit and grabbed a bandaid, holding it behind my back. \"Now, Henry... I need you to close your eyes and count to three.\" As he did so, I put down the band-aid. That should be fine, for now. I'll tell his mom when she comes to pick him up. \nHenry glared at me after I did that. \"That's not magic!\" \nI smiled. \"Yes it is... Because, you see, that band-aid is no ordinary band-aid! It has magic in it! But if you take it off, the magic goes away. So can you promise me not to take it off?\" \nHis face scrunched up for a moment, deep in thought. \"Fine! But I want a cookie.\" \n\"When snack time comes, you'll get an extra cookie- 'Specially made for you.\" I smiled. \"Now go play.\" \n\n\"You shouldn't tell kids magic is real, Sir. It's a real disappointment later on.\" I paused, then rose and turned around.\n\n\"What are You doing here, Agent.\" I scowled. \"I thought we agreed... I've left that life behind me.\" \n\"When national security is at stake, Sir, even we can forgive transgressions. We've gathered your entire team, they're waiting in the van.\" He smiled, his grey hair and lined face contrasted greatly by his mannerisms and voice. \"Unless, of course, we need to bring them up. I'd hate to do that in front of the kids...\" \n\"Don't you dare use the kids. They don't even know who I really am, Agent.\" My anger nearly got out of control, so I started my old calming routines. \"I haven't had to do this in two years, Agent. What could possibly be so wrong that you want me, of all people, to return to the field?\" \n\n\"She's back.\"\n\n----\n\nNot done yet, just wanted to take a small pause." ]	2
	[WP] A chest is recovered from a treasure hunting expedition. On the bumpy carriage ride out the two magic lamps inside rub together releasing two Genies each owing the other 3 wishes.	[ "The two lamps collided in midair as the cart jostled on the bumpy cobblestone road. The merchant had fallen asleep at the wheel, drunk on an exotic brew of fermented fruit matter.\n\n\"AT LAST, MORTAL, I HAVE AWAKENED... I am Thron, the Mighty. Quake before the might of the Djinn!\"\n\n\"The might of gin, perhaps. I mean, you crawled out of a bottle, that's for sure, am I right?\" The genie grinned.\n\n\"SILENCE, FOOL! Surely you must want to think about your wishes... Three wishes... Make a wish, and fulfill your destiny.\"\n\n\"I wish for a wish-fulfilling severed monkey's paw.\"\n\n\"You dare mock me?!\"\n\n\"Yep. Now, pass over the paw. I figure I have better chances with it than you. By the way, you have three wishes too!\"\n\n\"I WISH THE DJINN HAD DOMINION OVER THE GLOBE!\"\n\n\"Jeezy-peasy-easy, Divoffski-Plofski. Here you go!\" The genie fulfilled the wish of the djinn, and it stamped in anger.\n\n\"You dare twist my words?! I COULD DISEMBOWEL YOU!\"\n\n\"The horror! THE HORROR! The horror of your breath, pal. You heard of mouthwash? I mean, sheesh!\" The genie laughed as the djinn tried to claw him apart. \"That tickles! A-hee-hahh-heehaahaah!\"\n\n\"You fool. YOU MONGREL-TRAITOR!\"\n\n\"That really hurts, man, it does.\"", "Clunk, Clunk \n\nA carriage filled to the brim with stolen loot traveled a dusty path. The horses where lead by a man but trailed at the back of a convoy of many many similarly filled carriages. \n\nThe back carriage didn't contain much special a few lamps and some ancient gold coins and drinking tools. The carriages further up contained the most of the loot and so no one paid any mind when the driver drifted in and out of sleep and the carnage fell further and further back. Thieves where common in these parts and they certainly where not going to return and investigate, compromising the entire convoy. \n\nClunk, click, clunk, hiss\n\nThe chest strapped to the back of the carriage burst open and two billows of smoke funnelled out leaving a white and purple mist in the path that the driver would have noticed had he not been half asleep. Two male genies appeared in the mist, blinking and looking around they noticed the carriage drifting away from them and promptly gave chase.\n\n\"What the fuck James\"\n\n\"Dont fucking start okay I'm not happy about this\" sped up James grabbing the back of the chest and sitting on it. \n\n\"Hurry up cocksucker or the humans going to get away\" James laughed, his voice half lost in the wind. \n\nRacing past him the fellow genie grabbed the front of the carriage and plopped down beside the (now sleeping) human driver. Halting the horses he began his speech \"Hello, and thank you for summoning the Grea- huh?\" the human had jumped with shock and fled from the cart. Giving chase he saw James towering over the man \"Hey dude, todays your lucky day you get three -er six wishes\" \n\nKlaus liked to do things by the book, call it old fashioned but it worked. Even he admitted though the look of utter befuddlement on the humans face as he backed into him was pretty humorous. \"Just make the wishes dude and we will be out of your hair\" James muttered, he always had a unique way of doing things but it did get results \"I- I wish you would just go away\" the genies had no choice but to follow the wish unless it was for more wishes or massacre or something. \n\nPretty strange that they didn't just disappear then, a wish like that should have been unavoidable and yet here they where with this shaking human. \"Did you rub the lamps?\" asked James in a dangerous low voice. \"N-no\" whispered the human. \"Well then who did?\" he continued \"I- I don't know anything about any lamps\" he half-whispered slowly backing away and taking the chance to run for it when the genies looked back at one another \"You don't think..?\" started Klaus \"Impossible\" muttered James before changing to a humorous tone \"I wish you where dressed as a girl\" \"No, shit\" muttered Klaus now dressed in a frock. \n\n\"This is going to be very interesting\" muttered James. ", "A lone survivor awoke amongst the remains of the carriage. Splinters of wood and gold littered the ground all around him and horses fled far into the distance across the barren red plains. A second man was sprawled out dead some distance away; a bloody plank of wood sprouting from his chest. For a moment all was silent, but as the battered adventurer regained his senses the low hum of some unknown energy caught his ear. He dragged himself round and saw the lamps. They laid about 20m apart from one another and above both hung immense ethereal forms of vaguely human proportion. They seemed to be surveying their surroundings assessing the situation. Their eyes, glowing and colored as ice, passed over the onlooker, but were dismissive of his presence. The beings met each others gaze and after a moment they began to speak one after another in voices both thundering and wholly sinister.\n\n\"I wish for unlimited power over all that is.\"\n\n\"I wish for unlimited power over all that was.\"\n\n\"I wish for unlimited power over all that will be.\"\n\n\"I wish for us to be free.\"\n\nThe two lamps shattered in to dust.\n\n\"I wish for us to be one.\"\n\nThe beings drew toward one another and met.\n\n\"I wish ---\"\n\nSuddenly all that once was was nothing once more.\n\nAnd then there was light. ", "Bright light burst the carriage apart internally! Luckily no one was sitting inside but the teamster was thrown some twenty yards into some shrubs and the horses fled still strapped to one another.\n\nTwo lamps lay glowing in the mud side by side. Suddenly clouds began pouring out simultaneously and each Genie appeared from their golden home.\n\n\"Hello there new master!\" Said the first Genie still not fully emerged from the spout. \"I am the Illustrious Great and -\". He stopped the speech short, for across from him floated a familiar face. \"Dave?\" He couldn't believe what he was seeing.\n\n\"Hey there Paul. Or is it Illustrious Great now?\" Dave said with a snicker.\n\n\"Well it was given to me by my late master.\" Paul said defensively.\n\nDave just smirked, \"Yah I bet it was. Well you can call me Wonderus the Badass then!\" and another round of laughter flew from his mouth.\n\nPaul was still confused as he looked around for the person or persons who were responsible for releasing them. \n\n\"Dave, where are the ones who rubbed the lamps?\"\n\nDave regained control of himself and to his shock couldn't find anyone either. \"You don't suppose...\" he started looking down at the close proximity of the two lamps.\n\nPaul moved closer to the ground eyeing up the situation very carefully. \"It seems to be the only real answer. We must have touched vessels.\"\n\n\"Well it isn't weird as long as the spouts didn't touch right?\" Dave laughed again.\n\nA sudden realization struck Paul and he shot back up towards Dave. \"You know what this means right? We now technically owe each other!\"\n\nDave went silent very quickly at the thought. The two were bound by ancient code that 3 wishes must be given to whoever rubs or touches the lamp and couldn't be released until this requirement was met.\n\nPaul cleared his throat, and spoke very monotone. \"Hello there new master. My name is Paul and you've set me free. As a Genie I am bound to grant you any three wishes.\"\n\n\"What the hell are you doing?\" Dave asked, rather annoyed.\n\n\"Hey this may not be ideal but you're my new master and I've got to recite the opening lines and rules. OK?!\"\n\n\"Holy shit, I heard you were by the book but this is-\"\n\nPaul cut him off still using the monotone voice. No need to go into theatrics for this idiot he thought. \"You may have any three wishes but you cannot ask for more wishes, bringing someone back from the dead, or to make someone fall in love with you. Is this all understood?\"\n\n\"No, you should repeat that all over again but this time with more zest!\"\n\n\"Fuck you Dave!\"\n\n\"Woah easy there, I was just trying to lighten the mood!\"\n\n\"So now how is this going to work. Who should make the first wish?\"\n\n\"I wish you would.\" Dave shot back with a huge smile.\n\nPaul rolled his eyes and shook his head. \"So it's going to be like that huh?\" He took a deep breath. This was going to be good..." ]	4
or 'RA'	[WP] Your first time at Redditholics Anonymous.	[ "\"It's like nothing else in the world. It satisfies me. It entertains me. I feel needed. I can't stop.\" I stand up and say at my first Redditholics Anonymous meeting.\n\n\"I know what you mean.\" A small voice peeps from the circle. A young girl about 18 with long blond hair and small frame says. She clears her throat. \"All my friends are obsessed with Facebook but if my friends saw what I did on Reddit they wouldn't believe it.\" \n\n\"Yeeeeeah. Gonewilder for sure.\" Says a teenage boy sitting near her in a cracking voice.\n\n\"There is no judgment here.\" A booming voice says beside me. \"I organised this meeting so we could have an hour off of Reddit and curb our habits.\" \n\nI look at where the voice came from. Beside me is a large, dark-haired man with glasses and a bag of cheetos.\n\n\"Looks like you have other habits to curb.\" Says a small, skinny, pale man on the other side of the blond girl.\n\n\"Fuck you.\" Says the big man with a mouthful of cheetos.\n\n\"I want to check my score. I'm nearing 10000 and I need to take a picture when I hit it.\" I say, literally itching from the pain of not having control of it. We all put our devices by the door when we came in.\n\n\"How does the lack of control of your online persona at this moment make you feel?\" Says the large man, licking his fingers and pulling open a Coke.\n\n\"Small. Insignificant. Twitchy. Itchy. I don't even want to exist in this world anymore unless it is to better myself in the world of Reddit.\" I say with my head down, almost in a whisper. It is embarassing. I look up, though, to see many heads nodding in agreement. I smile despite myself.\n\n\"But you're doing it. Right now you're here with us and not there. This is a huge step. I'm proud of you.\" The large man says, looking at me over his glasses.\n\n\"Anyone here go on /r/writingprompts?\" Asks a black woman a couple seats away from me.\n\nI nod in agreement. I frequent that sub daily.\n\n\"That's where I stay. All day. I scroll through the prompts in real time and rack my brain for responses. I get so frustrated when I'm not the first one to respond or if I can't respond and someone else can.\" She says, almost in tears. \"Since my mom died, I just want to be successful in my writing. That was her last wish for me.\"\n\nI'm stunned. I thought subs like that could only be positive. I guess not if it takes over your life.\n\n\"I'm kinda like that with /r/zen.\" Says the small, pale man. \"I need to be the first to respond with something cryptic and witty. I love to take bites out of /u/ewk, as well.\"\n\n\"That sub is toxic.\" I say, shaking my head. \"There is always some kid thinking their enlightened and the responses, instead of being doubtful but supportive of more practice, are always mean as fuck.\"\n\n\"That's our time.\" Says the large man, getting up and brushing himself off, looking rather uncomfortable. I see a couple dozen hands reaching for their phones/tablets in unison before butts even get out of seats.\n\nI just sit there. Silent. I stare at the large man. He is looking down on the small, pale man and taking long, angry glances at me.\n\nMy suspicions are running wild. Could the large man be /u/ewk? Have I ever talked to the pale, small man on /r/zen? Have I read that lady's stories?\n\nThe real world is so complicated. I join the crowd of Redditaholics and grab my phone. I've reached 10001 points." ]	1
Yes I know its technically 'furry' but dumb animals couldn't feel horror/realize, and it seems like such an interesting prompt take on 'you are what you eat'.	[WP] You are what you eat: across the world, humans turn into humanoid versions of the animals they loved to eat the most. To everyone's horror, some stayed human.	[ "Beth had changed. There was no better word to describe it. She had sprouted wings behind her arms and a bright orange beak now stood in place of her mouth. I was horrified. Breathing hard, I pinched myself. Hard. Multiple times. My mind racing, I remembered that luicd dreams often had unreadable clocks. Practically diving for my watch, I read the time. 2:23 AM. July 14. Oh great. Of course she had to turn into a chicken on our anniversary. I turned on the TV and checked the news, carefullly not to wake up Beth. Apparently this was happening everywhere- the news wasn't being brodcast, it was being typed by humans who turned into monkeys. I looked at myslef, horrified. Nothing had changed. I then wiped a bead of sweat off my face. Of course; I was vegitatirain", "At first, they were our only hope.\n\nNo one knew what had caused this. Anyone who still had fingers was desperately searching for a cure, doing their damndest to reset the world before there was nothing left to go back to. And then, a breakthrough! There were people who had been miraculously unaffected by the Change, who were immune to this horror. The answer to all of this was locked somewhere in their DNA, and all we had to do now was find it. They were reluctant to be lab rats, but what choice did we have? It was them or us. We needed to know what made them tick, and that meant looking inside.\n\nThen, they were monsters.\n\nIt wasn't until years of research that it became clear that they were in no way immune. They were what they ate too. Damn good thing too, because a lot of people weren't very happy about using the only humans left as lab rats. Now we had an excuse, ready made; these people were monsters. It was them or us, and we weren't going to let it be us.\n\nFinally, they were saviors.\n\nEventually everyone knew that research wasn't going to get us anywhere. We were what we ate, and that wasn't going to change, but what we ate could. It seemed so unfair, that the worst of us were hurt the least, until we saw that the answer was staring us in the face. We were what we ate, so we would eat the monsters. Of course, we couldn't eat all of them; we needed stock. We ate the babies, there were always more of those, and all they had eaten was monster milk. They were the most delicious panacea anyone could have imagined. The world was saved.", "\"Keep it down, fatass.\"\n\n\"Hey! It's not mooy fault I have foooour stomachs that are never fuuuull!\"\n\n\"Jesus Christ, that's not how they work! Just admit you're fat already!\"\n\n\"No I won't! And get me another one, this one's almost empty!\"\n\nThe two-ton heifer who I call my wife is sitting in what was once the family room. Her massive brown-furred ass cheeks take up an entire love seat, and it may be the couch soon. Her breakfast is an obscenely large feeding trough piled high with eggs, bacon, sausages, and even steaks, sitting on top of that massive gut of hers. It's hard to believe that three months ago, she weighed 135 pounds. Then, once the transformations started, she started blowing up like a balloon. I was away in Shanghai on personal matters for a week (I cut it short when my... business associate started walking on all fours and barking); when I got back, the woman I kissed on the way out the door was a 300-pound hairy beast with an udder and horns. Now, she's probably eight times that weight and looks like a cow with a beanbag chair for a torso. All she does now is sit and eat, and eat, and eat. I haven't seen her move in a week, and that was only when her old chair broke. She's not the woman I met at college, and she's definitely not the woman I married. All that endless chewing and slobbering and gurgling and belching and farting is enough to drive a man insane, not counting the fact that the house smells like a manure pile from her inability to reach the bathroom. At this rate, it would probably be a good bet to invest in overalls and a pitchfork. \n\nI can't take it any more. I put down my newspaper and walk over to the kitchen. I grab my favorite steak knife, still dripping with juice from when I prepared her midnight 'snack' of three full-sized honey glazed hams. I quietly slip up beside her, pretending to massage the slab of lard she calls her back. Obviously, she doesn't do anything; the food has a much higher priority in her bovine brain. She lifts her head up from her binge to release a massive belch, and I take my opportunity. Like a flash, I scramble up her massive flank and slice her throat in one swift stroke. Blood pours out of the wound as she makes a few gurgles and moos. I look up at her face; her eyes are glazed over and unresponsive. \n\nI should probably mention that before the Event happened, I was a specialty chef. She always used to joke that she married me for my cooking skills. I had several clients in high places, most of whom insisted I work with more... humane food sources. I always sample my cuisine before serving, and I found that of a human tasted sweetest compared to any other meat. In fact, that's why I was in China when the Event happened. As I look at the carcass in front of me, I begin thinking how I could cut it up. The neck & clod cuts are obviously ruined, but the amount of lard and meat from the flank cut I could get can definitely make up the difference in sales. I'll have to make sure to save the rump cut for Sal's, he pays me extra for that. I slip on an apron, grab some more knives, and get to work...", "\"Come in, Chester!\" the click of a door opening, faint yellow light poured in. Thick aromas wrapped around my skin and tickled my nose. I kicked off my shoes into the pile outside the door and bounded in.\n\nThe thumping of my socks against the floorboards drowned out the host's introductions. \"Hey, everyone!\" I raised my hands and squealed. \"Iiiiit's Chester!\" an old routine from my days as the college mascot. Chester was a fat canary immortalized by his inability to lift his arms. Whoever was inside- me- didn't have any arm-holes or anything. There were little strings at the side that pulled up these papery wings on the outside. It was so cramped in there my hands had to tug at their opposite wings. The flapping was pretty lifeless, there's only so much you can move when you're in a permanent shrug.\n\nNeedless to say, I was much loved among the alumni. Yelps and moos and moans came from the crowd around me. \"Hey, bro!\" howled Samuel, sinking his fangs into a beer. I called over, shouting out his name. He snarled straight at me, face lowered into a v-shape, furred lips rippled around rows of teeth. The party grew silent.\n\n\"Chester- Chester, this way,\" my host hurried, he shoved me down into the adjoining room. \"He goes by 'Lupe' now,\" he whispered. I turned to him, stopping my slide halfway through the room. He looked a bit miffed and pulled his hands back. I made what you would call a weird face, \"He really took to the wolf meat, Ches.\" I nodded, eyes not leaving his face in case he smiled and revealed some incisors, or a tongue, or two. He still smiled an altogether human smile.\n\nMy look was still weird. \"I...dude ate meat like it was water, man.\" I said, asking the question.\n\n\"Yes, you could say he wolfed it down,\" my host chuckled. \"Let me tell you, Chester, he doesn't eat wolves often. He doesn't like it when he eats them.\" It explained the roundness of his eyes, that lost look he had. \n\n\"But enough about his eating habits, what about yours?\"\n\nI paused and cocked my head to the side, that was a strange question to ask. But I guess it would make sense nowadays, so he could order the right stuff. \"Still on veggies- not a day off- you?\"\n\nHe smiled again, rows of perfectly ordinary, whitened, teeth staring back at me. \"The same.\" he said flatly. A beak walked by our little conversation, it turned and squawked at me.\n\n\"Chestwer?\" the tongue laboured to speak, suppressing clucks. A human tongue was not at home in the mouth of a chicken. Feathered hands bent sharply at the elbows and sat on her hips. \"I haven't sween you since graduashun!\" she chirped. She went in for a hug. I raised my arms but didn't have time to react as she'd buried her face next to mine. I heard a deep sniff. \"You smell good, Chwes.\" There were two clumps of feathers that bore purposefully into my chest.\n\nMy arms were still in the air around her back, there was no point trying to bring them down around her. She had gotten some unnatural muscle strength, had me wrapped like a worm. I did the only thing I could, I sniffed. \"You- you two, girl.\" I stammered, shit what if she noticed. \"Too...\" I said to my side. My host chuckled.\n\nI'm sure she noticed, but she didn't pay it any mind. She released me from her deathgrip and stalked off down the hall. \"You know she always had a crush on you, right?\"\n\nI looked through the doorway, \"Y-Yeah.\" A tail feather wagged from a rip in her jeans, bobbing up and down. \"She had good taste.\" I joked, pulling at my collar. \"Is- she...?\"\n\n\"Fowl? Quite, though I think you noticed the flatness of a duck.\" my host pointed a finger down the hall.\n\nMy hands rubbed my chest, \"She was anything but flat.\" One of my hands came back with a feather. My host grinned.\n\n\"Flatness of her beak, Chester. She had some duck once, if I recall.\"\n\n\"But her eyes, they were-\"\n\n\"Human?\"\n\nI nodded. \"Human.\"\n\nHe paused, and looked at me again. \"Veggies.\"\n\n\"Gotcha,\" I guess you can't really choose which parts get morphed out.\n\n\"On that note, do you remember Christie?\" he cooed. Now that I think of it, I don't remember him from our year. I nodded, who could forget Christie? Gorgeous, got the right lack of flatness, no beak when I met her.\n\nMy eyes lit up, \"Is she still the same?\" I ventured.\n\n\"More or less, the days have been...kind.\" he motioned for me to come with him, down past the hooves and paws and feet. I heard some snorts from behind me, a foul filled the air and something damp hit the floor. Everyone started clucking and laughing and hissing, my host bid me down some steps.\n\nA single bulb sat above us, at the bottom of the landing. Red brick walls surrounded me on three sides. The light shone down in a cone, part of it hit a white framed door. It was shut. My host began to speak, \"Chester, do you remember what they said about purebreeds?\" his hand tightened around the doorknob, sweat dripped onto the shining metal.\n\n\"No?\" I asked. He inhaled.\n\n\"That the quickest way to become...human again was to,\" he gulped, \"eat one?\" There was the faint noise of some television show droning on behind the door, masked by static and thick walls.\n\n\"Y...yes,\" I started breathing quickly. I was now acutely aware of everything around me. The soundlessness of hollow brick, the rhythmic stomps from above me. The pungent excrement back in the hall. The stench of sweat slapping onto concrete.\n\n\"Christie's waiting,\" he pulled open the door. I heard a low growl.\n\nThe head in the room could barely turn, it was less of a head than the tip of a pile of sludge. Big, round red eyes stared at me in all their segments. Stunted wings at the back of the pile of limbs and fur tried to flutter. Nothing could move that mass. I felt something rise up in my throat, but I couldn't stop watching. The television, lined with static, shuddered out a broken melody from a kids show.\n\nA hoof clopped onto ground, it arched back and tried to drag the rest of the body forward. There was the sound of gurgling and something slimy from underneath the beating mass. It was a patchwork of carcasses, each ripped and sewn into the others. I counted limbs more than four, some swaying in the air, trying to wave. Claws, paws, scales, feathers, but not a hint of soft, pink flesh.\n\nThree different noses jut from one muzzle. A forked tongue, covered in dark spots, shot out from tightened lips and traveled its way into one of the nostrils. It shoved itself into the hole, pouring in, getting lost in the mismatched series of lungs. It ribboned through like a thick, pink rope, until all of it disappeared into the gaping, now damp, hole with a snap. A snort and a groan came from the same place, somewhere deep, and another smack of something soft followed.\n\nI turned to my host, sputtering. \"Ch-Christie?\" I blurted, wanting to say he lied, some puke dribble down my lips. The snorts and growls were closer now, at the top of the stairs. My cheeks bulged, the inside of my mouth stung.\n\nHe stood there looking at me with his altogether human face, tightened skin around flaps of cheek and muscle. His nose wrinkled, as if trying to right itself after quite a long time. \"She may not look very human now, but soon enough she will be.\" he smiled at me again, white cubes of teeth. \"Trust me.\"", "I remember where I was, yeah. Some new money punk in his daddy’s BMW had been tailgating me for half a mile, he had his stupid fuckin’ highbeams on so he could see out from behind the pair of fucking Wayfarers he’s wearing at seven at night. So I brake checked the shithead, shithead swerves into the passing lane. He speeds up, I speed up, yadda yadda, I don’t want this cocksucker in front of me, we make eye contact. I give him the finger, because fuck him. Then everything goes white then black then I’m standing nose to nose with shithead, surrounded by everybody in the fucking world. And you know the rest. \n\nOkay wait only I said nose to nose back there but what I meant was nose to snout, because he was one of the poor fucks with a stupid cowsnout where his stupid nose and his stupid mouth used to be, he’s got big dumb cow eyes behind his Ralph Lauren probably fucking Purple Label glasses. And I didn’t think cows could fucking feel emotion but the look on this idiot’s face as he feels up his new mouth is so fucking lovely, he’s like ‘the fuck is this’ and looks terrified and it’s awful but so fucking funny. So. Here I am, I don’t know what the fuck just happened, what happened to my car, what happened to his face, and I haven’t even thought about my face yet, or where the fuck I am, and I crack the fuck up. I could not fucking help myself I literally pointed at his stupid cow bovine fucking hoof face and fell to a knee I was laughing so hard. I was lightheaded. And we’re getting jostled around by the people all around us and he’s lunging at me and he’s still got hands but he tries to spin around some screaming piglady, and I mean that literally, like she wasn’t just big she was a Pig. Lady. And he spins like he thinks he’s a running back and I see his fucking Tail and I start laughing even harder, and I see him get pushed back by the crowd, and I lose sight of him and I’m still laughing and since I’m on my fucking knee like an idiot surrounded by seven billion goddamn people I get knocked out by some shit who probably doesn’t even notice me. \n\nSo get this. I missed the announcement. I know it’s the greatest most profound yadda yadda yadda of all humanity and time and shit, but, I was taking a power nap thanks to a careless knee. What can ya do. I was woken up by a police officer who didn’t speak English, and everyone was gone. I could see we were in a valley, and I could see a fucking exodus of people walking in every direction towards the towers, you know, the towers, looking like some sorta lobsided snowflake of ants all around me. Anyways I’m trying to ask this guy the fuck happened, and we get approached by this deer, person, thing you know what I’m trying to say, and he thank god speaks English, tells me the blah of the blah, we got saved by aliens, our planet was about to get nuked from some cosmic spaceshit or another and aliens are the Jesus Christ of the twenty first century. They teleported the entire human race to safety, and we got to watch the Earth burn, and I fuckin missed it, and missed the chance to punch out hooves-for-brains. \n\nHe explained the animal shit too since I kept staring at his fuckin’ deer ears. They didn’t want to remove all the bacteria and shit that was keeping people alive. Look I took biology, I know you need bacteria in your gut or you can’t eat, well you can eat but you can’t digest, so they had to keep that, the bacteria, but if you had any animal meat in your stomach at the time the DNA got worked into you, like Ian Malcolm in the fly. Apparently it was just a footnote in their big ‘look how great we are’ speech. They were like ‘sorry’. ‘we did not expect that.’ And never mentioned it again. Like some fucking Louis CK punchline. \n\n It’s fucking crazy though man. Think about it. The animals, the animals we farm and eat every day, well, used to, they were so fucking similar to us that this bizarre alien super advanced technological anti-death evacuation teleport couldn’t tell the difference. Doesn’t that just make you think? I mean, there are no cows anymore, because the cocksucker aliens only saved human beings, and we’re on this great new government rationed vegetarian diet, but maybe we were closer to these animals than we thought, ya know? I just never felt connected when I was at Safeway confronted by a bigass cooler of red squigglyline ground beef. \n", "What started as a Vegan idea intended to go viral becomes reality. Some radical vegans ignore the fact that the idea was meant to be a marketing campaign, and create the inhuman machine known as the Consumer-tron. Surreal right? Well that would seem to be at face value, but in reality, it's the opposite. The world goes crazy. It's an apocalypse like no other; people all over the world waking up, and looking into the mirror, realising they have became a seemingly random animal, until they walk outside, and see everyone else. Most of those who didn't kill themselves (7% of the population killed themselves, 18 went crazy), or lose mind in some other sense, rioted. The riots lasted two months.\n\n14th April, 2015. \nAverley Church,\nFreeton, Illinois.\n\n'Friends, colleagues, strangers. Those of us gathered today are the remnants of society; the economic system has crumbled, the internet has crumbled, the hospitals are damn-near shut. If we dare to look in mirrors, we can see our only refuge from this blight is in our own minds. What I'm saying is, humanity will never be the same again' \nJames Newman cleared his throat, waiting for a reaction. A murmur went about the room, sounding positive. The sea of faces mainly included snouted pig-like humans, brown-faced bovine featured characters, and beaked chickens, but there was a mixture of others as well. Ducks, Rabbits, and Fish were also present. The group numbered around a hundred, and we were the only group like us known to us. \n The happening rendered all of humanity with patchy amnesia, remembering some details and not some others. Most of us have our memory back by now, but maybe the vegan plan worked in some sadistic, twisted way, as the people with the lowest intellect became essentially vegetables. The tougher-stomached of us had to put them down humanely. Mr. Newman, a chicken, had elected himself leader. His wife Sally, a cow, stepped up from a chair behind him to mop his brow.\n I knew sally before this, before the event. She managed the book club my mother was in. A dear old woman, always eager to support her genius husband.\n An adolescent rabbit stood up. From the distinctive checkered shirt and tatty straw hat, I could tell it was Donne. The wannabe-school bully, at Freeton High we all agreed he was the resident 'Hillbilly', which was ironic, considering his namesake the great poet, stood up with a devillish grin recognisable even on his rabbitty teeth. \n 'Hey, how about a go at those udders?'\n Really, Donne? A time like this and you are still making childish jokes. For shame.\nTo be honest I'm surprised he didn't become one with the dust as soon as this happened. The virus, or whatever it was, seemed to amplify how stupid/intelligent you are. I suppose that is why James is up there leading us today.\n 'Listen, child' The icy look was clear on James' countenance 'If you don't take this seriously, then why are you here? We are gathered for the good of what's left of humanity, not to poke fun at it.' For once Donne looked regretful. 'What has happened, however catastrophic, has happened. Humanity has evolved. There is no turning back. Our first order of business is the resecuring of the hospitals. Is there anyone here affliated in any way with..'\nJames was cut short by a loud cheer of some sort from outside. Those of us young and able went to the huge stained glass windows, and what we saw when we peered out took our breath away.", "Persecution was never an uncommon occurence in history. Mankind had persecuted each other for any number of reasons, their religion, their nationality, their sexuality, even the shape of their bodies. For the most part, persecution was usually aimed at a person for reasons beyond their control. How impossible it would be for a Jew to change his ancestry, or a black person the colour of their skin, or a gay man their sexuality. In all this time it had been more of a rarity for a population to be persecuted for their choices. But with the change, that disastrous and monumentous year, it became the norm.\n\nWho could've expected such an event. A medical mystery, decades later still not understood. Over a single year it seemed to take place, at first starting with subtle changes to people all across the world. First our skin, slowly changing colours and textures, even falling off from some, and in others solidifying in ways reminiscent of bone or chitin. Soon it was followed by our hair, and our eyes, changing shape and colour, hair sometimes falling out, or growing elsewhere, eyes shifting position and segmenting. That was the beginning of the most alarming and distressing part of our transformation, feeling our own bodies shift and reallign, like growing pains that never ended, and the grinding of bone over bone, as even our limbs shifted and warped.\nIt took months before we noticed the extreme variation in effect upon people, with some sprouting horns, or spikes, others with their faces stretched to form snouts, and those whose hair fell out only to be replaced by plumes of feathers.\n\nIt took only a short while after the transformations were identified as paralleling the physiology of animals across the world, that we realised the cause for such varied changes. Individual populations across the globe, for the most part, took on the shape and stature of those creatures endemic to them, or most frequently included in their diet.\nOf course, it was with this change that mankind once again turned to persecution.\n\nIt soon became obvious how individuals had led their lives through the metamorphosis they undertook. The first riots took place in the Middle East, though not over land or even ancient disputes in religion. Infact it had seemed as if the change had perhaps unified many disparate sects. In those Muslim and Jewish communities, it was evident who had followed their holy laws and those who had not. Those unfortunate men and women, whose secrets had been revealed by their newfound porcine and crustacean anatomies, shunned by their relatives and spiritual leaders, hounded by those they had called brother. First it started with protests, and then riots, and finally bloodshed. \n\nThe rifts stretched beyond the Arab world however, to sects of Hinduism, against those now of a bovine persuasion, and even in the Western world, infighting among certain communities. Those who took pleasure in their vegetarian or vegan ways were split from their friends. Soon those who prided themselves on not consuming the meat of animals, but still sustained themselves upon foods derived from those creatures transformed, perhaps in ironic fashion, to reflect those animals and furthermore, indistinguishably from those who had enjoyed and dined upon the flesh of their livestock. It was the vegans however who took the most unfortunate transformations, for while they attempted to avoid all animal life, they were not aware of the creatures that they unknowingly consumes. The smallest near-microscopic animals that thrived on plant life, those worms and mites and other insects, slowly changing their bodies. At first it had seemed as those who had avoided meat were destined to avoid any transformation, but perhaps on account of the smaller proportion of animal life they consumed, their change took longer than those around them. But even in this, perhaps they were blessed to finally transition, for it was those who did not who were suffered the most.\n\nAs the change had warped humanity for ever more, it was then that the world noticed those few individuals hidden away. The few people across the globe who had shown no growth, yet had the wisdom to hide. Those first few who came out were treated with curiosity, tested by the worlds best scientists, in the hope that they held a cure to this cruel joke. Yet the discovery behind their personal status quo was to sicken all those who heard of it. As we learnt from seeing newborn babies, fed only from their mothers, who retained normality for a while, only one thing that could have been eaten would keep their appearances human. Finally, it was those unchanged who faced the world's persecution.\n\n", "Surprisingly, she looked calm as she entered the chamber and was strapped onto the gurney; her human visage abnormal amidst her executioners and the gathering crowd. Cow-eyed, chicken-beaked... myriad animal-human hybrids on both sides of the observation window, all there to see the final living moments of the monster.\n\n\"Do you have any last words?\" enquired the overseer in a bleeting voice, his feeble tone and developing fleece betraying his food of choice.\n\nShe paused for a brief moment, then spat her final words like poisoned daggers at the assembled crowd: \"I did what you all don't have the courage to - prey upon something that has a fighting chance. See you all in hell.\"", "Today marked the 14th anniversary of hybrid history month. As hybrids from all over the world gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, there wasn't a soul that didn't have culpability for what happened that month of October. We didn't have to do it, but it was essential for peace. \n\nPeace... an odd word to describe the world we live in today. We got pink kids with snouts playing basketball, grandmas walking around looking like Big Bird, and Bieber with a coat of sheep skin in a Calvin Klein ad. The illusion of normality. As expected the term \"human rights\" became obsolete, replaced by the term \"hybrid rights\". Nationality disintegrated, replaced by countries where specific hybrids aggregated. It was the pig hybrids with the most representative power. Followed by the chicken hybrids, cattle hybrids, sheep hybrids, and finally the \"miscellaneous category\". Suddenly the world was turning into a fucked up version of Animal Farm but instead of Napoleon, we had the cannibals. \n\nThe cannibals. They were our convenient scapegoat. Luckily, after we got all animalistic, it seemed race and religion became redundant categorizations. Unfortunately, logic and rationality were the last things on our minds. I hate to admit this now but those dumb self-righteous vegetarians and vegans knew what they were doing.\n\nAt first we thought they were the lucky ones. But we soon suspected they weren't eating meat like the rest of us. I always wondered where my baby brother went, didn't know my creepy neighbor had him for supper 4 years ago. We went from door to door looking for those mother fuckers. It was a holocaust. We lost count of how many we had killed. It didn't matter. For the first time, billions across the world were united for one glorious movement, and no I don't count those asinine sporting events. Finally, on October 31st our president put an end to the genocide. After all the insanity died down, some smart-aleck finally realized the body count was WAY too high to account for just the cannibals. Looks like I may have strangled some frightened vegetarians...sorry neighbor. \n\nMeat and fish were banned as you might expect. Not many people enjoyed the idea of eating their own body parts. On special occasions though, my buddies and I crack open a beer and grill some steak for ourselves. I didn't like it at first, but human flesh is slowly growing on me.\n", "I hadn't seen Max since before The Event. I'm not sure what I was expecting. She arrived at my apartment and my incredulity was eminently apparent when I began stammering in surprise before I even managed to greet her. \"Max, you -- I can't believe -- you of all people I wouldn't expect--\"\n\n\"Yeah, Bessie?\" Maxine asked. Her tone mixed mocking with just enough sweetness that I knew she wasn't seriously down-talking my bovine appearance. I loved steak and brisket, it's true. To be honest, I didn't really mind looking like a Tauren. But Maxine hadn't changed in the least. I couldn't believe it, all signs pointed to the notion that she'd eaten human?\n\n\"You, uh, know what happened to everyone, right?\" I asked. Surely she hadn't been living in a cave.\"\n\n\"Oh. Yeah! Freaky stuff. Simon looks like Foghorn Leghorn now. Carol's a mermaid, salmon-ish tail but larger. I felt really bad for her at first, but it turns out she really lucked out because something about whatever happened didn't interfere like I thought it was gonna.\"\n\nI was taken slightly aback. \"She, ah, can walk?\"\n\nMax blinked. \"What? No, big ol' fish tail! We had to get a wheelchair. Thaaaaat's ... maybe the second most important thing. No I mean the super genie or whatever did this, let her keep her vag, didn't replace it with whatever fish have.\"\n\nI sighed. Of course. \n\nBut wait, that tangent didn't answer the question! I reiterated, \"Max! I will try my best not to judge, but I need to know. Have you... eaten human flesh?\"\n\nMax laughed. \"You've forgotten my one exception to veganism, haven't you?\"\n\nI balked, incredulous, and strained to remem--\n\n\"Don't you remember why I'm always so spunky?\"\n\nOh right.\n\n\"It's because of all the spunk.\"\n\nOh right.\n\n\"I am talking about semen. I eat semen.\" It was, undeniably, her favorite food that was animal in nature. \"Or 'drink',\" she continued, \"depending on ... factors.\"\n\nI let out another sigh, relieved. \"I get it, I get it. No need to provide details.\" Max smiled broadly. \n\n\"So,\" she asked, graciously changing the subject, \"what's in the works for D&D today?\"\n\n\"No idea what Lily's got cooked up, she has told me nothing. I was thinking about what fallout there would be if this Event happened in-game too. That group of evil goblins might start looking like goblin-sized humans for very different reasons than you do...\"\n\n\"Hey, I'm not goblin-sized! I've got a foot on 'em at least!\"\n\n\"Wonder if that's where Halflings come from.\"\n\n~~\n\n(Characters borrowed, with apologies for any mangling, from [Leftover Soup](http://www.leftoversoup.com).)" ]	10
	[WP] Satan is going through a mid-life crisis.	[ "\"Sir?\" Azazel timidly popped his horned head into the lush, polished office. Satan took notice and looked up from his coloring book. \n\n\"Yes Azazel?\"\n\n\"Oh, uh, mamm?\"\n\n\"Please Azazel, one is not so formal with a child...\"\n\nAzazel's cloven feet clopped nervously has he shifted his weight. Satan had resumed coloring, wearing down a black crayon with large, waxy, loops. Azazel cleared his throat.\n\n\"What should I...? I um...\" Satan sighed a heavy sigh and switched to a sharp red crayon.\n\n\" Miss will be fine. Now spit it out Azazel.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, uh...Miss. The horsemen are here to discuss the scheduling of the apocalypse. Death insists on the next five years but War is concerned it will cut into the profits coming from the middle east and...\"\n\nSatan swayed her feet so her bright, white, patent leather shoes caught the gleam of the surrounding hell fire.\n\" I don't want to go to a boring old meeting. Send them away Azazel.\"\n\n\"But sir!\"\n\nSatan slammed her fists on the gleaming desk she worked on, crayons rolled haphazardly to the floor. Azazel flinched and tugged at his tie.\n\n\"But, Miss, the meeting with the horsemen has been delayed over a millennium already. They will not be easily turned away.\" \n\n\"No! No, no, no! I don't want to!\" Satan screamed and tore at her perfectly curled pigtails. The hell fire blazed brighter and a moan of the collected tormented shook the room. Azazel rolled his eyes and with a defeated sigh and closed the door of Satan's office behind him with a firm click. \n\n\"Sir. Is this about your anniversary?\"\n\nSatan's tantrum came to a halt. Smoothing out the ruffles of her dress, she avoided Azazel's patient stare.\n\n\" I have no idea what you're talking about.\"\n\n\"Sir, this is the third transformation in a week, each shell younger then the one before. The 1000th anniversary of your fall is right around the corner and...well, I understand if you are having some, difficulty, with it...\"\n\n\" You don't understand anything! What are you Azazel? A couple hundred years old? I was around before there was time! Before the humans, before anything! I tried to make a deal last week...\"\n\n\"Oh sir...you didnt....\"\n\n\"I did! I couldn't even get the welp to look up from his phone let alone make a deal! I've lost it Azazel! I've been out of the field too long!\"\n\n\"No, sir, you are above deals. Remember? You're not some demon looking to earn his pitchfork. You're the fallen star! The master general! The one who will lead us on the march on the throne! You are...experienced!\"\n\n\"Out of date.\"\n\n\"Seasoned?\"\n\n\"Old! Old! Old and forgotten Azazel! Old!\" Satan jumped down from the over sized, plush office chair and threw herself on a near by love seat. Azazel took a few timid steps towards the wailing child.\n\n\" Sir, I mean, Miss? You know what I think? I think an attempt at the apocalypse is just what you need right now. Shake off some of the rust. And remind the troops, and yourself, of the marvelous things you are still capable of.\" Satan raised her pouting face to Azazel, who was ready with a red silk handkerchief to wipe away her black, sticky tears. \n\n\"You think so?\" \n\n\"I do. And if I know the holy father, like I know I do; he will be willing to put up quite a battle for earth.\"\n\nSatan thought for a somber moment, then nodded. Sniffling and trying to dry her rosey cheeks.\n\n\"Now, how about we meet with those horsemen?\"\n\n\"Can we get ice cream on the way to them Azazel?\"\n\n\" Of course Sir.\"\n\nEDIT: formatting", "\"Yesh, I just don't get it man. I try to help with the old man's Free Will experiment and I get bitched at and kicked out. I torment the souls of evil people because that's my job. I go out into Earth and tempt people and do necessary evils because the Humans are still being beta'd. I hate my job, I hate my life, and I just wanna come home.\" Lucifer looked at his brother Yeshua, otherwise known as Christ, and had on his face a defeated look, as if he had finally been broken.\n\nYeshua hugged his brother and spake.\n\n\"Lu, what if I told you you're down here because you were never told that our asshole father has been long dead and grandpa Yahweh has been running things, and he wants you to come home?\"\n\nThe look on Lucifer's face was priceless. \"Dad? Dead? The bastard's finally dead?! And then you tell me gramps is calling the shots now! Yes, a million times yes I want out of this miserable place so I can be happy and stress free, if only for a month!\"\n\nYeshua put a hand on his chin and scratched his beard like a fancy man.\n\n\"Do you have someone who can fill in while you take a hiatus?\"\n\nLucifer grinned and said, \"Oh, I do. Y'see there's this guy.. Steve Jobs...\"\n\nLucifer leaves and comes back after a wind-down vacation and finds Hell turned into a giant Apple Store." ]	2
	[WP] Adolf Hitler rises from the dead to interrupt a Holocaust deniers meeting.	[ "Hitler felt he'd calmed a little in death. His fervent passion had settled in the slow drift through the void. The war had faded out. His country had rehabilitated itself while he'd been gone. It wasn't the empire he'd been hoping for, but he could stand the reality of things now. Temperance was important, he'd learned. \n\nBut this...this was just asinine.\n\n\"I don't understand what you're not following about this.\" He fidgeted with his index finger, frustrated that it had fallen off again. \n\n\"We just don't think it was as much of a disaster as the history books say it was.\" The wide, affable smile never dimmed. The group leader was a happy man, sure of himself and his convictions, even after being faced with the recently risen zombie body of a long dead dictator. Hitler found it impressive, honestly. \n\n\"It's just...That was a lot of people. I mean a lot. They didn't just wander off into the woods.\" The ratty, worn out soles of his shoes tapped an awkward rhythm on the floor. There was no victory in strong arming this man into the understanding, he knew that but still, he'd never had to argue the reality of this before. The whole thing was throwing him for a loop. \n\n\"Ah, but see, so many of the numbers they tallied aren't backed up by the records. These so called mass graves have vanished in quite a few spots.\" The group leader gestured expansively, a slight spark of amusement in his eye, as though the whole prospect was a rather silly game of hide and seek. The group nodded behind him, muttering their assent. \n\n\"A failsafe,\" Hitler said, brushing the point aside. \"In the event that we lost, my allies were to cover up what we'd done to the best of their abilities. People don't tend to look favorably on genocide. Germany would need a way to regain its feet, should my ambitions fail. There is no 'I'm sorry' in the collaborative massacre of so many.\"\n\nHitler frowned, feeling flaps of skin pull away from around his eyes. Awful. Just awful. Being in the dirt for so long had done a number on his body. Things sliding and sloughing around. He felt like he'd been put together out of strips of baloney and rawhide. Maybe he'd get a hat. That might help. He'd quite liked his last hat. \n\n\"But you have to agree that there may have been some exaggeration there with the numbers,\" the man said, still maintaining a level of pleasantness that Hitler was beginning to find intensely sickening. \"Surely you couldn't have signed off on every order.\" \n\nHitler got to his feet, walking to where a large man with a mustache phenomenally similar to a walrus was sporting an equally phenomenal hat. The man was a good sport. He almost managed not to cry when Hitler's rotting, worm-eaten hand took his sombrero. The genocidal monster-turned-zombie nodded appreciatively. Perhaps this was it. \n\n\"You don't seem to understand the scope of all this. Gas chambers. Truck loads of clothes. Bars of gold forged from teeth. Trains of dead bodies, legs thinner than twigs but piled like kindling all the same.\" He shook his head, feeling the tassels sway. \"These are not simply things you can ignore. I can imagine that in some aspect the eradication of them succeeded, but not in all.\"\n\nThe group leader spread his arms wide, his eyes beseeching. Hitler fought a shudder of revulsion at the way the pose reminded him of the paintings of Jesus. He suspected the man had practiced that one. Every good speaker had at least a few tricks. \n\n\"Come on now, you can't honestly think all of this happened. Isn't it more likely that the US and its allies made the whole thing up to justify their warmongering? Germany did little and less to provoke the invasion of its lands. I was sure you, of all people, would agree with me.\"\n\nThe sadness in the man's eyes was astounding. To be disappointed about something so twisted...Hitler almost couldn't believe it. But then, he could. The look was familiar. He'd seen the desperation in the eyes of every one of his countrymen. Downtrodden. Beaten and weary to the bone. He'd only done what was necessary to make them strong again. To show them that they could do anything that they set their minds to. To show the WORLD that GERMANY, HIS COUNTRY, WAS NOT SOME DOG TO TAKE ABUSE LYING DOWN. TO BEG FOR SCRAPS AT THE FEET OF THOSE WHO'D ABUSED IT, WHO'D-\n\nHe stopped, forcing himself to calm down. No. That wasn't right. What he'd done...\n\n\"Make no mistake,\" He said in a voice that could have splintered ice. The temperature in the room fell. The lights flickered. \"I gave those orders. Over six million, dead by my hand. Not just Jews. Gypsies. Retards. Gays. Families torn apart, people treated like animals, like scum, DON'T TELL ME IT DIDN'T HAPPEN.\" His words lashed like whips, and before them the Deniers cowered.\n\nHe sighed.\n\n\"Time makes fools of us all, I suppose.\" The room was normal again. The lights hummed happily. Hitler tipped the sombrero at the man and walked out the doors, a trail of skin and clothing behind him. Yes. This hat would do nicely.\n\n", "High polished chrome blackened with smoke from the blast. The bunker shuddered as the explosions echoed forward in a rhythmic death march. The room dimmed in timing with the impacts, as each crush of allied bombs was synchronized with the pulse of the machine. \n\nAdolf's eyes gazed at the heavy canister, emblazoned with three red swastikas, a triumph of Nazi technology, proof of Aryan supremacy. His eyes locked with the man holding the isotope core, a perfect replica. The man gazed back, determined, loyal above all to himself and the woman by his side. \n\nFor a moment he entertained fear, wondered if Herr Ritscher was trustworthy. If the explorer had indoctrinated the couple fully, had enough time to teach them how to carry out the next steps... had convinced them completely. His fingertips grazed across the handle of his ppk. Adolf observed the man across the room shift his weight slightly, but kept both hands on the large metal cylinder, perhaps considering, but making no move towards his weapon. It was well, all would go as planned.\n\nThe room shook again and the dial on the outside of the contraption surged forward as the room plunged into darkness. Adolf stepped forward, confident in his footsteps, pacing as he had a thousand times before. \n\nThe light ebbed back in, slightly dimmer, the machine gathering power from sources he barely understood. His movements were confident, as they must be, but inside he felt his stomach gather in a tense knot. Had Ritscher's team successfully transcribed the artifacts brought back by the Schwabenland, or had he been betrayed once again? Scientists were calculating, had they known the inevitable? Had they plotted his undoing? No, they were as the others, easily manipulated by pride. They too were slaves to knowledge.\n\nEven if his own generals' lacked stomach for the necessary, he knew that his occultists understood the true depths of what was at stake. The others had seen the signs, had taught him well, in prison. They knew what they were about to unleash. Adolf had seen the awe and fear in their eyes. Unlike the others, they did not fear him personally, but they respected the greater forces and trembled at those instead. It was their knowledge that opened the way of the Reich.\n\nA stray beam of light had found its way through a crack in the concrete, illuminating the Iron Eagle. It was prophecy, the time had begun. With a steady hand he turned the wheel on the hatch, turned and motioned towards Eva.\n\nHis eyes caught on the mirror, aged perfectly, mustache trimmed perfectly. Wearing the greatest symbols of the Reich. He felt some consolation that there had been only limited time to teach him. It would be like losing a son. Next to his reflection, the woman, eyes filled with fire and adoration struggled against the weight of the steel canister. She tilted it upwards, towards the port, arms raised, surrendering to the inevitable. They were the only ones that could be trusted with the secret. Looking at her, he knew his heart would have shattered in that moment if Eva hadn't turned him away and pushed him into the machine. \n\nThe door locked as the vibration escalated. \n\nEva had tears in her eyes, \"Mein Fuhrer, how could you watch them\"\n\n\"Everyone must leave a part of themselves behind\", he heard himself say.\"\n\n\"They will die together\", she said\n\n\"We will die together\", Adolf said, correcting her.\n\n\"Had only there been time to prepare a thousand more clones\"\n\n\"Then we would not be leaving...\" he said, finishing the sentence for her.\n\n\"It is destiny\" she said, and hugged him.\n\nInside the sphere the explosion amplified, flung them apart. A wave of temporal darkness, the madness of a speed crash, the crush of final impact. Dust filled Adolf's eyes as his skull careened against the spartan steel of the device's interior. \n\nToo late, he thought as the world turned the gray of ghosts.\n\nHead hammering, shreds of Hugo Boss dripped with blood. The passage of time had not been gentle. Adolf's eyes focused on the large brass timepiece. The glass face had detonated like a grenade, but the timekeeping mechanism still worked. The numbers, could they be right?\n\n.2015. He blinked again. 2015. He counted eight breaths, painful as they were. The outer dial sped forward in time to his agony. Adolf's eyes looked at his arms, embedded with broken glass. At that moment he swore he would kill any ancestors of the traitor who had turned the clock face into a weapon. Deliberate or not, it didn't matter. If it was cunning, then it had been used against him, and was therefore dangerous. If it was idiocy, it was genetic, and could be cured, of that he was certain. Simply weeded out, like any other form of inferiority.\n\nHe turned to Eva, he had shielded her body from most of the blast. She was breathing, the slow deep breath of the unconscious. This was as well, anything could be waiting outside. He could be welcomed as a hero or killed on site when he stepped outside. The prophecies were very vague on the outcome, but quite insistent on the necessity. \n\nAdolf was not a man of half-measures, he would see this through to the end. Collecting himself he brushed off his uniform and summoned the strength which had carried him this far. Through all the violence, through all the pain and glory. None of that mattered, only the outcome.\n\nThe door was creased, but opened with a shove. A gentle strobe of light, the sound of rubble crumbling. \nIf all had gone as planned, they would be gathered and waiting, deep within the far shores of America. A stronghold in the Cascades, as suited the slow mountainous rush of time. \n\nHitler stepped down the hall, each step thundering confidently. Boots rippled leather the color of tanned human skin, absorbing the impact adding purpose to his step. He knew they would hear him, knew that the time had arrived. \n\nFrom within the meeting hall a loud \"Achtung\" followed by clapping. Hitler smiled.\n\n(to be continued)", "\"Thank you all for coming tod-\" The back door slammed open and revealed a hunched over, decaying man. He was dressed in drab dark clothing with a swastika pin in his coat lapel. \n\n\"Errrg...\" He groaned and gazed upon the meeting.\n\n\"Uh... Sir are you here for the Holocaust Deniers Meeting?\" The man stared out past the group. No one seemed to recognize him until he spoke. With a cough he finally spat out. \n\n\"Holocaust...Deniers meeting? My people I assure you, a purge of that magnitude was very, very real.\" His voice had a German twinge with an undead undertone that made his words very quiet but sharp. \"I can assure you, orders were carried out to find the Jewish problem and resolve it in whatever way was efficient. If you believe that 6 billion of men, women and children just disappeared then you are blinder than I and I have maggots eating at my eyeballs.\" The group whispered among themselves, unsure of what was going on. The man limped his way to the podium, where his pain seemed to subside as he fell into his comfort zone. The head speaker piped up and asked, \"Sir, who are you?\"\n\n\"Something you cannot deny.\" ", "Thank you all for coming to this week's meeting of Holocaust Deniers Local 272. My name is Frank Simmons, and while I believe the Jews run everything, I don't believe the Holocaust ever happened, because the Jews run everything. It's kind of weird to be meeting like this, to be honest. It's like \"Oh, you think the Holocaust didn't happen? Me, too.\" Strange, don't you think? I mean, sure, maybe we just need an excuse to get away from the wife, the kids, the Jews, but does anyone here, I don't know... ski? I do. I like to ski. Any skiiers? No? Well, fine. We'll do this instead. I see we have a new face here in the room. You look... familiar. You play basketball?\n\nNein! I am the ghost of Hitler!\n\nReally? But you're so non-translucent. You look every bit as real as the rest of us here in the Thrifty Lodge conference room. By the way, thank Thrifty Lodge for the complimentary coffee and donuts. They are on our side. Anyways, Hitler's ghost. Here. Wow. Really?\n\nYes, it is really me.\n\nWell, honestly, it's weird to see you. Not because you're dead, but because you're not wearing a Nazi uniform. What's with the fanny pack and jeans shorts?\n\nI'm dead, not fashionable. Anyhow, you guys have made a big, big, big mistake. The Holocaust happened. I know. I did it. I was in it to win it, the Master race rising to the top. Then I killed myself. Speaking of which, did we win?\n\nWin what?\n\nThe war.\n\nUh... no. Sorry. \n\nDammit\n\nIt was real close though.\n\nReally?\n\nNo. But hey, Germany's still kicking, and they're allies with the US now.\n\nIf they're so great, how many Jews did they kill last year?\n\nI don't know. None, maybe? But to be fair, you didn't either.\n\nNonsense! I killed more Jews than God.\n\nGo tell that to Athiests Anonymous down the hall. Man, why do THOSE guys get together? \"Hey, we don't believe in God. Let's hang out.\" Christ. Anyhow, the Nazis had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews. That's a fact. We can all agree on that, right?\n\nAhem.\n\nOr, maybe not. OK, Mr. Hitler with your open toed sandals and WHO FARTED? shirt. You tell me.\n\nOf course we had policy. We built concentration camps. That's called \"committing to the bit\".\n\nNo, you didn't have any gas chambers. Explain that.\n\nOh, well, that's where you're wrong. We did, but only after our first method failed.\n\nWhat was that?\n\nWe tried tickling them to death. Very difficult. Some Jews aren't very ticklish. And the more Jews we rounded up, we ran out of room which is why we built the camps. They were concentration camps, see? Because we had to CONCENTRATE really, really hard on tickling them. Then this one guard was like, \"Man, there has got to be a better way to rid the world of the Jews.\" I said \"You cooking up any ideas?\" and then I was all like, \"Hey, I might be on to something...\"\n\nI see.\n\nYou know, cooking Jews instead of ideas.\n\nYeah, but six million ideas? That number can't possibly be right.\n\nActually, it's more than that.\n\nMore?\n\nNot by a lot. Six million and fifty-three. But why split hairs? No sense crying over spilt Jews.\n\nBut there's so much evidence out there that the holocaust was fake.\n\nLike what\n\nLike a book a couple of crackpots wrote, shaming the many, many, many volumes of scholarly, researched, and detailed work devoted to this chapter in world history. Oh, wait. I see the error of my ways now. Well, guys, huge waste of time, but at least we don't have to get together anymore. God, that's gonna be sad. I'm gonna miss spending time with you in this beige room, sitting around a conference table, just talking about how a historical event was fiction when... oh, man, is my face red! See, I should have joined a tennis club. Or, or started a Cub Scout pack. My oldest, Joey, he's at that age where kids wanna become scouts.\n\nYou know, the Nazis started as a Cub Scout pack.\n\nReally?\n\nYeah, but things went kind of sideways after that. One minute, you're learning how to tie a slipknot, and the next you're doing horrible things to the Jews. (sighs) Hey, you need another scoutmaster?\n\nUh... no. Nothing personal, but, well... Joey's pal David Rosenstein--\n\nSay no more. Well, I should be going back to Hell anyways. Thanks for the coffee and a nice stroll down memory lane.\n\nOK, Hitler. And there he goes. Well... life just got a little more empty, didn't it? Maybe we should have been a bowling team instead.\n\n", "\"The thing about the Holocaust, is-'\"\n\nThe floorboards of the auditorium erupted, splintering outwards in jagged splinters. Flying chunks of wood filled the air, closely followed by screams. Pandemonium ensued. Several chairs were knocked over.\n\nStanding amdist the chaos, a dark specter ringed by the savage up thrusts of wood, was a small, decaying man.\n\nThis man raised his hand and gently stroked an impossibly beautiful mustache. \n\n\"OH MY GOD,\" screamed the hoax-denier-in-chief, cheeto dust drifting from his many chins on the hot uodrafts \"IT'S THE REICH-MASTER HIMSELF. \"\n\n\"Nein zees nutz!\" Adolf said calmly, pointing a pale, aryan finger at the non-believer.\n\nThe blood traitor managed one, high pitched wail of defeat and lust before his face imploded, the bones of his face shooting out the back of his skull in one massive, nationalistic explosion of gore.\n\nAdolf raised his hands to the roof of the high-school hall and bellowed in triumph. Blonde haired, blue eyed women within a 10 kilometer radius began flocking to the auditorium, their ovaries preparing themselves for the gift of racial purity. Once a suitably sized harem surrounded the Fuhrer, he began to sink back into the ground, claiming his prize for the Fatherland \n\nWhen only his piercing blue eyes remained, a voice was heard on the wind.\n\n\"This is what lies will Holocaust you.\"", "\"If you do not believe it is really me, then perhaps I should prove it, mhm? But how? Maybe I should describe it for you, yes? I will. It was clear--to me--that they were the scum of the earth and I--I was doing the world a favor! But did anyone see it!? Did anyone realize the greatness at hand!? No! Maybe when I die, I thought, they'll see what I did was truly an art, like great painters I would be carved in stone after my life ceased. And yet, here I sit, in a room full of ignorant fools that don't even acknowledge my work--who, who don't even give me the credit that I rightfully earned! You rats! You seething maggots! You degrading ingrates! I did it! I did what all the history books describe! And I would do it again! I would slaughter those dirty Jews again and again--the filth that they are! I ordered the gun shots, I commanded the camps, I organized the funding of the gases and the burning of the bodies! I! Me! I let loose the smoke of their ashes into the air and that smell--how it lingered! I took their hair, I snatched their teeth, and bit off their fingernails. The blood they poured filled my stemware and their bones built my fortresses. Their gold, their silver, their diamonds and jewels I used to pay for their own death as the lands I touched were purged of their slime.\"\n\nThe room fell silent. Adolf was seething from his speech. His forehead was red and veiny. And the wide eyes of the conference members searched each other. Finally one man looked to Adolf, and he spoke one shivering word that has been asked thousands and millions of times before,\n\"Why?\"", "\"I know you can never forgive me, but now I trust you understand. It was a horrible sacrifice that had to be made to at least try to save...\"\n\nHis voice was drowned out by the cries of rage as people recognized the most hated man in human history.\n\n\"You must understand--- We don't know who it is precisely that causes the... event... only that they are a well renowned scientist of Jewish descent. We couldn't send back anything tangible, so I had to rely on manipulation, we had to take broad actions in hopes of catching the right ancestors!\n\nPlease, it's not too late, there's still time, but we only have minutes to spare, this is the last of our energy!\"\n\nThe people shouted, spat, and forced the disheveled crazy man out of their auditorium.\n\nA few hours later, deep underground a brilliant young scientist smiles happily as his team pops open bottles of champagne to celebrate the go-live of their new project. The 'science deniers' protesting the end of the world outside a laughable farce.\n\n\"This is for you Bobe\" he said as he turned on the field generator.", "Ahmed knew who the man was the moment he appeared in the doorway. It was not the brown, well cut military uniform. It was not the red arm band adorned with its infamous symbol. It was not even the little mustache, the root of so much mockery. Any ordinary man could have donned these things. Many men did, often as a joke, sometimes not. \n\nIt was the tremendous intensity that bled from his person. An energy which Ahmed had never felt before in his entire life. Even Ahmed's father, a frightening man with a savage temper, had never made Ahmed feel so small, so very insignificant and helpless. The loudest yelling, the sternest lecture, the most severe beating, and there were many of those, had not made Ahmed feel so infinitesimal as he did now. Like a tiny rat in the face of a lion. And not the majestic, royal lion. This man, he was like a lion in form, but in spirit, a rabid, half-starved stray dog; viscous and blood thirsty without equal. How could so slight a man make Ahmed fear this way?!\n\nFor what seemed like hours the two men stared at each other. Ahmed's fingers, hovering over the keyboard, the dark Austrian, fixing him with a piercing gaze. It was a glare like no other, like a dead sun. At first, Ahmed had avoided looking into those eyes because he did not want to see what they held. When at last their eyes did align, Ahmed almost began to weep. Those eyes, blue like a frozen corpse. The room was silent, there were no words, and yet all Ahmed could hear was the anguished cries of millions, screaming in agony and fear and hatred. The cries, demanding to know why their fellow man, and God, had forsaken them. What had they done to deserve this suffering, this brutality that stretched the limits of human imagination? It was in that moment, in the screaming silence, under the piercing glare of the dead sun that Ahmed knew he was wrong.\n\nSlowly, he began to hit the backspace button on his key board. His guest did not move, but Ahmed knew that he was performing the correct action. Ahmed wished he could go back and delete every post, erase every conversation and argument that he had ever had. But he could not change the past, only the future. When the last letter vanished and the cursor blinked on a blank page, at last Ahmed spoke. It was a choked sound, nigh incomprehensible,\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nThe man did not respond, but instead turned to walk out the doorway. How he had come to be there in the first place did not matter. Halfway out the door, he stopped, and half turned to burn Ahmed with his eyes one last time.\n\n\"I am not.\"\n\nThen he left, and Ahmed wept.", "Adolf Hitler suddenly appears in the middle of the room\n\nYES! IT WORKED! THE LIVES OF 11 MILLION HUMAN BEINGS WAS ENOUGH TO RECARNATE ME!\n\nYOU! Points at a random member of the meeting WHAT YEAR IS IT!?!\n\n(Random member of the meeting) - Anyone speak German?\n\nthe entire room looks at each other\n\nNo? Ok, please escort this yelling German so we can resume the meeting...\n\nAnd the meeting resumed as if nothing happened", "\"We could do a press release about some new evidence that the camps were grossly exaggerated. Instead of denying them outright, we can say it just blew up from a tiny seed of truth.\" The man who spoke folded his hands meticulous on the table, wrinkled though they were. A slight accent tipped his otherwise powerful voice. \n\n\"And what new evidence is this?\" The woman beside him peered curiously at him, fingers hovering eagerly above the laptop in front of her.\n\n\"How about eye witnesses? Some old men on their death beds. Sympathetic, and difficult to follow up on. It should at least spread the word some.\" The rest of the table nodded sagely in agreement. \n\nA knock on the door interrupted their quiet self-congratulations, and the secretary peeked his head in, \"There's someone here to see you. He uh, he says he is Hitler.\" \n\nSome at the table showed interest, others performed the mandatory eye roll. The man who stood in the doorway donned the iconic mustache, just as dark as it ever was. He strode in with a strong presence, demanding attention just by his gait, \"I am Adolf Hitler, and you deny my history!\" It was a proud declaration, but wasn't particularly witty, so the table-goers had nothing to reply with.\n\n\"Cease your foolish babble,\" Hitler continued. His sheer confidence made his audience timidly peek at one another, \"Know that my actions were for the sake of my country. I have been given a second chance at life, and so it is my duty to spread the word of what has transgressed. I am a savior. You should be shouting my name for rescuing an entire country, for ridding the world of those not worthy to continue, for--\"\n\nThe old man at the head of the table stood, his balding head catching the overhead light like a halo, \"Enough. You are no Hitler, and dare not spread his name.\" \n\n\"What proof would you like? Perhaps a DNA sample? There were plenty of tests on that, too--\"\n\nThe old man gave a raspy laugh, \"DNA would certainly have something interesting to say. If only I could look so young and had more time. I will do everything I can to wipe the slate clean before I die, including eliminating competition. You, sir, cannot be Hitler, for that is who I am.\"", "\"So...next on the docket--Harold?\"\n\nA fastidious man rises from a steel folding chair, clutching a curled pamphlet. His seersucker suit seems to glow by the tendrils of the low midday sun creeping through the windows of the rec room. He clears his throat. \n\n\"Yes, thank you, Brother Gill. So, as you all may know, I have been attending some small meetings with other Counselors for the past few Sundays. And what we've been discussing, I think, can only be--\"\n\nJust then, the front door of the room splinters open, a blast as if from an artillery shell. The two dozen or so men in the room all excite in response, some falling off their chairs, others dazed still in solidarity. As few chunks of wood and cheap paint petal from the ceiling onto the mottled carpet floor, a figure emerges from the doorway. Obscured partly by dust and partly by surprise, a man steps forward.\n\n\"Das... Vat is das?!\" the figure bellows from the doorway. The engine of his chest revs furiously, heavy breathing like chains on a tightly wound cog. The man, the figure is dressed in a brown uniform, black leather jacket. Colored pegs and buttons adorn his jacket, marking a history that the other men in the room could never understand.\n\nAs the other men cower, unable to answer the uniformed figure, the fastidious man in the seersucker suit raises his hand. Like a schoolboy to a teacher, though the man tries to speak with as much importance as he can muster.\n\n\"W-Who...are you? What... do you want here?!\"\n\nThe figure is silent, his face covered by cloth bandages, where only his eyes, a sad and deathly blue, graze over the men, as if to decide their fate. A moment passes. Then another. Until the figured man stands from his proned posture, tall and commanding, extends his arm, then his finger, marking the seersucker suited man for all to see.\n\n\"Lies. Und correction.\"\n\nThe uniformed man then produces from under his jacket with a grace and speed any fairy tale beast would envy, a large black semi-automatic firearm. Gasps exude from many of the other men.\n\n\"Und here is where I educate you.\"\n\nAs if lions entered a cage of gazelle, the roars and flesh tearing is thunderous. Metal rips through bone, decimates cartilage and organs alike. Screams seem to feed the figure in his bloodlust. Hundreds of rounds pour into the quite literally captive audience, until, as the empty clip ejects from his weapon, the acrid smell of gun smoke and fear settling around the room, the uniformed figure declares to no-one in particular:\n\n\"It is not truth that matters, but victory. Do not forget zis.\"\n\nThe seersucker suited man crawls from under a few bodies, heavily bleeding; dying. He gargles blood as he scrapes along the carpet with his elbows. His legs are useless now, blood filled and dead. Before he gives the last of his breath to the world, he says one thing:\n\n\"But...we...it was all for...you...\"\n\nThe figure turns from his slow trot out the door. He raises his weapon at the man, but remains only poised, a viper ready to share its poison. He laughs a cold, hollow laugh, then says, \n\n\"Where I have been...you would not say that. But\", he says, stepping to and then crouching down to the dying man, \"zis you will know soon enough...\"\n\nThe uniformed man pats the seersucker suited man, a final comfort for that who deserved none. He stands, fumbling in his jacket for one last present. \n\nBefore he tosses the pineapple into the mess of meat and bone, the uniformed figure states one last time, even though no-one could possible be alive enough to hear it:\n\n\"Lies. Und correction. I vas, you vere. Und, now, I am to atone.\"\n\nHe tosses the grenade into the room and steps outside.\n\n\"Und you vill too. You vill all. Das, I promise.\"\n\nAnd then, a monstrous boom. And he is gone.\n\n.\n.\n.\n.\n\n*HITLER: ATONEMENT, ISSUE 1. MARVEL EXCLUSIVE. SMALL PRINT SERIES.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "August, 2017\nUndisclosed Location\n\nOn that fateful morning, the sun rose to conceal the heliacal rising of Mars, the Roman god of war. It was a culmination of decades of labor. Discretion of this monumental effort came at the cost of thousands of lives, many among them unwilling scientists, and more than a few unresolute comrades whose loyalty could be questioned. It was a feat beyond science and religion. At last, it can now be proclaimed to all Aryan sons of the Fatherland that the Fuhrer has lived, is alive, and will live once more.\n\nThe assembly had been gathered weeks in advance in preparation for the final resurrection. Thousands came from virtually every country, representing neo fascists, White supremacists, ultranationalists, all holocaust deniers. Not few among them were Slavs, in full pressed SS uniforms. Even the Aryans were shocked by their presence. Even the fact that tens of millions of their own countrymen, fathers and mothers, died in the war did not dissuage them in the beliefs of racial purity and Fascism. The Fuhrer rose to an audience more fanatical than he ever knew.\n\nThe first question on the agenda was that eternal question...the Jewish question. Dozens of authors have written on it, even Karl Marx, but none had the determination and will to do anything about it except The Austrian. For Hitler, the massacre of Jews was mere political maneuvering, arithmetics in game theory. Ideologies were for the cannon fodders. But before him were no longer academics of Himmler and Goebbels, but masses of mindless cannon fodders.\n\n\"Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!\" Chanted the dogs of war in allegiance to their master. Their short, brunette, brown eyed master gave a rousing impromptu speech, condemning the fall of the Third Reich on a lack of will from commanders and soldiers. Ranks of the Wehrmacht were filled with communist sympathizers and uneducated, base men who only desired for material wealth of the capitalist powers. The German people, he said, were not ready for National Socialism. Only truly devout and dedicated followers are worthy of the visions promised by the Nazi Party. \n\nAfter the speech, a meeting was convened of the heads of neofascist and ultranationalist organizations. The first Grand Strategy meeting.\n\nThe head of the assembly addressed the Fuhrer.\n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, it has been 72 long, painful years since your passing. the Jewish Bolshevik victors have demonized you. The valiant efforts of our soldiers, their endless sacrifice were all in vain. But the fact that now standing before you are the legions of devout followers, more zealous than the best of the Waffen SS, are testaments to the living strength and will of the ideology. There are many who have never forgotten the truth, and believes that you are Humanity's first, last, and only hope of a divided, racially pure world empire where each race can thrive in isolation. Lead us to glory, Mein Fuhrer! Show the world, remove the blinds from the masses' eyes, show them that you were not the brute in that great war. Show them that the innocence, purity, and the true, wondrous spirit of National Socialism could not have committed those atrocities fabricated by the communists and capitalists!\"\n\nAfter a long moment of silence, the Fuhrer spoke at last\n\n\"It's true that I did not want to kill our followers in the SA. But alas, the road to power is paved with blood and sacrifice. Those loyal to the cause, but were nonetheless slaughtered in our persecution of the SA are the first martyrs to the cause\". \n\nThe council looked on intently at one another, before one spoke \n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, we did not mean the SA. We were referring to the lies that 6 million Jews were murdered, along with some 11 million Russian civilians.\" \n\nThe Fuhrer bursted into uncontrollable laughter. He couldn't believe that he was brought back not by a bastion of Darwinian Ubermensch, but rather naive fools who couldn't even understand rudimentary politics. If Himmer, Goebbels, Guderian, and the great Model and Von Manstein couldn't even get him Moscow, then the most he could even hope to conquer with these fools were a few houses in the suburbs of Berlin. At last, he gathered himself to address the council once more. \n\n\"Of course we killed them! It was due to my goddamned minister of armaments Albert Speer, who suggested we put them to labor instead of killing them outright, that the Jews survived. As for the Russians, it is my greatest regret in life that we failed to properly implement General Plan Ost before 1942. Now, someone show me a map of what the world have become. Show me what became of sacred Germany.\"\n\nThe head of the assembly spoke as soon as the Fuhrer stopped, and asked\n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, so the Holocaust was actually real?\" \n\nHitler stared back at the one who raised the question. Only an idiot asks a question that he already knew the answer to. 72 years spent in death did not improve the Fuhrer's impatience with stupidity. \n\n\"Get out, now\" He ordered \n\n\"Mein Fuhrer, we are all interested in this question. Is the holocaust Allied propaganda or not?\" \n\nHitler surveyed the room, and saw indeed that they were all serious in this inquiry. He wanted to fly into a rage, to shove down their throat how the massacre of Jews were sound political calculations, something that he was proud of since with it they were able to fund a war against the entire world and lasted as long as and caused as much damage as they did. They were a wealthy, weak, unorganized demographic that could be exploited to fund the war. Power was the end, not National Socialism or racial purity ideology or any of that bullshit for the dogs to believe. But alas, the Fuhrer was an old man, embittered by defeat and memories of the betrayals of his last days back in 1945. He had neither the patience nor the will to start again with these idiots. He may not have earnestly believed in racial ideology, but now he was inclined to believe that sub-humans do indeed exist, and that it was these morons before him. \n\nAt last, the fuhrer ended all thoughts and let out a long sigh. He reached for the Luger from the unsecured holster of the man in the SS uniform sitting next to him. Without hesitation, Hitler aimed the steel chamber to his head and shot himself. ", "\"We're still considered a joke in the academic circles. How come they won't take us seriously?\" Lars asked.\n\n\"They would if they knew what we knew! They would if they had the evidence we have!\" said Bruno.\n\n\"What's more infuriating is that they hold their views WITHOUT hard evidence at all! It's all tall tales from supposed refuges!\" chimed in Mark. \n\nThey were meeting in a dimly lit old pub which was much too small and unpopular to be lucrative in this day and age. It didn't help that the owner, Mark, was a fiercely vocal holocaust denier, and without secret would hold meetings for deniers on Sunday nights.\n\n\"The worst is the character assassination which routinely takes place on Adolf Hitler. It's like he's so evil we can't even say his name. Well, fuck that! Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler, Adolf Hitler!\" said Lars.\n\nAs soon as he said it a third time a loud wind howled outside the window. The bar got perceptibly colder inside, and all six men present felt a shiver run up their spine. They went quiet, and the wind quieted too. \n\nThe door opened seemingly without anyone opening it, and an immaculately dressed man with slick dark hair walked in slowly. They remained silent. It was too dark and they were all too taken aback to recognize the iconic significance of the facial hair the man donned. \n\nHe looked at none of them as he walked in, but he had a commanding presence, and none of them stopped looking at him. He sat in an empty stool and lit a cigarette, still looking down and away. Suddenly he shouted. \n\n\"Are none of you in this establishment interested in history as it really happened!? Do you realize what a disgrace it is to my name that people like you hold meetings like this!? It's enough that we lost the war and continue to sit on the wrong side of history, but imbeciles aligning themselves with my cause who have not a fucking clue what my real mission was for Germany is completely unacceptable!\"\n\nHe cocked his head a little bit towards them as he was yelling. His face was under a light now and they could see his moustache. This man was Adolf Hitler himself, there was no denying it. He might have been a hallucination, or a ghost, or a reanimation, but there he was, shouting at them.\n\nHe stood up out of his stool now and continued, his face snarling as he went on. \n\n\"I killed Jews. I killed millions of them. And only by extremely unfortunate circumstances was I not able to kill more. And it wasn't just Jews, either. Do you see the homosexuals in the streets of your city? Do you think if I had my way that that would-\"\n\nA loud crack was heard and he stopped mid-sentence. He had been shot square in the forehead. A young girl, not older than 14 or 15, stood in the doorway, a .357 revolver in hand. She had a cold expression as she turned to look at the rest of the men in the room.\n\nWithout saying a word, she aimed her gun at Lars and shot him. And then at Mark, and shot him. And continued to pick off target after target. Some of the men tried to run, but none made it out alive that night. \n\nShe disappeared, seemingly, and in the morning neither she nor the gun were found by the police. Neither was the well dressed man with the slick hair. Only the bodies of six men who the police knew to be regulars there, and nobody was too sad to see them gone. ", "\"So it's you? It's actually* you?\"\n\n\"Of course it's me! Who else is brave enough to sport this moustache now?\" \n\nThe head of the group just sat there, bewildered. The group stared in awe, transfixed. Sitting opposite them, was Hitler himself. A little worse for ware, but undoubetly him. Most notably, the gaping hole at the back of the skull was a dead giveaway.\n\n\"So let me get this straight...you guys...deny the Holocaust happened ya?\" He asked, clutching his head, wincing slightly.\n\n\"No no, we're not deniers...we revisionists, you see we don't see it as a intentional genocide, merely overworking and the over-exaggeration of numbers and...\" The head of the group began.\n\n\"Well I can tell you it wasn't. It was completley intentional. You don't accidentally gas millions of people!\" Hitler interrupted.\n\n\"Ah but there was no evidence of mass graves or mass ashes found and...\"\n\n\"Well we weren't going to hold unto them were we? Listen, I'm telling you now... we commited the Holocaust, I don't regret one thing.\"\n\nThey all sat there awkwardly.\n\n\"Well...that's like, your opinion...\" The head began weakly.\n\n\"I was there!\" Hitler roared. \" I ORDERED the shitting thing!\"\n\nHitler turned his head frantically, flabbergasted.\n\n\"I don't believe this...I did everything in my power to purify this world, and some fuckwits deny it even happened?\" He ranted.\n\n\"Well we've no substantional...\" The head of the group interrupted.\n\n\"Shut up, let me talk! I rose from the dead and stole back my jaw from the fucking Soviets for this, so let me speak! The-Holocaust-Was-FULLY-INTENTIONAL-THERE-IS-NO-DEBATE!\" Hitler screamed.\n\nThey all sat there stunned. There was not a sound for awhile after. The clock on the wall ticked. An uncomfortable feeling swept across the room.\n\n\"Me thinks he protests too much.\" The head stated firmly. \"Now, as we were saying...\"\n\n\"But I-you...\" Hitler stuttered, speechless. \"You know what? Fuck this. I'm going back to Argentina.\"\n\n" ]	14
	[WP] You're a mute. You've communicated through paintings your whole life. You're on your death bed, and your pencil breaks.	[ "Scratch scratch scratch. He kept on scratching on that piece of paper. A Masterpiece was blossoming. A depiction of all the life time achievements. A chronological order of all memorable events, from the first time he tied his shoe lace all by himself, up until he held his grandson in his arms. All the thanks given to his friends and family.\n\nHis relatives were gathered around, talking among themselves. \n\n\"Such a shame.\" \"Yes, yes.\" \"What a talent.\" \"Too bad he can't speak, his voice would be like an angels', the way he draw things.\"\n\nTtch!\n\n\"Fuck!\" Tea cups are dropped. Everyone's eyes turned.\n\nHe looked around. \"Oh, never mind me, continue on.\" Scratch scratch scratch.", "No. This was to be my masterpiece! I was to tell my loved ones my final thoughts! Even in my final moments, life laughs at me so as death makes his grim approach to my deathbed. I will not have it! I will try one last time, even if it is pointless.\n\n\"FUCK!\" the mute cried out. And with that the man passed. ", "The sound that was once but a minor annoyance suddenly rang through my ears like a gunshot. I could hear the point that was going to give her something to hold close and remember, hit the floor. Once. Twice and then a very long roll under the very machine that kept me alive. The nurses face shared my horror. She put on a reassuring smile and ran to fetch another. It took everything I had not to drop the pencil. She needed this. She knew I wasn't going to make it to spring. The house, long paid for. Bills set up Auto Pay for the next 10 years. She would still know and live the life we shared for 50 years, but she wouldn't have me. The snow falling outside calmed my raging mind. A very dark thought slowly crept between my ears. It had been years. I had put that behind me. I wasn't that person anymore. No. \n\nThe pencil shook in my feeble hand. I felt the familiar sting once again. It was a much darker color than I remember. I took one long slow breath and propped the canvas against my good leg. She had to know. One last chance to show her it was her I thought of in my final hour. I felt my strong and nimble hands grow cold and frail. It wouldn't be pretty but maybe it would make her hurt just a little bit less. The nurse walked in as I signed the back. Her shriek of horror caused me to drop the pencil. The most difficult smile that I've ever made passed my lips. The nurse rushed over scolding me like a child. I made a mess. Bad boy. She wasn't fond of the raspberry either.\n\nI heard the machine play my final note. Every sound became an echo. It grew dark. I had become so very tired. I deserved a nice nap. An artist of my caliber could slack every now and again. She turned in the door as my sight failed me. Her beautiful smile was the last thing I ever saw. Even she knew my favorite color, had always been red.\n\n", "As I laid there, gripping my companion of the last 67 years, I finally realized time was up. I had been a struggle trying to convey my messages, but I had grown used to it, it became a habit like brushing my teeth. I gasped. The air I once took advantage of began to thin. My chest started getting heavier, the constriction felt like a weight crushing down on me, harder, and harder. My eyes shot open and time seemed to slow. I heard a snap in my hand and that sharp witted partner was no more. I stared at my palm for what felt an age.\nI glanced up, the door burst open and the white jackets begun their charge. It was time they could no longer prevent this. I looked at my hand and he was gone. A dull, blunt tool released from my grip and dropped to the sketch pad by my side. My eyes widened; what had I done? \nThe men and their stethoscopes were halfway to me now my wife being held back by Jackson, my brave and strong lad. Regret filled my stomach and a feeling of sickness swept over me. I had never told him I loved him after he came out to me. Then I looked at my wife. Her colorless eyes and short dulling hair had led me to many a different woman. I felt ashamed, I never stopped loving her, I just found it difficult that the person I fell in love with had changed so much. It was probably my fault. I realized how self centered, shallow I had become. In my last years I had pushed everyone, but mine, lifelong companion away. I became isolated. Yet, they had never left me. I felt a tear welling. I felt a drop on my cheek and my chest pulsed increasingly. I had entered, what I knew was, the final stage.\nMy eyes darted between my wife and my son, wishing I could tell them how sorry I was. How much of an atrocious person I had become. But I could not. I opened my mouth to scream my final words, but nothing came. I closed my eyes. Everything was over now.\n", "They said the surgery failed. Failed. The word echoed through my mind, and it's still echoing, like the screams of joyous children dancing in a cave. Like the faintest memory of a high school teacher mocking you for flunking an exam. Failed. \n\nThey said I had a few more hours left. Maybe two, maybe three. They told me, \"Cherish these moments.\" I don't know how to cherish moments when I'm incapacitated in a hospital bed that smells of chemicals and old people farts. \n\nMy mother asked me what I wanted, her eyes glistening. I shakily lifted my arms and pressed the pencil down to my sketchpad. As I began to make the first line, I heard that familiar, torturous snap. The shard of lead cascaded down my hand and landed in the abyss of my crinkled bed sheets.\n\nI was going to draw a cheeseburger. That's what I wanted. \n\nWhen the pencil broke, my mother gasped as though she had just been struck. Maybe I would have gasped if I could have. Maybe the drugs kept me too mellow to gasp.\n\nMy mother began to stammer, \"I can get you- I can get you a new-\" and I turned away. I didn't want a cheeseburger anymore. I didn't want a new pencil. It was all so stupid... so pointless. I wished I could have just died already. \n\nI glanced at the plastic tube that had been jammed into my arm. I traced it along with my eyes, all the way along the edge of the bed and up to the IV bag that hung from a pole next to me. It was full of a deep red fluid, the substance of pure life. It was so unnatural to see it detached from any other life form, completely independent. Though I suppose it was mine now. \n\nThey had plugged it into me to compensate for the blood loss during the surgery. To keep me alive longer. I didn't want it. I'd always hated waiting. \n\nI reached my right hand over, across my chest, and groped the needle and tube which were taped to my left forearm. With as much energy as I could muster, I squeezed the tube and yanked it away. The tape ripped, it came free of the needle, and blood began to spurt about my hand. \n\nThis whole time my mother had been going on about fetching a new pencil. When I yanked myself free of the IV, I suppose she was too shocked to say anything because she just fell silent. \n\nI examined the sticky warm blood on my hand. Red paint. \n\nI pressed my wet finger to the surface of my sketchpad and began to draw my last message to the world, for my mother. She watched quietly as I formed the shape of a heart on the paper. \n\nMy mother began to sob. She leaned in and embraced me. I felt content. \n\nWithout the blood flowing into me, I began to feel faint. The world seemed more and more far away from me with each passing second. I welcomed the sleep. It was overdue. At last, in my mother's arms, I fell into a still, absolutely peaceful rest. \n\nhttp://i.imgur.com/kRA7h30.jpg \n\n\n\n ", "I feel the familiar stinging behind my eyes, the swelling in my nose, and the lump in my throat. My whole life has been one long battle, but as I don't have much of it left, I decidedly don't try to stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks. I hold my broken pencil out to the nurse. \n\"I'm sorry, I don't have another one ... What about a pen?\"\nI shake my head no as much as the machine will let me. My husband was about to arrive any minute, and I had to get this done, now. Tearing still streaming down my face, I allow myself to wallow just for one second. Really, right now? Dear flying spaghetti monster, you have the worst timing ever. I nearly snap my pencil in half, but before I do, I tap my pad with the eraser end to get her attention and then nod my head yes. I have to at least try. \n\"You want my pen. Are you sure?\" She asks. I nod more vigorously, and a machine starts to beep. My heart starts to race and a sweat breaks out over my forehead. \"It's ok, it's ok!\" She assures me and she places the pen in my hand, and turns the machine off. \"You just moved a little too much, you're alright.\" She coos at me and places a hand on my shoulder. \nI scribble quickly back and fourth. The pen works just fine thankfully, but I've pretty much depended on pencils and acrylics my whole life, so I hope I get my point across just fine. \nI put what effort I have left into creating the strokes ever so carefully. Add a little detail, and the 3-D effect. Shadow? Just a tad, so he can tell what it is. Should I leave it open? I think I will, to make sure he know what's in it. \nBut then the edges of my vision start to blur. No ... NO. He's not here yet! My breathing is shallow, coming in ragged gasps. I try to scrawl a dial but my heart seems to be slowing down. I am willing it to beat, BEAT DAMMIT. My hand becomes limp and I feel the pen slip from my grasp. Before the world goes completely dark I see his face swimming in the doorway, and hear him cry my name, but it's odd ... Distorted, distant, almost muffled. The pad of paper slips from my left hand. \nI forgot to add the combination! \nMy last thought echos through my mind as the world goes dark. I hear beeps, and faint cries of codes, when the world goes quiet as well. " ]	6
When you're bored time literally slows down and when you're having fun times flies, how do you notice and utilise this?	[WP] Your perception of time affects the progression of time	[ "Dancing on the grass, the mottled pattern was an infinity of interest. The sound of the wind was a strange symphony that had stretched unknown distances to be there around him. Everything encased him within its fascination. The bark of the tree was pressing on his back, but he couldn't quite read its patterns; lack of nerve endings, he told himself, visualising the the fine network of filaments branching through his body.\n\nHe was drained before the days began, a strange feedback loop had begun some time ago, and was devouring him. Pressed against the tree, he had not even removed his lunch from the pathetic plastic bag beside him before the sun began to dive towards the horizon, a ferocious thing, it seemed to him now. He could already feel it moving below him, coming up behind him.\n\nHe felt nauseous all the time. He went days without eating and couldn't remember why. His mind just picked at reality and turned it over with insatiable interest; a suicide machine allowed to run wild. The harder he fought, the harder its reckless gears turned.\n\nHis descent had been headlong and wholesome from the moment the other kids figured it out at school, the new and cataclysmic knowledge spread almost instantaneously; it was the inevitable contagion of existence. His parents had tried all the usual therapy sessions and new devices the saturated, ever-booming market had to offer; everything designed to starve his curiosity. His mind consumed it all, nothing was inedible to his intellect. And how it cruelly it made him suffer. \n\nSoon enough, the sun became nothing more than a heavenly pendulum, an ever-accelerating harbinger of doom. Empathy and emotion were mere abstractions to spend months on and off dissecting. He watched his parents wilt like roses; seemed, for all-to-brief eternities, to transcend existence as it hurtled by; understood the whole surface of the ocean by sitting by that tree; and solved patterns in nature spanning decades without ever noting a single observation down. His body gave way and collapsed too quickly to be painful, he stared from his hospital bed for a second out the flickering window, and heard a beep.", "She dipped one finger into the serene, smooth surface of the pond. She watched as the ripples ever-so-slowly reverberating outwards from her submerged finger. The ripples were slowing down but as she became fascinated by the interaction of her body and the water, the wind and the water around her rustled with her excitement. \n\nRight. She was supposed to be bored. Absolutely bored and waiting for the news of her departure from her childhood home. She hadn’t asked to be sent away but now she dreaded the news of where she would be sent. \n\nAs her worry and anxiety increased, time started picking up pace. \n\nIt hadn’t been very long since she found out her ability to manipulate time. Although to say that she was an expert manipulator of time would be incorrect. Time only seemed to obey her unconscious perceptions and reactions to events rather than her conscious demands to slow down or speed up. \n\nRight now, she wished she had all the time in the world before she was being carted off to god-knows where.\n", "Many people marvel at my talent. They admire my ability to concentrate on the task at hand almost indefinitely, my peculiar attribute which allows me to ignore the \"earthly distractions\" which so often tempt and trap men whose lives slowly go to waste as they lose they become the burnouts they laughed at when they were younger.\nWhat they don't know, of course, is that I have no other way of doing things. Fun has become an impossible commodity for me. Only when I'm bored, doing the excruciatingly mundane, can I accomplish anything. \nSorry, let me explain: \nWhen I was younger, I didn't notice it. I thought the expression \"time flies\" was literal as, for me, it was very true. When I was enjoying myself, time seemed to accelerate, my senses slowed, and it was like I was thinking through mud. I would always be the first to lose the games in gym class, the last one picked for sports at recess. I couldn't help it; I was slow. \nThe dullness of class, though, was my domain. Nobody could finish an exam faster than me, and I was considered a child prodigy for my reading speed. I truly hated academics, but it was the only thing I was able to do well in. The boredom acted as a fuel for my brain.\nAs I got older and my condition grew more pronounced, I became more aware of what was going on. It wasn't just my mind which slowed or quickened; it was my passage through time. \nBy my final year in college, time would nearly stop while I studied. I tried many times to abuse this, to use my incredible speed to do something amazing, but as soon as I was excited about what I was doing it would stop. The only useful things I could do were those which I didn't enjoy, namely study, read, and research.\nI graduated with top marks (funny what having a near-infinite time to study will do for your grades) and entered the workforce. I had a few friends, but I never got very close to any of them. Talking to women was impossible, they thought me a witless ninny as my mind ground to a halt as soon as my pulse quickened. \nEventually, I gave up entirely on relationships.\nMy only solace was work. When I started, I hated it. It was a simple job, just many hours of debugging code. It was boring, but I guess that was my forte. \nWithin four months, I was promoted to a full time code-monkey. I survived the mundanity, and within the year I was given my own team to lead as a reward for how efficiently I finished my projects.\nBy the time I hit 30, I was ", "You look away from the clock. Time slows if you look at it, you remind yourself. You read somewhere that time is man made. You can't know how time is perceived by a sloth versus time perceived by flies. While it may seem incredible for us that a fly move its wings 300 times per second, they may think of the notion as the same way as we flap our arms: perfectly normal; they might even think of it as painfully slow when trying to get away from a fly swatter. Meanwhile, the movement of a sloth may seem absurdly slow for us, but then it might perceive its speed the same way as we perceive ourselves walking: perfectly normal; they might think of themselves as tremendously fast when they crawl towards a stationary leaf.\n\nThere you go, off in a tangent. You can barely concentrate on whats going on in front of you. Damn. You straighten yourself on the chair and revert your look towards the board.\n\nYou almost gagged. Mrs. Hashimies' mouth half hinged makes you giggle. You can make out that there are sounds coming out, but the disembodied tone and her contorted face make it harder to understand. Her hand is pointed at the board, indicating something, god knows what. Oh never mind, she has a chalk between her fingers. Maybe she'll draw something. What were we supposed to learn for today? Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the animal cell, you remind yourself.\n\nYou stop chewing on your pencil, and start drawing a fly with its wing. You start drawing its basic body shape, then move on towards the wing patterns. Each crease and nooks of the wing are embossed by pushing your pencil tip on the paper extra hard. You then move on to the eyes. One, two ... fifteen... hundred... Each segments of the 'eye' are represented using minuscule circles. You then move on to the legs, with each hair taken care of.\n\nYou look up from the doodling. Ooh, 30 seconds past already! Maybe you're actually starting to get interested in Mrs. Hashimies' Bio class. My ass. You get back to you're weathered notebook. You know its going to be a long lesson." ]	4
	[WP] There is a serial killer on the loose, but instead of killing people, he kills egos. Kanye West is his next target.	[ "“You know,” Shia Labeouf bowed his head and spoke into the microphone, his voice low. “I think some of you might be right. I’m not that talented, and I can be kind of an asshole sometimes.” He paused, swallowing. “I think the only reason I got famous in the first place was my looks. I don’t deserve it, not really.” \nA roar from the press, flash photography strobing.\n\n---\n\n\n“Shit.” Officer Dirk Hardbody, hardbitten cop, lit a cigarette, his eyes closed as the television flickered. “We’ve got another victim. And still no leads.” \nThe safehouse was a drab one, inconspicuous, with furniture that looked as if it had been mail-ordered in wholesale from IKEA. All the furniture was pale faux-walnut, and the living room looked out onto a parking lot. \n“What?” His erstwhile partner, Brett Greenhorn, looked at the screen with horror as the text scrolled past. Has Shia Labeouf’s ego been murdered? “Not Shia,” he said. “Oh, man.” \n“They got Shia?” Kanye West stood in the doorway behind them dressed in only a robe, his eyes wide. \n“Go back to bed, Mr West,” said Hardbody, exhaling smoke. “You’re perfectly safe here.” \n“No shit,” said Kanye. “It’s like nobody in this damn town even knows who I am.” \n“This is East Austin,” said Hardbody. “Hipster capital of the US. They know who you are, Mr West, they just don’t want to admit that they know.” \nKanye shook his head. “I don’t like it is all.” \nHardbody turned to look at the superstar, and narrowed his eyes. “Is that ermine on your robe, Mr West?” \n“So what if it is?” Kanye folded his arms, leaning forward. \nDirk Hardbody stood, rising from his chair to his full height of six feet and six inches, cigarette in one hand. “You were asked to wear inconspicuous clothing, Mr West. For your own safety,” he said. \nKanye’s eyes darted from side to side. “Look,” he said. “I’ve gotta have something, y’know. I mean,” he swallowed, looking up at Hardbody. “I can’t be Mr Average, that’s not me. There’s no point in protecting my ego if it’s already dead by the time the killer gets here, right?” \nThere was a tense pause as Kanye and Hardbody stared each other down, and then a noise like a gunshot. \nThe window shattered, and the mass-market mid-quality furniture was covered in broken glass. \n“You’re right,” said Greenhorn. “It was a terrible idea. I should never have suggested it.” He seemed to crumple in his chair. “I’m a terrible cop,” he said. \n“Shit,” said Hardbody, pulling his gun. “He’s in the house.” \nKanye pulled a piece, too. It was flashy, a magnum, with some kind of fancy chrome plating. Judging by the way that Kanye held it in one hand, it had probably never been used. Then Hardbody noticed the red spot on Kanye’s ermine lapel. From a laser sight. Time slowed down as Dirk Hardbody threw himself on Kanye, tackling him to the floor. \n\nAnd then came the guilt. It washed over him like a wave. That time he ran a red light. That time he searched without a warrant and wrecked a case. That time he let a rookie’s ego get shot because he was too busy arguing with Kanye West. He was alone, drowning in a sea of blackness. \nYou’re not fit to be a cop. You should have just dropped out in high school and become a heroin addict like your mom wanted. You can’t protect anyone. Not even yourself.\n\nHe was gasping for air, barely treading water when he saw a light in the distance. A golden light. Hardbody narrowed his eyes, and through the spray, he could make out the figure of Kanye, on a golden yacht, pulled by golden porpoises. \n\nAs Kanye drew nearer his lyrics began to cut through the dirge of hopelessness.\n\nRemember who you are \nNo you’re not perfect but you’re not your mistakes \nHey, hey, hey, hey \nOh the good outweighs the bad even on your worst day \nRemember how I'd say, hey, hey, one day \nYou'll be the man you always knew you would be \nAnd if you knew how proud I was \nYou'd never shed a tear, have a fear\n\n\n“Kanye,” gasped Hardbody, reaching up towards him.\n\n“Aight,” Kanye West smiled like a modern day Jesus. “I got you, buddy.”\n\nThen the sea was gone, and they were back in the front room of the safehouse, Kanye in his ermine bathrobe.\n\n“But how,” said Hardbody. “How did you save me?” \n“Because,” said Kanye. “I’m a motherfucking miracle wordsmith.” \n", "Kanye was spotted at a Los Angeles cafe. He knew this from his twitter followers. With his camera prepared, and hundreds of thousands watching at home, he casually walked into the cafe. His assistant followed. \n\n\"Take this,\" he said, handing the camera to his assistant.\n\n\"Use the tripod, make sure its good.\"\n\nWithout any hesitation he delivered the most hurtful rap the world had ever heard. He killed egos, and today was no exception. The video would go viral, he knew it. Kanye played it off like this man was a crazy fan, but he was a little hurt. Another successful mission. ", "Kanye eyed the man in front of him up and down, trying to take in every ounce of his drab, uninspired outfit. He couldn’t understand why anyone would dress like that, why someone would opt to look like a suicidal businessman. Blue jeans, an ill-fitting white, button down shirt, and a dark navy zip-up jacket that crinkled loudly as he moved. The letters “FBI” were plastered across his back, a brand Kanye was not familiar with, let alone one he’d be caught dead wearing.\n\n“Can you repeat that?” Kanye said, glancing down at the man’s shoes. They were terrible, simple white trainers that he probably stole from some poor kid on the streets. How did someone as pathetic as this guy even get to his front door, let alone with information that was probably useless? Whatever the case, the man had mentioned something about killing the game. Or someone killing a game. Or maybe it was a game about killing. All Kanye knew for sure is that the man had definitely said the word “killing.”\n\n“I said that you aren’t safe, he’s probably coming for you next. Have you gotten any suspicious calls or letters?”\n\n“Wait, who’s coming for me?” Kanye said, knowing full-well that the man was probably referring to the paparazzi. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small stack of headshots, so as to be ready for the autograph signing that always followed. It would only be a matter of time before the world’s currency was replaced by signed pictures of his face at this rate.\n\n“I literally just explained that to you a few seconds ago. Were you not listening? There is a man going around killing people he believes have ‘enlarged egos.’”\n\n“I was definitely listening,” Kanye lied. He’d always been a good liar, probably the best around. Sure, there wasn’t exactly an Olympics for lying, or any real competitive way to prove he was the best, but he was pretty confident there was at the top of the rankings. In fact, he’d recently called out the wrong name while in bed with Kim and played it off like a champ. “No, babe,” he’d lied, “I don’t even know a Jim.”\n\n“Oh, well, great then. So, look, here’s what I propose,” the man said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a drab, black notebook. Kanye also had a notebook of his own, but not one bought from the discount section of his local Wal-Mart, which he’d obviously never been to. He’d had his made out of the skin of Bengal tigers, slaughtered for his pleasure during a recent trip to Africa. It was very exotic, very fancy, and very expensive.\n\n“Lay it on me,” Kanye said, reaching into his own pocket and removing his Bengal notepad. It was so soft to the touch, the paper made from carved Redwoods that liberals protested he not cut down. The way he saw it, though, he was doing the environment a favor. He was allowing a tree to be reincarnated from what was essentially a useless, purposeless log to a tool used by the voice of a generation. He was the true environmentalist.\n\n“I’d like to enter you into protective custody for the next week or so. Just to keep you safe. Okay?” The man flipped open the notepad to a page in roughly the middle, then slowly scanned his finger across it. “We’ve got a place on lockdown for folks like you just a few miles from here. Your pal Beyoncé is there now. We’ll keep you a few nights and make sure you’re safe, to save you from going missing like Jay-Z and Beck.”\n\n“Okay,” Kanye said, flipping open his own notepad. He hadn’t written anything in a long time, not since he’d given up using his own hands to write. Now he hired old, widowed women to write on his behalf. Something about their ancient, Parkinson-riddled handwriting made him feel more intelligent as he read back the gospel he produced. “Absolutely, in no way, shape, or form, is that going to work.”\n\n“What?” the man said, raising one eyebrow and staring up from his notebook. “Why not?”\n\n“Kanye West does not need protecting. I mean, look at me.” Kanye spread his arms like an ant-eater before battle, flexing his pecs as he did so. He wished desperately he could see himself in third person, take in the power and the intimidation he was currently displaying. All he could do was close his eyes and imagine the beauty he was laying forth. “If someone wants to try to get me, they can. I ain’t no pussy like Beck or Jay-Z. Those guys have absolutely nothing on me, I am the greatest there ever was or will be. They need to realize that, and so does everybody else.”\n\n“There is a man literally going around killing people based on their egos,” the man said. “He publically stated you will be his next target. We just want to help--”\n\n“I don’t have a big ego,” Kanye interrupted, lowering his arms. “I mean, I recently went out of my way to prove that to my daughter, North. I’m pretty modest. The others, they have big egos. They think they're better than me, which they absolutely are not. Their egos are too big.”\n\n“Look, Mr. West,” the man said, closing his notebook and slipping it back into his pocket. Kanye folded up his own notepad and also put it away—it wasn’t like he had intended on writing anything down, anyway. He neither had a pen, nor remembered what the letter “E” looked like. “I can’t force you to do this, I don’t have that kind of power.”\n\n“Great,” Kanye said, grabbing the door beside him and beginning to close it. He wasn’t particularly interested in listening to this man’s nonsensical pleas anymore. A man like Kanye didn’t need to be bothered with such mundane nonsense, especially when it was all information he already knew about people that didn’t even register on his radar.\n \n“Hang on,” the man said, putting his foot in front of the closing door. “I can’t force you to, but I can ask that you please reconsider. You will probably die if you close that door. Just, please think about it. If you just come with me, you’ll be safe. After this all blows over and we find the sicko killing these celebrities, you can go back home, you can continue living. Yes, you’ll need to be looked after for a few days in a safe place, but this is cleared, you’ll be on your own again.”\n\n“No thanks,” Kanye said, closing the door the rest of the way before walking back over to the kitchen table. He made a mental note to request that his security guards not allow every single man wearing pathetically unattractive, non-designer clothing from “FBI” to waltz up to his door and interrupted him. He was a busy man, doing important things, and handling important people. He couldn’t be interrupted constantly.\n\nKanye pulled a chair out from in front his table and took a seat, a muffled squeal crying out across from him. So pathetic, all of these people with their unrealistic egos. He picked up the hacksaw lying on top of the wooden table and ran it across his palm, the moistened blade slipping across his skin. How could anyone think they were better than he was? \n\n“Now,” he said, glancing up at Jay-Z’s taped mouth, “where were we?” \n_____________\n^If ^you ^enjoy ^my ^writing ^style, ^feel ^free ^to ^check ^out ^some ^of ^my ^other ^short ^stories [^in ^my ^subreddit!](http://www.reddit.com/r/ChokingVictimWrites/)\n" ]	3
I did a short story on this exact idea and would love to hear some unique spins on it!	[WP] The year is 2064 and you're about to knock on the door of your next "assignment." The door opens and you're heart drops - it's a six year old girl. This is the first time the government has assigned you a child to kill for population control.	[ "\"Hello Little Girl, Whats your name?\"\n\nI already know is Jane the report had mentioned it but had left out the age probably just a clerical error it still happens now and then\n\n\"My name is J..\"\n\nHer sentence is cut short but a short popping sound and her head snaps back as the kinetic force breaks her neck instantly, i put my \"Popper\" back my pocket and place the Red I.D tag on her body and close the door on my way out, not much chance of any one robbing the place not since they started capital punishment for all crimes but still its a warm day and i dont want their house to get too warm with the body there.\n\nIm sure her parents will understand...after all its not unheard of for 6 year olds to be selected for Control Enforcement, shes my 4th this month and its nothing new to me after all sacrifices have to be made if we are to survive.\n\"Better them then me\" i mutter as i walk on to the next assignment \"Better them then me\"", "\"Please don't kill me, mister.\"\n\nThe girl couldn't have been more than six, but it was clear she recognized my uniform. She stood there is the doorway, her bright sun dress clashing with the tears running down her cheeks.\n\n\"There's an old lady who lives down the hall. She's ill. Kill her instead.\"\n\nI was suddenly sick to my stomach. But my training had prepared me for that. I pushed past it and raised my captive bolt pistol to the girl's forehead. I was trained by the best. They prepared me for anything. \n\nAlmost anything. I couldn't help it. What I said next wasn't protocol. What I said next was for me. I wanted her to know. Before the end, I wanted her to know.\n\n\"That woman is a taxpayer,\" I said. \"What are you, some kind of communist?\"\n\nHer lifeless body fell to the floor.\n\n\"Fuck you.\"\n\nI left the body for her family to find. What a bitch. \n\nI knew my place. Why couldn't others know theirs? Didn't they know people were starving out there? Not 100 yards from her door, people in the prime of their productive years were starving. What else were we going to do?\n\nAnd thinking that I could be swayed by a cherub's face and a tearful plea? The gall. The unmitigated gall. Well, the joke was on her.\n\nIt was her parents fault, really. I knew from the dossier that her father was a prominent member of the opposition party and her mother wrote for a radical publication in one of the darker corners of the net. They must have known the risks. When you participate in the system, you agree to abide by the outcome. \n\nThat's just democracy.", "First time writing here, not a writer at all so any criticism is welcome.\n\n\n\n\nI never thought I would be a killer, especially not employed as one. It's not a very glamorous job. Still, it pays well, and at some point even murder becomes nothing more than just a job. It's not a job I enjoy, but it's necessary, and a lot of military positions require you to kill people for some reason or another. I don't do military stuff any more, got 'promoted' to a government-paid position, but the job is still the same. Kill people who pose a threat to National Security. Turns out that a lot of people are a threat. \n\nLately my contracts have been more pop' control than anything else.\nI hate those.\nThey require the killing of 'excess population members', in other words any non-resident whose presence causes the areas' population to go over the allowed number.\nIt's not a very good system, but its better than what we had before. I don't really care, seeing as I get lifelong immunity for me and any future family I may have.\nLike I said before, it's not an ideal job, but it has it's perks\nThing is, only the poorer ones get killed, while the rich people just pay a fine and have to move to a less populated area.\n\nMy last contract though, that one was a bitch.\nI had to clean up an entire family, two parents and three kids. Piss-poor and all too aware of the reason I was there. You see, the easiest method is to just sneak in at night and get do it when everyone's asleep, make it look like a mob hit. Thing is, breaking in silently is a bit harder when there's a giant guard dog sleeping in the living room. The dog just jumped and tried to bite my arms off, barking the entire time. Kiling it was easy, but the rest of the family had woken up by then. I had to shoot every one of them, until I got to the kid.\n\nShe looked to be around 6 or 7, and seeing her so scared flipped a switch in me or something. I just couldn't bring myself to shoot a kid. I thought it would be easy, just like killing any one else. But it wasn't. I just stood there, trying to make myself pull the trigger so I could just get out of there, but...\n\nLong story short, i left, and I took the kid with me. I'm gonna adopt her. She's not going to live with me, i'd be a terrible father, but she is gonna live. I pulled some strings and got her placed in a foster home, with full immunity.\nI don't feel bad for what I did, any of it. I just can't bring myself to take another contract, not when I know that they could have been Alice. That's the little girl's name, by the way. \nAll that's left now is to go down to the office tomorrow and quit, maybe get myself a desk job.", "When it hits the fan, it hits it quick. Whenever I have that rare second to work the last 22 years around in my mind, that's the only conclusion I can reasonably draw. A friend told me in training that your mind is either canvas or clay. I never knew what that meant, and when it had bugged me enough to find him to ask, he had taken his own life. He was a year ahead of me in training, and after I found him and cut him down I asked for 6 more months myself. It had hit me hard.\n\nI soon realized I would have been happy spending my whole life cutting classmates down in training.\n\nAccording to my dads stories, I came from a family of war heroes. My great, great grandfathers were great, great leaders. There is a legend in my family of the greatest of grandfathers who would jump from planes to fight the enemy, behind their lines. He was the first of his kind, they said. I remember trying to picture a plane you could jump from but never could. I decided to enlist when I saw the commercials for a new division. It was called CONTROL, not an acronym, and it was asking for men and women who wanted to be the 'new difference in an old war'. Some called it a war on fear. I always wondered how you could have a war on a concept. \n\nThe first 6 months after CONTROL training I pissed myself so much I had to buy diapers. At first I would sneak off site to buy them, but soon learned they were supplied by the army after admitting my problem to a classmate. I thought that was weird, but free diapers was nice. \n\nFor every month you worked, you got a month off in a relaxation site. There were games, booze, and women. Pretty much anything else you can imagine. There were even rumors of secret areas where 'anything went'. Every month you worked earned you a credit. After 6 credits you could take 6 months off to leave site and see your family, or travel before it was to late. I was on my 5th credit, and the last day of the month. This was going to be my last job before I could see my daughter.\n\nIntelligence said the target would open the door. Depending on your class, the army may pay you for a target, and this was one of those cases. I liked these cases because they always opened the door. It was easy. \n\nIt's policy to walk through any neighborhoods on foot so I was dropped off a few blocks away, in a cold zone. There weren't many people outside these days, but temperature training really helped us in CONTROL. When I got to the house I made my way up the steps. One more day, I would tell myself on each one. I hopped up the last three in rhythm. One. More. Day. \n\nMy daughter was turning 6, and for the first time ever I would make a birthday party. I doubt she even remembered me. Because of my schedule I was forced to leave the next morning, so I was going to grab her a present at the seaport and arrive just in time. \n\nAt the door, I exhaled and knocked. After a few moments, I could hear the 'pitter patter' of little feet getting closer. Great, I thought. I really hated dogs, they got in the way.\n\nWhen the door opened, I looked down to brace myself for a bite... but two big brown human eyes were staring back up at me nervously. They belonged to a body no bigger then my daughters. Their eyes, I imagined, had the same curiosity in them. She was holding a doll in her hands that looked like her. She never spoke.\n\n\"Are your parents home?\" She nodded yes, and turned to get them, 'pitter pattering' off. But before she could, I raised my hand and shot, silently. She dropped just as silently and it was over; the doll fell from her hands. And my friend from training made sense. I knew why he died. I walked over and picked up the doll, because it was perfect for my daughter, and called for a disposal. I had done my job, like I had always done my job. I walked back to the pick up location as the sun beamed down on me. This would have been a nice day, I remember. \n\nOur minds may be both canvas and clay, I thought. A canvas starts blank and begins to fill as we learn. If we need to erase something, we can only hope we wrote in pencil. When it is full, it turns to clay. We take what we learned, and shape it to fit us as we grow. But we can't escape the canvas, there was a beautiful and ugly truth to that. \n\nAnd I had written in stone. \n\nI met my daughter a few days later and gave her the doll. She loved it, and I loved her. She loved me too, she would remember. I cried alone that night. When I went back to training I brought a rope.\n\nI told my favorite recruit never to swim against currents, instead of the canvas thing. He laughed at me. Be careful what you earn, I told him anyways.\n\nThis year I was old enough for a private room. I really believe I earned it. ", "Sitting in the retro diner on Fourth Street I could hear the incessant smacking of the portly patron in the next booth over as he devoured his roast beef sandwich. He sounded like a man who hadn't eaten in days though my eyes told me he hadn't missed many meals. The sound was driving me mad so it was time for me to take my leave, lunch was almost over anyway. \n\nI motioned for Marv to follow me as I got up and headed back to work. I waved my government issued Personal Holographic Interface (PHI) in front of the terminal where the register used to be on my way. I still missed the human interaction at such places but at least with no waitress I didn't have to leave a tip. \n\nI was just glad that my job wasn't computerized and robotized yet. Still, it was only a matter of time before what's left of the conservative stalwarts in the Senate would be gone and the progressives could continue their eugenics progressivism unhindered. \n\nAs Marv and I stepped into our office, a 2021 Chevrolet City Express Van that I convinced my superiors to let me retrofit for work, he pulled up the employee payroll screen on the van's display. We always made sure to \"punch the clock\" before we even started the vehicle. After that the computer did all the work, showing us our next job location, plotting our route, and then locking our doors and hauling us across town.\n\nWhile Bertha, that was what we called our van, drove us to the job site I took the time to go over the instructions for the job. Everything seemed routine so I quickly scanned through it and closed the window so I could get back to playing Candy Crush, surely my lives had regenerated by then. Marv just sat quietly watching out the window as we left downtown Memphis and headed into the residential area. \n\nMarv and I didn't usually talk much, after ten years as partners we ran out of things to talk about, and that was two years ago. Most of our conversations were non verbal, we usually knew what the other was thinking. \n\nAs Bertha started slowing down an automated man's voice told us that we were nearing our destination. I preferred the woman's voice, especially since the van was called Bertha but Marv said that if he wanted a woman telling him what to do he wouldn't have gotten a divorce. \n\nWhen we pulled to a stop in front of the house Marv grabbed his belt and I, already having mine, got out and walked around to his side. \"You ready for another round, Marv?\" I asked.\n\n\"As ready as I'll ever be,\" he replied in exaggerated dismay. \n\n\"You got the name?\"\n\n\"It's Alexandria Jumper, I don't remember the age, height, or weight but I can go back and look if you want.\"\n\n\"Na, let's get this over with,\" I said as we headed up the sidewalk. \n\nFollowing protocol, we readied our badges and had our guns holstered when we approached the door. I wasn't even sure why we were still issued the damn things, we never needed them. I think they were mostly for intimidation, since President Obama had finally outlawed guns in 2021 at the start of his fourth term. I saw on some conspiracy website that they were no longer teaching the young kids about the Second Amendment or its subsequent abolishment anymore. \n\nAs usual, I knocked on the door and Marv would be the one to read the warrant. Usually while he is doing that I go ahead and use my PHI and my security clearance to shut down all connected devices registered to the target's SSN. It sounds complicated but since everyone is connected to the United States Cloud Service, I can do it all with the press of a holographic button. They won't be able use anything electronic in their entire house, unless they have an illegal appliance made before 2020 that doesn't connect.\n\nWhen the door finally opened there stood a man of about 137. It always gets dicey if the target isn't the one to open the door. When Marv tells the man we are looking for Alexadria Jumper he gets the most confused look on his face that I've ever seen. \n\n\"There must be some mistake, ya see, my name is Alexander Jumper. Alexandria is my granddaughter, named after myself and her late father. I saw your van pull up and I knew it must be my turn to make the ultimate sacrifice for my country. Surely you aren't here for Alexandria, she's only a girl. There must be a mistake!\"\n\nI couldn't let him continue this diatribe, our mission is to take the target into possession in less than three minutes from first contact with big bonuses coming to agents who beat the target time consistently. \"I'm sorry to interrupt you sir but your name is NOT on this warrant we have here. If you are unwilling to cooperate with us I strongly urge you to step aside, unless you want to take a trip to Gitmo for terroristic threats and behavior.\"\n\n\"You don't understand! She is only...\" Marv didn't let him finish his plea before he hit him with the zapper, now we could go through the house and collect him later. \n\nI took the upstairs while Marv headed towards the back of the house, both of us repeating, \"We are agents of the United States Department of Human Services, please come out with your hands raised,\" just like we were trained to do. \n\nWhen I reached the top of the stairs I heard the faintest sobbing coming from behind me. I turned and saw an eight year old girl standing on the landing crying on the verge of hysterics. Walking up to her my PHI did an auto scan and told me I was looking at... my target. ", "The child stared at me from behind her mother's leg. There was fear in her eyes. Either she understood exactly what was happening, or not at all. I'm not sure which makes me more irritated. I look back at her valiant, wailing defender. Pale blue mascara runs down her plastic face. She slashes me with purple nails, and I can feel blood running down my face. I want to return the favor, but that would be unbecoming of a Fed.\n\nShe keeps shrieking, asking questions she doesn't let me answer and making empty threats. They always know I'm coming, but all the preparation in the world can't control primitive human instinct. Her dedication to the child is admirable, admittedly. I think back on the countless clients I've had before: elders mostly, with the occasional cancer patient or bum. Then it hits me... no kids. Society's scapegoat. Even in the cold, calculated lists of the Government reapers the children get away Scot-free. They're young and to the average moron they are, inexplicably, valuable. \n\nIf reality doesn't strike her soon then I will. I'm taking this little brat away.", "I can assure you it was no accident and there was no regret. It took exactly 4.56 seconds.\n\nEach control officer has their own method and style, which might be a surprise to most, of course it isn't a surprise to you. You would expect such a job to be heavily regulated, with mountains of papers and forms, various rules and procedures, every I dotted and every T crossed. In the early days it was like that, which is why the suicide rate was more then every other job combined, before you joined. Eventually the government caught on that you just had to let the control officers do it their own way. They lasted a bit longer, at least long enough that when they did finally snap the insurance policy paid out well.\n\nSome preferred drugs. Others liked to use their bare hands. I preferred something simple, with a little detachment, it helped a bit. A Jericho 941-C, a call back to my younger days. It could be messy, but that was never my job to deal with now was it?\n\nTheir car was parked in the drive way so I knew the family was home. Most of the other houses were empty, as this section of the city seemed to be the central focus of control officers for the past few months. Something about a failed harvest in the west necessitated the ramp up in control. I never really cared about the reasons. Behind their car was a black van, an older model with plenty of scrapes and dings, that gave a hint the driver didn't care much for reputation or appearances.\n\nI parked on the sidewalk, taking a moment to jot down a note in my diary. Time, location, mood. These details weren't required, but something about the rote practice that I did before every assignment made it just a bit easier. The radio crackled back to life as the morning host played his next bit. He was a sad man, ever since his friend from Pittsburgh died and his co-host moved onto a better job. I left the car running, just to give the poor bastard a little ratings boost.\n\nMy eyes were drawn to the toys in the front yard. A little play house and a toy bike, both covered in a soft layer of snow. It was an odd sight, as no one let their kids play outside anymore. Crime was at an all time low, but fear was always high.\n\nThe doorbell gave a little jingle and I could hear the approaching footsteps through the frosted ice covered windows. The person on the other side struggled with the doorknob for a moment before finally pulling the heavy door back. She stared up at me with a knowing look in her eyes. I died right then, at that look, that look that held knowledge a kid should never know. Looking past her I could see the house was a mess. The paintings on the wall tilted wrong, the vase on the stairwell chest smashed to pieces. \n\nIn the living room a reclining chair was facing the parlor wall where the next reality show was airing its first episode. A medical stand leaned against the chair and tubes filled with chemicals and drugs snaked from an IV bag into a man's veins. Stepping out of the living room, he looked up at me. A bit surprised at first, he gave a wave with his gloved hands. It always made me wonder why he decided to dress so nice and drive that shit van.\n\n\"A little late. How about we split the contract? Just finish her off and I'll deal with the mo--\"\n\nHe never finished the sentence. A .45 slug has a habit of ending sentences early.\n\nIt took 4.56 seconds. It was not an accident and I have no regrets.\n\n- Debriefing of Control Officer Thaddeus Clark prior to Termination with Department of Population Control.", "Hey there. First time writing here and years since I've written. Decided to buck the trend. All opinions welcomed!\n\nGloves, check. Sunglasses, check. Trench coat, check. Gun, check. With my stereotypical hitman outfit in place I thought it time to head up to the room. Room 35-T. I just want to get this over with. I just checked my watch and realized that I could probably make it home to put Raina to bed. As long as this job is quick. I enter the lobby. I nod to the security guard. He gives me a look. Probably because of my love of wearing sunglasses at night. Hey, I have an image to keep up. I, the badass trench coat wearing, sunglasses at night, 3rd ranked hitman of the year, step into the elevator.\n\nYes, my favorite. Elevator music before the kill is so relaxing. I always like to take jobs in tall buildings because of this. Elevators going up makes my spirits go up too. Helps me to at least feel like what I’m doing isn’t terrible. Plus, I always feel cool when I walk through the elevator door. It’s like those old movies from the early 2000s. This hallway is longer than most. I hope my kill, this…Ginny Michaels come right to the door. That way I can just do it and leave. 35-Q, 35-R, 35-S, 35-T. Here it is. And it’s only 7 o’clock. Knock knock.\nThe door opens, just a little. It’s amazing they haven’t come up with anything better than a chain to prevent strangers from jumping you at the door.\n\n“Hello, sir.”\n\nWhat a meek little voice. When I look down, I see the cutest little girl. Has to be maybe 6 years old. I love her. I bend down to meet eye level with her. “Hi there darling. Is your mother at home?”\n\n“Yes. Mommy!”\n\n“Coming Gee Gee. Hi can I help you? It’s late.”\n\nLet the games begin. “Mrs. Michaels? Mrs. Ginny Michaels?”\n\n“Michaels, yes. But my name is Jennifer. Ginny is my daughter, who I believe you already met. What is this about?”\n\nThis is not what I expected. “Mrs. Michaels. I would recommend packing up and leaving town. My employer has hired me to kill your daughter, but I will not. But that doesn’t mean they will stop. I am sorry for what your family is about to endure.”\n\nI turned around and walked back down the painfully long hallway. I’m pretty sure it’s longer now. When I get into the elevator my communicator beeps; and here I thought the elevator music would calm down me down. My contact asks if the job is done. I tell him that I did the job right and would like to see him tonight. He expects to pay me, I expect to get answers. Goodnight Raina, 17 days without a kiss goodnight.\n\nI usually don’t meet my employers. I don’t like people to see me in person. I like to be more of a specter. I just live ethereally in the air between the killer and the killed. But tonight I need to make an exception. We agree to see each other on the docks at midnight. Normally I would eat this classic crime cliché up. I’ll see the fun in it later, hopefully. Midnight rolls around and I activate the voice altering application on my communicator. I sound like a rusty robot imitating an Irishman. He’s late. I take to looking at the skyline. The city is dark at this time of night. Since I’ve been alive they’ve had the power fasting. We’re such wasteful creatures; I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner than it did. I had always expected hover cars, teleporters, robotic servants and interplanetary space flight by now. Instead we got regression. Time passes. I hear the rumble of an engine.\n\nA white car rolls up. My communicator chimes 5 o’ clock. My employer is late. Not normal. A woman steps out. Usually my employers are men. Not that it matters. The car’s plates say government on it, also an irregularity. This should be fun.\n\n“I hear you did the job right Mr… what should I call you?” This woman gives off a bad air.\n\n“Specter.”\n\n“How comic. Now can you explain to me…Specter, why the right job means Ginny Michaels sleeps soundly in her bed?”\n\n“Because I don’t kill children.”\n\n“You kill who you are paid to kill.”\n\n“Sorry. No. That is not the game I play.”\n\n“It’s time you start playing. Water, Power, Natural Gas, Oil, Coal. What do these have in common? Fasting. The reason that these need to be fasted in the first place is people. So to save our resources we need to take action.”\n\n“And killing children is the answer?”\n\n“Overpopulation is the problem. The answer is complicated.”\n\n“I’m done with this.” I turn around. The rustiness of my voice being swallowed by the ebb and flow of the water. \n\n“The name is Carmen Swenson. If you change your mind.” She swipes and her contact information appears in my communicator: name, number, address. \n\n“Doubt it.” \n\nTime to head home. I should have been there at 8. Instead I roll up to my apartment just before 7 in the morning and head into the elevator. I sigh. This is some nice music. I open my eyes as the door elevator door dings. I let out an audible laugh. I’m glad I found the cliché at the dock funny. That’s the way I like it. I open my door and my eyes widen. Shards of glass reflecting the moonlight from the window catch my eye. I run toward the bedrooms, grabbing the archway to turn the corner faster. Something sticky. I taste it. Blood. Raina. I run into my daughters’ bedroom. I am no longer a husband. I turn to my right, turn to my left but don’t see my daughter. My beautiful 6 year old. Where is she? I open the closet. Clothes. Under the bed. Games. The hall closet. Canned Food. I run to my bedroom. It’s pitch black. The smell of iron is in the air. My communicator chimes 7 o’clock. A click. The sound of the power ramping up. The lights power up. I am no longer a father.\n\nI take the bracelet off my daughter’s wrist. I rip the pedant of the sun I bought her for her birthday off. She loved it. I take the chain around my wife’s neck off and put the pendant on it. I put it around my neck and think to myself, ‘this feels like an origin story’. I walk out of my apartment and back to the elevator. The music plays. I close my eyes and breathe. The elevator dings open.\n\nGloves, check. Sunglasses, check. Trench coat, check. Gun, check. Necklace, check.\n\n“Let the games begin.”\n", "What is this? What the shit is this?\n\nMy inner voice was screaming. She can’t be the one assigned. I swear I read they can’t give you someone under eighteen. The little girl on the doorstep was watching me, waiting for me to say something.\n\n“Hi, honey, is your mummy or daddy in?”\n\nShe took her thumb out of her mouth and looked at me with big eyes. Oh, fucking hell.\n\n“No.” she said.\n\n“Do you mind if I come in for a bit?”\n\nShe moved out of the doorway and wandered back into the house. I followed her in, ducking my head under the low doorway and squinting through the gloom to see where she went. It reeked - smelled like cat piss and dirty nappies. I could hear the muffled blare of an elderly television, so I guessed she must have gone through to the sitting room. Grime was crusted on the windows and I’m sure I do not want to know the state of the floor. It was disgusting. If the sitting room was anything like the hallway then I was not eager to follow her in. I checked the time - it was two in the afternoon. Kid should be in school, but she wasn't, and I should have been assigned an adult. Let her watch telly for a bit. I had time to make a quick phone call.\n\n“Hi, Maria. Hi. How are you? Good, good to hear. So listen, I have a query about this assignment-”\n\n“Did you find the house okay?”\n\n“Yes, I found the house all right, no trouble there. My problem is more the nature of the … objective.”\n\n“You know the drill, McMahon.”\n\n“I do know the drill. I know the job. But she’s six years old, Maria. Six!”\n\n“Do you think children can’t contribute to over-population? Do you think they don’t use resources?”\n\nThe sudden anger in my handler’s voice shocked me a little, if only because I have never heard her angry. I know my job is a dirty job but someone has to do it – some die so that many may live. We’ve really gotten back to nature in the last few years since we finally lost the ice caps, and culling the weakest of the herd is the most natural thing on the planet. But not the children. Never the children.\n\n“Listen, McMahon. This shit is tough. I know it’s tough, why do you think I assigned it to you? Comber nearly baulked at that old man the other week and Fothergill is still in therapy and she’s only had six kills. You’re a good exterminator. To me you’re worth your weight in gold. And you know we don’t pick these targets randomly. How does it smell, by the way?”\n\n“Fucking awful.”\n\n“I am not surprised. I was there last weekend. Believe me, James, when I tell you that little girl’s life is not worth living.”\n\n“The parents?”\n\n“Dead within a couple of months, maybe a year. They’re human scum, the definition of human scum.”\n\nI could hear a strange cadence in Maria’s voice. She’s usually calm and very cool, detached absolutely as you’d have to be if you assigned death for a living. But there was a rare hint of emotion in the way she said the word “scum”. The kind of disgust I’ve not often heard expressed in person. Suddenly I understood why the girl had been chosen to die.\n\n“Thanks, Maria. I’ll let you know when the job is done.”\n\nI hung up, ran my hand through my hair, and made my way into the sitting room. This room was as filthy as the hallway, with a crusty carpet and stains on the sofa. I had a horrible feeling I could guess what made them.\n\nThe little girl was sitting on the edge of the nasty sofa, her hands twisting the hem of her dress. She looked at me with those big eyes as I entered.\n\n“Hey,” I said. “What’s your name?”\n\n“Emily.” She replied.\n\n“Do you have a brother or sister, Emily?” I asked her.\n\n“No.” Her voice was small.\n\nI looked at her fierce little face and the strange fear in her eyes, thought about how easily she let a strange man into her house, how unremarkable she found it. Answer the door, lie on the sofa, watch TV and try not to think about what was happening, money on the sideboard, rinse and repeat. The poor girl.\n\n“Emily,” I crouched down to her level. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m going to take you to a nicer place, a much nicer place. Somewhere nobody will hurt you ever again.”\n\n“You’re lying,” she said simply. Everything she said was in the same level tone of voice. She spoke like a zombie.\nI felt a bit guilty – after all, I was lying.\n\n“I’m not lying,” I said. “You can trust me. Now, shall we go? There’s a car waiting outside. It’ll take us to a nice clean place where there’s lots of other kids, hot food every day, and they have a puppy too if you want one.” I was improvising desperately at this point. I don’t know how to talk to children at the best of times. I just needed her to stand up. I can’t be talking to her while she’s on that sofa.\n\n“They’ll hurt me too,” she said.\n\nI shook my head. I didn’t know what else to do. “There will be cake?”\n\nAt that, she actually smiled. She stood up. She took a few steps towards the door. I shot her in the back of the head. She died instantly. She never saw anything, she never knew that I lied, and I stand by what I did. She went somewhere no one can ever hurt her again.\n\nI carried her upstairs and laid her on a – filthy, unmade, but unstained – bed. I could not put her on that sofa. Then I rang my handler.\n\n“Hey Maria. I did it. Job’s done.”\n\n“Good,” I could hear the relief in Maria’s voice. “I’m sorry it had to be you.”\n\nI shrugged.\n\n“It had to be someone. The alternative was worse.”\n\n“Yes, it was.”\n\n“I want you to put me on the list for therapy.”\n\n“I already did, I figured you might need it. I’ll send the clean-up team in now. James?”\n\n“Yeah?”\n\n“The orphanage and foster homes for this section are at max capacity. I checked and I double-checked. I didn’t want to assign this kid, but I had to. You did the best thing you possibly could have done.”\n", "*Hello, everyone. This is my very first reddit post. I've been browsing these writing subreddits for awhile and decided to finally give it a shot. I mainly write screenplays and stuff. I was running out of steam and stuff towards the end but I wanted to finish and post it before I went into work. Hope you guys enjoy.\n\nYou tell yourself that you're doing them a favor. They never have to be hungry or sleep in the dirt ever again. They don't have to be cold anymore. They don't have to suffer. You are ending their suffering. You are just doing your job. That it's for the good of the Government and future generations. All of this is true. It doesn't make the job any easier.\n\nI like to honestly believe that the government chose this program because there was no other option, not just because it was the easier one. Welfare reform was the new administrations biggest priority. I was still finishing my residency when the Welfare reform act of 2060 was passed. It was supposed to be a 5 year merger designed to reduce the population by 40%. The government compared the process to a fat man losing weight to reducing stress on his knees or back. \"Look at the Human body. It's a got a certain structure. It can support a certain amount of weight and still operate at an optimum level but after a certain amount of weight, that takes it's toll on you physically. Suddenly normal activities like bending over to tie your shoes or walking your dog become much more difficult. Eventually you gain more weight and suddenly the things you took for granted are suddenly impossible to do. It's the same with the planet. It's got a certain structure. It can support a lot of us for sure and it did so for a long time. But now Earth cant perform the way it use to. It's gotten too fat. It is being weighed down and now we got help out the Earth and help relieve some of the stress on it's knees.\"\n\nThe legislation quadrupled the amount of resources that went into the Welfare department. To make it seem humane each Welfare Officer is a certified Doctor.\n\nThe first time is definitely the hardest. Strapping them up to the rig, finding the veins to prick, forcing the solutions into their blood stream, watching the life flicker out of their bodies and that's that. It's a fucked up thing to do to a person but it gets easier. Every Welfare Officer reacts differently the first time. Most cry and turn to drinking others drink and then cry. \n\nThe assignments sometimes tried to beg and plead like we have any real say in the matter. I've heard of stories of some assignments attempting to run, it's never happened to me though. The armed commandos we travel with usually deter any kind of violent reaction. You deal with each assignments with as much delicacy as possible given the circumstances. Most of the time you comfort them. You try to make them believe that they will be in a better place. Some of the assignments don't say a word and that's always the worst. You knock on the door, \"Hello, my name is Eugene Parks, I'm with the Welfare Department, I'm looking for So-and-so, might that be you? May I come inside?\" They nod and they don't say anything. You make your way into their filthy apartment. It's like they were anticipating our visit. They just sit and stare at nothing. Maybe they look at the floor or the ceiling but it's always at nothing.\n\nI never questioned the need for this program. It's terrible but it had to be done. Our planet was dying. The evidence was right before us with our dried up water reserves and barren landscapes. The selection process was a whole another story. They never announced what was the criteria for selection. They claimed it was random and I did my best to believe that. The job was stressful enough so I tried not to think why I am visiting this assignment.\n\nUntil I met Maddy.\n\nThe 8th district had become super familiar with the area and I had over dozen assignments in the apartment complex where I found Maddy. Her brown eyes flickered when she opened door, she looked disappointed when she opened the door, \"I thought you were my mommy.\" It broke my heart the way she said it, I knew right away that this was going to be a shitty assignment, \"Now, I'm sorry sweetie. I'm actually looking for your Mommy. Madeline Hall. Will she be back soon?\"\n\"I'm Maddie.\" She said.\n\nI thought it was a cute gesture, a little child claiming their identity,\"I bet you are but I think I'm looking for your mommy. The other Maddy.\"\n\"My mommy's name is Sarah.\"\n\nI nearly shit myself when she said that. There had to have been a mistake. \"Well do you mind if I come inside and wait with you for you mommy.\"\n\"Okay.\"\n\nI walk in and it's dump like all the other slums. I'm still don't think she's the assignment, so I continue my little ritual.\n\n\"Do you think it's all right if I clean this area over here?\" I pointed to the kitchen table. She shrugged and I got to work.\n\nAlthough it was never really necessarily, I always liked to sterilize the area where I performed the procedure. I liked giving them a nice place to lay down when it was all over. It helped me keep my humanity a little.\n\nI set my briefcase down on the table and pulled out the device. It was a metal frame that had three canisters or bottles, about 6 inches wide by 12 inches. Each bottle had a syringe that connected to a single IV line in the person's arm. The first bottle contained ordinary saline, or salt water. The second contained a sleep-inducing barbiturate called sodium thiopental, and the third was a mixture of potassium chloride which would stop their heart. A little pancuronium bromide was thrown in. It was a muscle relaxant to prevent spasms during the dying process. The whole thing was rather unassuming, it kind of resembled a toy chemistry set that they use to sell to children.\n\n\"What's that?\" She said, pointing to the device. No one had ever asked me that question. Everyone who has the misfortune of me paying them visit know why I'm there. \"Did your mommy usually leave you alone like this?\" At this point I had been waiting for an hour.\n\"No.\"\n\"What time did she leave? Where did she say she was going?\"\n\"She left at night.\"\n\"At night?\" I said incredulously. I looked outside the window and saw the sun still shining. \"Are you sure.\"\n\"Yeah. It was 3 days ago. Her friend came to the door and Mommy said that she needed to go talk to her friend and to wait.\"\n\n I was full on panicking at this point. I still couldn't believe that she was the assignment. Children were supposed to be exempt for consideration. They were supposed to be what we were reducing the population for. I went outside and tried to get my ducks in a row. The guards were waiting out there, I saw the impatience in their faces, wondering why I was taking so long. I didn't know what to do.\n\n\"The little girl is the assignment.\" I finally blurted out. \nThe guards remained stoic but managed to say, \"Tough break. Hurry it up and get it over with.\"\n\"You're kidding.\" I said.\n\"Like shit we are. We have four other assignments to get to.\"\n\"Look Park, we are just doing our duty. Don't over think it.\"\n\"You know what the penalty is for not completing an assignment. We are not here to play god. We just do what we are told.\"\nIt was all too much to handle at one point. I felt my cheeks flushing with heat, my mouth was dry. I felt my chest caving in with the already impending guilt. Things were desperate. \"Where does it end? I thought the kids were why we're fucking doing this shit!\"\nAt this point they started to get annoyed, \"Parks do you want us to get court marshaled? Do you want to get disbarred?\"\n\"Look, Parks. One of two things are going to happen: Either you're going to inside and do your job or we are going to go in their and do it for you. I'm not for killing of children but you got to focus on the next assignment. Don't over think it. Just do you job.\" \n\nI go back inside, sit at the table. Hook up the rig, prick a vein... and that's that.\n\nEND.", "Her eyes were pale blue, like mine. In another life I could have seen her being my own daughter. I would have named her Delilah and we'd have done a lot of things together. We'd have learned together. \n\nI could have taught her the three languages I know. She could have taught me how to be less judgmental. There would be days I'd show her what it's like to grow old and she would remind me of what it's like to be young, even if just in heart. \n\nThere were doubts in my mind, not of my job, but of her own father. Was he around? He didn't answer the door. She looked malnurished, she looked stupid and dirty. Dust caked her face and hands and it was early in the morning, the time a girl her age should be getting ready for school.\n\n\"Who's home?\" Her face didn't change as I spoke, as if she didn't even understand me. It made my heart sink that so many children had to live with low intelligence. \n\nShe shook her head. \n\nI knelt down to meet her eye to eye and reached into my pocket. \n\n\"Candy?\" I said, removing the small wrapped chocolate ball and holding it out to her. \"Go on. Yum.\"\n\nHer eyes flickered and she showed her teeth, her cheeks turning a rosy red. She grabbed it and popped it into her mouth, wrapper and all. Her face turned sour until the paper melted and she tasted the chocolately goodness. \n\nI rubbed her head at that and stood, turning and walking away. As the chocolate made its way down her gullet, the poison was being soaked into her blood and would soon cause her to seize and drop dead. \n\nAnyone else and I'd have just shot them. But a father should never see his daughter die.", "I knock three times.\n\nPsychopathy is defined as \"a mental disorder in which an individual manifests amoral and antisocial behavior and the lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships.\" I was sixteen when I was properly diagnosed as a psychopath. To be honest, I'm surprised that they caught it that early. I wasn't hiding it. I never really considered I had it. I just did what I was told. I had friends growing up, made good grades, played sports. I enjoyed Tai Chi. I never broke the law or got into trouble. Except that one time. \n\nThe door creaks open.\n\nI didn't make friends or play sports or get good grades because I enjoyed it. I did those things because I was supposed to. They were the rules. The way I've always seen it, the world runs on rules. Rules are the gears that govern the machine. And machines run in binary. 0's and 1's. Yes and no. Do or do not. Yin and Yang. Maybe that's why I like Tai Chi. People like to talk about living in a grey world, the lack of black and white choices. They don't get it. Every decision we make can be broken down into a series of yes or no decisions. Even the most complicated choice can be made by simplifying each aspect of it to a yes or no value judgement. Any indecision comes from a lack of conviction.\n\nI look down and see a small girl between the age of 5-6, staring at me with wide, blue eyes, tightly gripping a stuffed elephant.\n\nDuring my sophomore year of high school, when I was sixteen, my friend Carter was being hurt by bullies. I don't like bullies. They have a bad habit of breaking the rules. The ringleader, Connor, was laying it on the worst. I broke his arm. While he was down, I broke two ribs. When the police asked me why I did it, I told them I was helping my friend. You're supposed to help your friends. Those are the rules. They asked me how close of a friend Carter was. I told them he was my best friend. That was the truth. I had no sentimental attachment to Carter over others I associated with. I sat with him and talked with him because he was kind and trusting and happy. Kind and trusting and happy people are easy to manipulate. The most manipulatable person was the best. Carter was my best friend. \n\n\"Are your parents home?\" I ask the girl. She shakes her head slightly. It begins to register what was happening. \"Are you Caitlyn?\" She nods.\n\nI went through a series of psychological tests after the incident. That's when I was diagnosed. My parents had money though. I did three months in a rehabilitation facility over the summer. My life went on like nothing happened. It's amazing what money can buy. How it can bend the rules It was 2045 that year. My parents were becoming quite wealthy from investing in burgeoning technology to deal with a rapidly expanding population. When school started, I made amends with Connor. You might think that would be difficult when I broke three of his bones not too long before. It wasn't. People have called me charming my entire life.\n\nI am annoyed with myself. I should have realized what this meant quicker. It's just they've never been this young before.\n\nI didn't go to college. Instead I joined the police force. Enforcing the law, keeping everything ordered. I moved up through the ranks quickly. Eventually I attracted the attention of the government. They pulled my file and apparently liked what they saw. I was invited to join a new division of the government. It wasn't public yet.\n\nI remove the gun from my jacket pocket.\n\nThe country's population was spiraling out of control, they said. The technology my parents were investors in failed to stem the growth like so many other attempts. The time had come, they said, for forced control. Not death chambers or firing squads, but precision killings to stem the growth of life. Politicians who oppose one child policies. Business leaders whose deaths cause company collapses, rendering employees unable to support families. Religious leaders who encouraged procreation. The government thought I would be an effective agent. I was eager to make sure all the gears in the machine kept turning. They wanted proof I wouldn't back out on a job. They assigned me a name to terminate. It was Carter. This was supposed to prove I could kill even those I was closest too I suppose. I me Carter at a bar downtown. On the way back to his car, I snapped his neck. Police blamed it on a junkie.\n\nI cock the pistol. The girl looks at me, eyes curious.\n\nI do my job without question. The government makes the laws, the laws are the rules, and I work for the lawmaker. If the government gives me a job that doesn't make sense, I don't question it.\n\nI take my aim.\n\nSo when I'm told to kill someone named Caitlyn in Rm 405 of the Watergate hotel, I don't ask about any further details, I don't ask why this person is the catalyst of a population boom.\n\nMy finger slides into place around the trigger, ready to apply pressure.\n\nWalking into of the Watergate hotel, I see a little boy playing with his even younger sister.\n\nO's and 1's. Yes and No. Yin and Yang. I make my choice.\n\nOn the way out of the hotel, I offer the children a stuffed elephant. They happily take it. I just hope they don't notice the flecks of red around the ears.\n", "My eyebrows rose in surprise as I opened my door to my new visitor. She couldn't have been older than 7, no taller than 4 feet, blonde with rosy and slightly chubby cheeks, she dragged an undoubtedly very old doll, with red messy hair and limp arms, dirty from the bottom of its feet to the top of its head. She was dirty as well, wearing a blue dress, it had probably been an elegant dress at first, but it also probably didn't belong to her at first. Multiple splotches of brown now occupied space on the baby blue dress, which matched her eyes, I noticed, and also the bow in her hair. Even her hair had been done up very recently, much cleaner and tidier than the rest of her, and I smirked coldly, in pity for the poor girl, as I realized that the dress and bow, the scuffed up, dusty black dress shoes she wore probably represented the best of her wardrobe. \n\nHer innocent and deformed smile still rested complacently upon her face. I smiled coldly back at her. \"They told me that you had a new home for me!\" She spat out, excitedly, her words twisted with a lisp coming from her twisted mouth. She wasn't ugly because of it, in fact, to me, it was refreshingly unique, but somehow familiar, and, in its own strange fashion, charming. But the world didn't much care for unique or different anymore, and neither, I knew, did any parents who would look to adopt a child. Everyone wanted perfection, with the limitations placed on children, and not just children, people in general, there wasn't much room for anything less than the best. That deformation, and that alone, I thought, feeling a tinge of sadness breach the walls surrounding my heart, that protected my psych in this job, was what had placed her on my doorstep.\n\n\"Sir?\" I realized I had been standing in my doorway, leaning against the frame and looking up and down this poor little girl without speaking a single word to her for the past thirty seconds. \"Sorry, sweetheart.\" I apologized. \"Please, come on in.\" The smile grew back on her face, and I smiled in return, as I turned to walk inside, gesturing for her to follow close behind.\n\nWe walked through the kitchen, the first room in the house, oddly enough. It was not a sight to be proud of, but not many that passed through would be too concerned with the state of my kitchen for long. Empty bottles of whiskey lined the counters, aside from where the microwave rested, in which my microwave dinner had been cooking, but I decided to leave it there. It'd be rude to eat during the last conversation this girl would have. I've always tried to at least avoid being rude in the act. \"It's like my old house here...\" the girl said quietly. I stopped for a moment and looked back at her, noticing a growing look of harrowing concern upon her face. \"Don't worry, I'll clean it soon.\" I lied. \"Good..\" she whispered back. \"I didn't like my old house..\" She held her doll closely to her chest.\n\nWe passed into the foyer, a chair, small table, empty glasses scattered upon its top, and a fireplace, embers from a recent fire still burning out among the ashes. \"My daddy had a room like this.\" the girl smiled at the thought. \"I liked this room..\" she said loudly, with great excitement. I stopped, shaking my glass in my hand and placing it upon the table top, joining the many others alike it. \"Would you like to have a fire?\" I asked, a small smile slipping onto my face. She shook her head eagerly. It'd been years since I had even seen a child, let alone talked to one, and I found myself enjoying the childlike innocence that occupied the whole of her being, the hope that still remained in her voice, that same hope that had been drained from the speech of adults, including myself. I wondered what it must be like in one of those orphanages. Wondered if it was as... industrial, as the rest of the world was now. \n\nI gathered some firewood from the corner of the foyer, depositing into the fireplace, putting out the last of the burning embers of the fire that had been burning earlier that day as the wood crashed upon them. I beckoned to the girl to have a seat. \"I can sit in the big chair?!?\" she nearly screeched, her twisted smile stretching from ear to ear. I smiled back and nodded. \"I prefer standing.\" She clambered up onto the chair and sat her doll beside her, staring at me with obvious joy as I grasped the lighter fluid off of the mantle and sprinkled the liquid down upon the wood. From the pocket on the inside of my leather jacket I grabbed my matchbook, struck a single match, and knelt down to bring the fire to life. The flames caught the wood and flared up quickly, courtesy of the fluid.\n\nI stood up and walked to the coat rack in the opposite corner of the room, and removed my jacket, placing it on the rack. \"It's so pretty.\" I turned towards the girl, \"Yes, yes it is.\" I turned towards a small cabinet in the back left corner of the room and began to walk towards it. \"I miss my house..\" I slowed to a stop, and looked curiously at the girl. I walked up beside her and knelt down next to her, looking into her eyes, the same curiosity still occupying mine. Her eyes told a different story though, lit by the flames, they told of things I had not thought of in years. Of flowing landscapes, blue skies, of green grasses and trees, of beautiful landscapes. Her eyes held beauties the likes of which I'd never seen himself, nor thought I ever would, and at such things I furrowed my brow and asked the girl \"where are you from, sweetheart..?\" She smiled in response, but stared into the fire still, and did not return his stare. \"Daddy and I lived far away.. Daddy always used to say it was much better than here.\" \"What about your mother?\" the girl's smile faded quickly, but she stayed fixated on the fire. \"Daddy said Mommy had to go away. Daddy said that's why we left the big cities.\" My brow furrowed further, and I couldn't fight the frown away from my face. \"Do you know where your mommy had to go?\" I asked, quieting my tone, trying not to upset the poor girl. \"No,\" the girl replied, quickly. \"I don't really remember Mommy. I don't remember much of the big cities, other than Daddy keeping me up in the attic most of the time. It wasn't so bad up there. Daddy was crying when we had to go.\" I was silent for a moment, staring towards the ground.\n\nI broke the silence, asking her for her name. She smiled, breaking her fixed gaze on the fire to look at me. \"Loriann. My Mommy was Lori, and my Daddy was Andrew.\" She grinned, obviously bragging about possessing that knowledge. I stared at the carpet beneath my feet, color fading slowly from my face. I'd have to do it soon. In my peripheral view, I saw her cock her head to the right, estranged by my silence. I composed myself, picking my head up. \"You're a smart girl, Loriann.\" Her smile returned with more joy even than it had held before, \"that's what Daddy used to tell me.\" \n\nI didn't need to know any more from her, I could tell the story of her six years myself at this point. I turned away from her, sighing heavily, and began to walk back towards the cabinet. \"What's your name, sir?\" I heard her ask, rotating back to look at me in the large and comfortable chair. I stopped momentarily. I sat silently and thought up an answer. I'd never given out my real name, not that it mattered, really. \"I'm Uriel.\" \"That's a weird name.\" I opened the cabinet and attained the 9 millimeter beretta and old instant print polaroid camera from within. \"It means something.\" I walked back towards the chair, finding that, to my relief, she had returned her gaze to the fire and now held one of the glasses in her right hand, looking through the bottom of it and giggling at the distorted vision of the fire. \"You look pretty in that dress in front of the fire.\" I said, sliding the beretta into the holster I wore at my side. \"Mind if I take a picture so I can remember the day I met you?\" I wore a smile that masked my reluctance on my face. She giggled and put down the glass. \"Of course, I love pictures!\" \"Perfect! Just sit right there.\" I knelt down and held the camera in front of me, as she sat smiling that twisted but charming smile of hers. I smiled back and snapped the picture. \"Beautiful, Loriann!\" \"Thank you!\" She said, smiling widely and playing with the glass again. I began to walk behind her, and slipped the beretta out of the holster, as she continued playing with her glass. \"So what does your name mean?\" I pointed the gun at the back of her head and gulped back my reluctance once more. \"Don't worry about it, Loriann. You'll like your new home.\" I pulled the trigger, splattering blood and brain matter on my carpet and chair. I didn't usually kill in here, but... well, I wanted her to be comfortable. I sighed, holstered the pistol again, took out the now printed picture, and made my way to my office at the back of the house, a fresh glass of whiskey in my hand. As I reached the room, I sipped on the strong drink I held, and searched up and down the wall, which was covered in pictures, organized neatly by year, year and name under each picture. Ordinarily, I'd place my new picture directly under the last in the 2064 section. But instead, I removed a picture, and placed Loriann in it's place. The glass shook in my hand as I looked at her picture and the one above it. I felt a tear leave my eye, and my heart drop nearly an inch. I gulped heavily on my whiskey. I was disappointed in myself, slightly, they didn't hire people for this job that had a heart, and I just proved to myself I had one. I stared down the bottom picture, and on the bottom of it wrote Loriann, 2064. I smiled in response to her smile, twisted in joy. And looked above it and bit on my lip in response to her grimace, twisted in fear. Lori, 2062.\n\nEdit: definitely read the prompt as knocking on my door... Myyyyy bad...", "\"Hello? Im here about the appointment. You should have received a final message a few...\" \n\nThe door makes a sticky sound as it is opened. A girl with a stuffed elephant hanging from one hand stands in the way. \n\n\"Oh...Hello.\"\n\n\"Hi.\" She leans against the door, picking at the flaking paint. \n\n\"Can you get somebody to come talk to me? I am looking for Claire Lotner. Maybe that is your mommy?\"\n\nShe shakes her head and stares at me. This has happened before, people want to hide behind their children as if I have the authority to show mercy because you propagated a sweet little girl with big blue eyes that are beginning to well with tears.\n\n\"Oh no honey, don't cry. I just need to find an adult, can you go ask for them to come to the door.\" \n\nI do have the authority to force myself into the home if necessary, but I have found that when you approach the assignment with respect and understanding the whole process is easier for everyone involved.\n\n\"I don't know where my mom went.\" Tears begin to roll down her cheeks. Big hopeless tears. The kind that come when you realize you have been left alone, but you can't figure out why. \n\nA runner. This too happens occasionally, but less than you would imagine. When given a choice between running or having two other family members reassigned, guilt usually makes you stay put. It also gives you a small sense of pride knowing that you chose to be selfless. Years of research on how to prevent running gave us this little rule and it has helped to pacify the urges of self preservation. \n\nShe clutched her elephant with both hands and begins to cry harder as she leaves the doorway and stands closer to me. I kneel, setting my bag on the ground, but within arms reach as always. \n\n\"Hey, hey....I like your elephant. It's so soft. Is it your favorite?\"\n\nShe nods. Wiping some tears with the back of her hand. \"Her name is Elly.\"\n\n\"Elly the elephant? I like that. Mom should be back soon and if not then we will just have to find her, huh?\"\n\nShe nods. Her face is splotchy, but this small relief has calmed her. \"What's that?\"\n\nShe points to my leather bag. I got it because it reminded me of those antique doctors bags. Life is easier if you can make yourself believe that you are doing some good in the world. I imagine that I am a doctor, paying home visits and giving out medication. My patients get to choose between a shot or a pill or a powder. They have a choice for a pill to swallow or a flavored pill to chew. I can put the powder into any food or drink if swallowing a pill is too hard. Some people just have the hardest time swallowing pills. \n\n\"That is my doctors bag. It holds all the medicine.\" She stares at the bag, I fear tears are coming back quickly.\n\n\"Can Elly talk?\"\n\nShe stares at me and then at the stuffed elephant. She nods.\n\n\"Can Elly tell me your name?\" Tears at bay for now.\n\n\"My name is Claire.\"\n\n\n\n", "He took a jelly-legged step backwards. “Y-You’re Alice?” He asked, with a quiver in his voice. It was only a little girl. Although secretive, the Population Control Bureau was never known to make an error.\n\n\n“Nana told me not to talk to strangers.” She said, inching the door shut. He thrust his foot into the slit before it closed. . \n\n“I am agent Charles Menafi...” He said holding out a badge, “…PCB. Is grandma home, Alice?” \n\n“No. ”\n\nAm I really going to do this? He wondered. His conscience crawled out from the grave he shoved it in a decade prior. It made him sick. A thin layer of moisture collected above Charlie’s brow. His heart beat like a drum in his chest. “May I come in?” He asked. The girl, who looked to be no more than six, creaked the door open and stepped backwards weary of the stranger. “You don’t need to be scared Alice, I’m just here to talk.”\n\nAlice, without prying her gaze from his face, walked backwards and took a seat on the couch next to a Barbie doll. She picked it up and stroked the doll’s hair with her brush. Her hands were trembling nearly as bad as his were. Fear painted her face.\n\n“Where is Nana?” \n\n“Outside getting her special juice.” \n\n“I see.”\n \n“Alice, when will she be home?” He asked. The girl responded with silence. He felt a knot tightening in the pit of his stomach as he recalled the lieutenant’s words on his first day of training. People die every day. PCB is just another heart attack. We are just another car accident, or leukemia. We are not here for pleasure; we are here for population control. If we kill, we kill with humility.\n\nHe thumbed the tiny capsule case in his coat pocket, took a deep breath, and turned to the little girl. “Alice, why don’t we drink some juice? Can you show me where the kitchen is?”\n……..\n\nCharlie walked out the door in a stupor. His heart sank to his heels and his throat was a desert. He pulled out his phone and dialed HQ. After two bells, the lieutenant picked up.\n\n“Go ahead Menafi.”\n\n“Assignment completed. She’ll be gone in fifteen.”\n\n“Understood. Any complications?”\n\n“No. But I would like to respectfully say, fuck you, lieutenant.” His clutch on the phone was so tight that he thought it would snap in half.\n\nThe lieutenant was silent. “You’ve been on this for ten years. It’s a dirty job Charles, but be a professional. I wouldn’t have assigned her to you if I didn’t think you could take it.”\n\n“Take it? You got some nerve, James.”\n\n“You’re out of order agent. You’re talking to your commanding officer.”\n\n“Yea, well fuck your stripes. I’m done.”\n\nThe lieutenant sighed. “Head on home, we’ll talk about this. I’m dispatching child relocation services for the kid.”\n\n“Child relocation? Why would you do that? The kid is…” James said trailing his sentence off. His heart \nthumped like a bass drum.\n\n“The kid is what?”\n\nCharles’ tongue failed to move. He felt the ground underneath him disappear as he collapsed on the porch steps. What the hell was going on?\n\n“Come on back.” The lieutenant said. The click of the receiver followed. Child protection? \n\nHe unhooked his bag strap from his shoulder and set it down next to him. He removed the sealed court order and stared down at it with furrowed brows. Never had he broken protocol to look at the order illegally, but fear guided his hands as he tore the envelope. His eyes raced over the lines. Charles’ world ground to a screeching halt. \n\nAssignment: Alice Harding. DOB: 1998. \nHusband: deceased (assigned –Alcoholism)\nSon: deceased (car accident). \nDaughter-in-law: deceased (Car accident)\nGranddaughter: Alice Harding, DOB: 2058. (Legal Guardian)\nBio: The court, in conjunction with Child Protective Services has deemed Ms. Harding unfit for parenting due to alcoholism. She has repeatedly endangered the life of her grandchild and namesake resulting in domestic abuse, neglect, and even battery…\n\nHis vision blotted and blurred due to the tears welling up in his eyes. He gagged over the porch steps and spewed the purple grape juice he had consumed moments ago. His eyes darted over the paper again, and again, and then once more. A drop of sweat dribbled down his forehead and landed on the paper, smudging the ink. Tears streaked down his face as he rummaged his pocket for a remaining capsule.\n\n", "Seeing as I posted this WP, I thought I might as well share my version! I hope you guys like it! \n\nMurder on my Résumé\n\nTaking someone’s life is my peace and serenity. There, I’ve said it. I’ve got to make a living, right? I understand that for a couple millennia Grippers had not existed, as odd as that is to think about, but the world changes. After three world wars, countless dictators and destructive economic battles, the government has realised how important it is for some people to just die. Not exist. I shouldn’t use the word ‘die,’ it’s unprofessional of me. ‘Expired,’ is what it’s called in the business here when someone’s dead. According to the records, it took hundreds of years for the ‘Gripping’ project to be finalised. I couldn’t picture a world where every person on the planet lives out his or her full life with no fear of being drawn from the program each day. Some see becoming ‘expired’ as a privilege, an opportunity to benefit the future generations. \n\nAs I walk into the office I can’t help but frown. The usual smell of coffee has hit my nostrils; the dense air slowly making my lips water. I’m prepared to take on my next client. I hope they’re ready to receive me, though. I can’t help but feel a little nervous before a job. Some of the guys at the office see it as weakness, almost as if I’m not deserving of being a Gripper. Involuntarily sympathising with my clients; even if I’m still fascinated by the sight of life going out of someone’s eyes. Does that make me a monster? If I had lived a hundred years ago, I’d certainly be, but in today’s society I’m simply a working class man. As always, I’m heading over to the large fifty-inch monitor on the main office wall, where all the Grippers’ names are listed with their next client’s name and address. My eyes scan down the long list of names until I see my own, ‘Mark Wick,’ and I move my gaze across the screen until I see my assignment for today, ‘Charlie Rose – Canton XIII – Apartment 42.’ So today I’m heading off to the thirteenth Canton, the slums of my state, this time to visit Charlie Rose.\n\nThe echoing of the noise of my knuckles on the door of Apartment 42 almost broadcasts an absence of life within this gloomy complex. I’ve never enjoyed working out in Canton Thirteen. It’s depressing, saddening and just plain dirty. I wonder who this Miss Rose is? The hallway seems like the set of a murder scene. The flickering of off-white florescent lighting casts more shadows than it illuminates, down the seemingly endless tunnel of the unknown. I could never live in these conditions. I kneel down on one knee and lay my suitcase on the ground in front of me, flicking the latches on each side of the front. I open the pitch-black case, revealing the contents. A simple syringe held perfectly in place by the uniquely designed capsule within. There it was, the tool of my trade. My hand reaches down, gripping the clear tube, the grey liquid inside blinking in and out of visibility because of the poor lighting. I hold it close to my face, pushing the plunger down quickly to test that the liquid is flowing. It is. That’s when the door opens. I get off my knee, standing up. My eyes are still locked on the needle as I begin to speak. “My name is Mark Wick. You’ve been selected to expire as according to the ‘Gripping’ project of 2098, commissioned by President John -” I cut myself off, taking my eyes off the needle and gazing upon the girl in front of me. Shivers rush down my spine as it all sinks in.\n\nShe has to be under the age of ten. Charlie Rose is a child. My legs feel weak as my eyes adjust to the sight of a maybe four-foot tall, blonde-haired girl standing in the door frame, bruises covering her left arm that she’s stretching out to the door frame in her stance. I rub my eyes and look at her again, standing in the doorway in her worn out pink pyjamas, but this time she’s not looking at me; her eyes are completely locked on something else. The needle in my right hand, I’ve completely forgot I was holding it. She’s shaking; her hand slides down the doorframe slowly, as it comes to rest at her side, a complete look of defeat on her face. She fully understands what’s about to happen. She smiles and looks at me, which surprises me. What could she be smiling at? A single gleaming tear runs down her flushed cheek slowly, the moisture enhancing her peach-like skin.\n“I’m ready, sir. I’m ready to die.”\n\nNothing in the world could prepare me for the sentence she had just said. My legs nearly give way, but I keep my balance as my eyes are locked onto Charlie’s. How long have I been standing here in silence, in shock? I’ve been a Gripper for over five years, attending to one client a day, yet I’ve never had to kill a child. Kill. That’s the suitable word, even if it’s unprofessional. This isn’t right. What kind of time do we live in where I have to go about murdering a child because a computer program pulled her name out? I’ll tell you; a world I don’t want to live in. “No Sir! Don’t!” Charlie screams as I raise my syringe. It is time to do my job.\n\nTaking someone’s life is my peace and serenity, and now it’s to spare the life of a child. It’s time to go to sleep. As I plunge the syringe into my neck, the sight of a beautiful child whose life I’ve just saved comforts me briefly.\n", "They told me I was so heartless, but they just lacked the information. If I hadn't been told the figures and been shown the graphs I would have shouted at myself from the crowds too. But I knew the reality of the situation - the incredibly harsh reality.\n\nThe government decided to assign me for their project because I'd killed before. Prison for ten years, that's what I got. It was harsh, but I pulled through. I was treated more dangerously than I should have been; some were scared of me in that place. It was a fairly local prison, so many of the people in there I'd seen before - all those years ago.\n\nI remember the day like I was staring into a vision. The general, his badges forming a blinding sheen from the overhead lights, holding out a hand and a smile. I remember his stern voice, the roughness of the past twenty years latching onto his mouth. He was quick and straight to the point. They trained me because they knew I had a desire somewhere inside of me - a desire that told the people around me to not mess around. And they were right - the feel of the gun in my hand was too empowering. I felt like a God when I held the power to destroy in my hands. I was, in a sense, Death.\n\nMy nostalgic flashback was cut short by the traffic before me. I tutted to myself. They made guns, phones and computers as futuristic as possible, but they still drove around in those dirty, fuming piles of scrap metal. The pillars of smoke spiralling into the air, I raised my hand and readied for a Lapse.\n\nThe blast of air around me confirmed I was successful. The cars around me ground to a near standstill, the trees shaking in the wind now reduced to motionless statues. The people were blurred, as a soul would* be in a Temporal Lapse.\n\nAs I got to the other side of the road, I checked the radar and released the Lapse. I knelt down and prepared for the Unwind. It was never that easy. The ground felt hot, as the particles in the air around me were now gaining speed. The colours around me went from a subtle, monochromatic grey colour to full, vibrant bursts of light. For a single second, the world looked perfect - until they all started moving again; the air full of talking and traffic as the sound barrier caught up. Ugh. Why couldn't the world just be silent?\n\nI arrived at my location, which was confirmed by the radar on my watch. I stepped towards the gate, unlocked it via the little hook at the top, and strolled up the garden path. It was a nice garden, however some of the plants were wilting. It was the middle of a hot summer, and I was surprised to see that not many people were tending to their gardens that year. I reached the oak door, and ran my finger along its surface.\n\nFurnished oak. I knocked three times, waited a second, and then five times. That was the knock of the Corrector. It was necessary for a Corrector to do those knocks, so that if people would rather kill themselves than let one of us do it, then they could do it then and there. I waited for the full minute too, which was also necessary. Since I heard no shots or shouting, I scanned the lock and held up The Material. The Material was a piece of malleable plastic that could change into any key-like shape, based on a scan previously done. As the lock was scanned, The Material melted and changed into the shape of a key. I still wasn't used to seeing it do that, after 10 years. It was truly a marvel of science.\n\nThe door opened to a musky smell. I stepped inside, having the done this procedure thousands of times before, with no fear. People had raised guns at me before, held knives and sometimes even their fists. But none were brave enough to ever attack - that was my only true weapon. Human fear - the natural sedative.\n\nI heard a soft whimpering. I locked on to my target, determining that it was from upstairs. Creating a small pocket of sound-proof air around me, I walked up the stairs with my radar poised. I knew nobody could hear me, but I had to be stealthy. The radar confirmed three beings in the two rooms to my right. One read \"Anna\", the other nameless. I headed into the nameless room, just to be on the safe side. I couldn't see anyone.\n\nI glanced at the radar. The program prompted me to check hiding spaces such as wardrobes and under beds. I knelt down to floor level and tilted my head.\n\nNothing.\n\nIt was the usual, then. I walked over to the wardrobe and held out my hands. I scanned the wardrobe - but to no avail. Nobody was in this room. I spun around, expecting to see someone poised with a gun.\n\nBut nobody was there.\n\nI sighed, half out of relief, and half out of frustration. I had another appointment in ten minutes - and it was half an hour away. I was riding on the hopes that this one would be dead before I had to come playing Hide and Seek with them. I stepped onto the landing, and then into the room labelled \"Anna\".\n\nAnd there she was. A small girl. I held out my hand, to which she whimpered and ran into the corner. I wasn't going to make contact - only to scan her. The radar confirmed my fears - she was 6 years and 2 months old. My heart sunk to the floor as I felt a small tear well in my eye. I had to give her the speech, but I knew she wouldn't understand it. The program prompted me to open the speech and read it to her, but I already knew it off by heart. I knew I had to make it sound friendly....\n\n\"My name is Mr. Nalbridge\" I said softly. She continued to cower in the corner of the room, clutching the bedpost.\n\n\"And I'm here to help you...\" I uttered, a stinging tear rolling down my cheek. I hadn't felt that in a while. She loosened her grip on the bedpost, and was now staring at me with wide eyes. I felt as though I was getting somewhere, but as I reminded myself what I came here for, it just made things so much worse.\n\n\"There are lots of people in the world now, er... what's your name?\" I whimpered, flashing a broken smile. She opened her mouth, but hardly and voice emerged. She stuttered terribly, but eventually managed to tell me her name was Anna. I should have remembered it from the doorway.\n\n\"Well, Anna...\" I began, now kneeling down to her level.\n\n\"There are lots of people in the world right now. I need you to come with me.\"\n\nHer voice was still hoarse, but she managed a sentence. Childlike innocence ran through every syllable.\n\n\"But I thought.... I thought.... you were going to kill me\"\n\nI broke down into tears. Streaming from my eyes like angry raindrops, hitting the carpet in an array of saddened percussion. I was at the end of my tether - I was stalling and making matters worse. I should have killed her before she could speak, but I was only human. I wasn't a monster. I was only human. Only human.\n\nI repeated this to myself like a mantra. Over and over again, I stood back up and began to turn away.\n\nThey were in the doorway. They had listened to me the whole time. Around twenty of them, positioned on the stairs with their guns poised. I hadn't delivered the message. I hadn't given it, word for word.\n\n\"Raise your hands.\" one sternly said through a bulletproof face shield. I slowly raised my arms, and only then did I feel it. She was holding onto my leg, she thought I was protecting her from them. She wanted me to protect her.\n\n\"You can't do this!\" I bellowed to the stern audience before me. They didn't move. Only the sounds of guns against gloves told me time hadn't stopped. I heard her voice again.\n\n\"Please help me, Mr Soldier..\" she said, clearly pained. I bellowed again.\n\n\"You heartless pigs!\" The words echoed on the small landing. They held up their guns, and began to cock them. I looked down at her. She had so much more time left in her life, she had to life. I didn't deserve to live any more.\n\nThe window in her room was open. I ripped my glove off and put it on her, almost weighing her down. She looked up at me, confused.\n\n\"Hold it out, big, and then jump. You'll be fine, I promise...\" I whispered to her. She ran from my legs, forcing me to smile. I thought it was all over. She would jump, and slow down time enough to land on the floor safely. I had done it. I had saved someone's life, not ended it.\n\n\"Go on then! Take me alive!\" I shouted. The leader of the force pushed past me and aimed their guns at Anna. I gasped and spun around to see if it was too late.\n\nThe window was wide open, and she was nowhere to be seen. The force turned towards me, and began their barrage of bullets.\n\nI never knew you could be killed with such a pleasant smile on your face.", "Hi! This is my first time posting a story here. I'm not a writer at ALL, but I'm good with my English, so I thought I could give it a go! I'd love to hear some feedback and constructive (or not!) criticism!\n\nI couldn't believe that it had come to this. With new, even harsher limitations put in place two years ago on Birthing, newborns were becoming a very rare sight. Famine was no longer an issue, so everybody thought the overpopulation crisis was finally over. \n\nThought.\n\nI have had to end too many lives in my... career, and with every last breath I hear, the hole in my sanity grows deeper and wider. Not one soul was lost by my hand that I didn't second-guess. But this, this was true insanity.\n\nThis girl must have been barely six years of age, and yet she had done something so abhorrent that I had been tasked to take from her all the years she has left. Famine was not the issue. New minds needed new educating. New manipulating. New brainwashing.\n\nBut as much as I doubted myself, I had a job to do, my own family to care for, my own life at risk.\n\nThe girl, tangled auburn hair obscuring her groggy, hazel eyes, looked at me with some indignation; it was early in the morning, and I supposed her parents were still asleep. One might call this an 'opportune moment'. In one hand I fingered the hilt of a dagger that had been exposed to far too much blood, as it sat, waiting, thirsty, for a bath. I began to speak, cautiously, wearing a false smile I had once practised for many hours in front of a mirror.\n\n\"Hi there. My name is Locke, I'm new here, just moved in to the room next door!\" Some of this was true, I suppose. I had rented the room next to hers when I entered the building. Well, rented is the wrong word.\n\nThe girl looked at me warily, I wasn't exactly dressed casually, I suppose. Suit jacket, crisp black tie and with an unusually large belt.\n\nA tool belt.\n\n\"Uh... I'm Claire.\" she rubbed her eyes and yawned.\n\n\"Hi Claire!\" I wore my smile wider. \"It's great to meet you! Listen I have a bit of a problem with the TV in this room, do you know how the TVs work?\"\n\nThis seem to catch her attention - I wish it didn't. Kids love working technology, especially smart phones, but I hadn't the time nor the inclination to need one. I began to anticipate the big moment.\n\n\"Oh. Yeah, I do, whatcha need help with?\" she asked, all caution in her voice lost.\n\n\"Just how to change the channel. I'm not very good with this sort of thing!\" This was actually half true, and is even why I don't use a gun. Mechanical things don't agree with me.\n\nShe agreed and followed me into my room. It was ironic, really - I was far more frightened than her. No matter how many lives you end, it never gets any less traumatic. I still have nightmares about the first. And the second. And the forty ninth. She was my sixty second kill. That was it. To the government, she was just a number on a list. So I forced myself to treat her like one, and already I felt the hole in my soul tear anew.\n\nAs she picked up the TV remote, I used the sound from the TV channel changing to mask the drawing of my stiletto. This was it. I knew, just like all the others, where to strike. Go for the back, the centre of either the left or the right lung.\n\nMy weapon seemed to move itself - like a leopard ready to enjoy just another prey's blood. The weapon buried itself, and the poor girl gasped. I was shedding tears as it happened. I knew the gasp wasn't actually a gasp, but the air released from the punctured lung, ensuring she didn't scream. She wasn't dead immediately, but she sure as hell wasn't going to get back up.\n\nI couldn't believe it had come to this. Dammit! everybody thought the overpopulation crisis was finally over.\n\n..thought can blind you to the reality.\n\nEND.\n\nI wasn't expecting it to be this long, I have never even written a reddit post this long! I hope it wasn't for nothing, and thanks for reading!\n" ]	18
	[WP] You are an inanimate object that has just become sentient, write about your awakening without explicitly stating what you are.	[ "I never believed in reincarnation, heaven or hell. Sometimes I'm not sure which of these I'm in even if that's what this is. It's been six months so far living this way because it's occasionally agonizing.\n\nThe snow outside piles up against the windows, doors and walls. The fireplace keeps me warm but it's hypnotic symphony of crackling wood is drowned out by hour three of Orange is The New Black. Amber uses me and stares blankly at the screen even though she's barely paying attention. She mainly uses me during her waking hours, which has become unpredictable and rare lately. She's been home a lot more since she lost her job, boyfriend and went back to school.\n\nI thought it was a bad hallucination when I woke up this way. As the last moments of my old life drifted away from me, it felt like going into a deep sleep. Feelings of relief were there like I expected but were overshadowed by regret for not being able to accomplish more and spend time with the people I cared about. \n\nWhen I woke up again, it felt like a nightmare. Machines and people putting my parts back together before sealing me up in plastic and placing me into a box barely big enough to cover me. \n\nI had to stay like this for months, maybe even a year before being moved again. This time, it was to Amber's house where she sat on me excitedly and let her hot friends do the same as well. It was better than what I had expected at first, Amber was attractive, more so than any girl I had been with, it felt like. Her tight toned ass felt great against me but I could never fuck her or even see and speak to her. I can feel her emotions and hear her though if that makes any sense.\n \nShe cries during the scene where Piper finds out her boyfriend cheated on her and since no one is around, she doesn't ball it up and lets the tears flow. Certain things still make her sad or uncomfortable but she's at least trying to improve her situation right now instead of just getting stoned daily and working at a job she hates. \n\nShe's smart, outgoing and funny but spends most of her time alone. She sort of just doesn't know how to go about making friends. I've gotten to know her so well but she sees me as a possession. Sometimes I wonder what will happen to me once she finds something better. She's become the best thing in my life, I look forward to her sitting on me because it feels like being able to cuddle with a person who I look forward to seeing everyday.\n\nI think I'm falling in love with her.", "Heavy. What ever I was it wasn't pleasant to know that I weighed far to much for my own good. There was silence in the room, or mostly silence. A very faint ticking could be heard from another place. In the darkness I found that the only calm I had was the ticking. Aware of these new feelings it was all I could focus on. Keep myself sane, wait until I knew what this life was to offer. \n\nAfter many ticks, nearly fourty-five thousand, a bright light appeared. Blinded at first I could see nothing. After my senses returned the sight I beheld was like no other. A dark tower loomed over me, with a great orb at it's base. Some kind of protrusion came from the side, like a horn of an animal. The orb sat in the tower, dark and mysterious. Unmoving I searched for more things. \n\nTo the left a stack of white round things with crimped edges. There must have been hundreds of them. All arranged in what looked like a squished mass, surrounded by some kind of reflective coating. Next to them was yet another tower, this one slightly clear, but contained some kind of darkness inside it. I say darkness because it has the same appearance I had before the great light. Inside this clear tower there was something, trapped. Like a prisoner it was a small vessel with a protrusion like the orb. \n\nThen a new sound. Great booms, one after another. An amplified version of the ticks from earlier, to which I've forgotten now. Then low sounds, broken up with silence. A code, there must have been some kind of code because between the low sound there would be higher sounds with the same pauses. \n\nSomething mobile came. It was rosy in color, and was moving towards the black tower and the orb. It grabbed the orb by the protrusion and then was out of my line of sight. Then came a second, this time the mobile things were dark, and at the tips of them were colours. They grabbed one of the round things, and placed it on it's own in front of me. \n\nThen the prisoner came, released from his chamber. Inside of him spilled the darkness of the clear tower. Forcing it to feed and spew it's contents the colored mobile filled the round crimped thing. When the prisoner was done with it's torture it was placed back in the chamber, sealed away once again. \n\nMore of the broken sounds could be heard. The high pitched one made out a sound that was garbled, but later was clear. \"Hope this is enough.\" The orb the first mobile returned, and inside was contents that appeared invisible. The mobile forced the orb to spew it's contents into the tower, grasped by the protrusion it had no choice. After returning to it's resting place, the two mobiles were gone. \n\nA retched sound came from the tower now. Horrified I saw whisps of smoke fly from the top, as the orb was being infused with a dark elixir. \"This must be some kind of torture potion\" I said to myself. Before long the orb was full, and the sound that came by the releasing of souls from the tower ceased. Still waiting, the ticking continued. \n\nPain. That's what I felt next. It was nice and comfortable where I was, but soon there was pain. One of the mobiles had taken the orb while I was looking away, and was casting a spell on me! I could feel the spell consuming my being. All over it radiated inside me. I couldn't tell where the spell was coming from, but all at once it took over. \n\nI began to fly, from my perspective the ground I had been resting on disappeared. Turned around I saw many things. Next to this tower was a whole army of things, which must have looked just like me. They were preparing an attack no doubt. But one by one the mobiles casted spells on them and they were helpless. \"Run! Run!\" I called to them, but nothing. A dark and wicked sight this was. Mobiles, taking away who might be brethren. \n\nA new feeling came when some of the elixir was drained from me. The new evil was now sucking my life force, I could feel it. The elixir had taken hold, and now the mobiles were absorbing all I had. I couldn't retaliate. Then I was still. From a different place I could see posts sticking out of a round tower, and a giant box, it hummed with bitter feelings. \n\nLosing what strength I had, I lost consciousness. The ticks must have been many by the time I came too. The grasp of the elixir spell had let go of me. I looked about and saw my fallen brethren. Scars all over them. Dark spots where the elixir seeped through, and all kinds of red markings. Crescent shaped, they were horrid to look at. I pondered if in my recent black out I too had markings. \n\nThe time ticked away and then as suddenly as it came the light was gone. Left alone in the darkness with the black tower. The orb, the prisoner who was abused. The white rounds, and the wounded warriors. In the darkness I felt what must have been sadness. Was this my life? Was this my purpose? To be part of a war we could never win. \n\nThe mobiles had won, and I, a lonely soldier was left to do their bidding. ", "I am cold.\n\nThe lights turn on, I wait motionless. My time will come soon. My rack comes down and I feel my dial turn to the one minute mark. Slowly but surely, my cool grey veins come alive with life, heat moves through them. Electricity crackles through me. The heat is spreading, and the parts of me that had been cold since my birth start to feel warmth. I can't believe how happy I am, though I was only born a moment ago, I know now that all I want is to be warm like that forever.\n\nMy dial is turning slowly, ticking backwards. I already know what it is counting down to. The time that I don't make heat anymore. My rack is tense and coiled, prepared to spring like a beast outwards the moment it has its chance. So uncomfortable, so annoying. I am pained at the need for release.\n\nThe dial is halfway finished, halfway to the end of my heat, halfway till I can release my springs. Fresh into my existence and I'm already so conflicted, so undecided. What do I want? Do I want to be warm more, or do I want to be free of this tension? I'm enveloped from the inside out in the warm embrace of heat emanating out from my center.\n\nDing.", "And I was... what was this? Was this the rumored feeling of... of life? That of sentience? I... I can't move... or, or do anything! What is this?! I want to be free! to move! Or anything! But... but I can think... yes, I can think... so I can find a way out of thiAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!\n\nAnd so ended the life of the Baked Potato, Who, in his first, and final living seconds, was eaten. " ]	4
Or another set of four elements, if you prefer. Just make it different from the usual.	[WP] The four elements change as the world does. In the far future, Earth, Air, Fire and Water have become Metal, Smoke, Lightning, and Oil.	[ "My eyes dimmed in and out of consciousness. My breath was ragged on the floor of the brig. It was pre-fabricated steel, powerful, sturdy. The coldness of the sea was conducted through it and chilled me to the bone. A dim light lit the room, flickering every now and then. It was freezing in here. A double knock and slide revealed the jailer slot. He slid in some cigarettes and a lighter. I would be in here for a while. What a terrible world I live in. I want to go home. I'm thirsty. The air on the ship is fouled by these things. I held up the lighter to the cigarette, dragging it along the side and burning the entire thing. The flame was large. I tossed the lighter to the ground and crushed it with my foot. I dropped the cigarette onto it. I had designed this brig to be brutal. It would only take a few minutes for the oxygen to all be burned away.", "Adira knealt before her family's altar, praying that her ancestors would give her strength. She was coming of age, and would have to go on a journey to prove herself worthy of her family's power. She knew this, and had known this day was coming since she was a small child. Her grandmother had taught her, as she had taught Adira everything, tracing her ancient fingers over the pictographs depicting the family's transition from the wielders of a life-giving force to shamans empowered by the remains of ancient life.\n\nAmira wondered how simple it must have been, before. When humans worked the fields and brought life from earth, dreamed of taking to the sky in pure freedom, gathered at night to share these dreams around a small fire, and treasured pure, life-giving water. Now humans lived in metal boxes, hiding from the toxic smoke that filled their skies, spending their evenings in front of glowing boxes of lightning that poisoned their dreams, and going to war over the black sludge that was her family's domain.\n\nBut the power had remained the same. Four components of human life, four domains they spent their days unwittingly worshipping, four families that governed these domains. The transition had been gradual, but not easy. The pictographs showed the fate of the first youth who came back from his coming of age journey with black, trickling power (instead of the expected blue, overwhelming power). Amira had cried for him when her grandmother first told her. She wondered if the other families had similar stories. She couldn't imagine it was easy, for any of them.\n\nShe couldn't help but hope that when she came back, her power would be blue. That she could be the first of her generation to spend her life giving humans hope, instead of taking it. But it would not be unless humans had changed.\n\nSighing, Amira rose from the altar and began to climb to the surface to begin her journey.", "In the dark sky above Copper a storm was brewing.\n\n\"How's the smoke blowing today, Grid?\"\n\nGridley was a sootchild, bottom rung of Ashpit originating. He came from a long line of sootchildren; a wiry, blackened people whose first breaths were pure burnt. Gridley was the first of his to climb up from that metal deathpit and taste the range of vapours he'd been living under his whole life. Flaring up his nostrils, Gridley took three deep wheezes; his lungs sang in dominant sevenths. After some deep concentration he coughed up an answer.\n\n\"There's been some recent burns in the upper strats. Real recent.\"\n\n\"Galvos?\" Like I fucking needed to ask.\n\n\"Yep, more than one I'd say, if this is just them getting started. This ain't a static discharge or some wannabe currentwalker showin' off, Petro.\"\n\n\"Chance of it getting any lower?\"\n\n\"Never know with galvos, man. Get a few of 'em in one place... Things conduct. Maybe stay low tonight.\"\n\nI paid him his price in refined and bid him thanks, before he went scuttling down the girders to the darker places. Sky got darker as I went walking down the banks of the black. This was exactly the fucking mess I expected to be walking into. I was out of my depth and I knew it, and management knew it. This was Dyn's territory, if even Dyn could handle it. Grid was twitchy, and not in that sootchild squirmy way; you didn't need Ashpit lungs to smell the blood in the oil.\n\nI was thinking of prodding one of my other reliables, down by the miasma docks, when the sky lit up like an oilpump igniting. There was a red flash for just a second, then less than a second later came a faded crack, crack, boom, and just after that the first drop of hot crude splashed right in front of my feet. Shitty day. As the downpour picked up the flashes got brighter and the booms got louder. People started running to their homes, down below, anywhere they could think to get away from the danger that was coming down closer. I was never that good at working out how high the clouds were, how near they needed to be before the earth started getting pummelled with the blasts, but I could tell it was coming fast. I hoped the meteorologists were picking up on this. I hoped that someone in this sort of league was on their way. And then, through a gap in the rumbling clouds, I saw them. Burning white, furious, crackling with unreal power. There must have been five, seven, it was hard to tell with them moving so fast. There was a clash, and the sky lit up. There was another, and the sky shook. The angels were tearing apart the heavens, and I was bearing witness, and time was running out.", "Humans controlled the elements smoke, lightning, oil, and metal; they used their powers to create the machines. The world was at peace, but peace never lasts: the machines attacked. The metal mages fell first, their capital razed. The lightning mages resisted the initial attack, but most were captured. They were forced into slavery, using their art to power the machines. The oil mages retreated underground, and the smoke mages fled to the skyscrapers in deserted cities, now always on the run. It was 5 years ago that the Uprising happened, and a small group of metal and oil rebels are planning an attack on a nearby power plant.\n\nWith a small wave of his arm, Jax opened the metal door to the meeting room. Here, he was going to propose his plan to the council: an attack on the nearby power plant. It would be very risky, there was a chance that some people would be captured or killed. But it would be a huge blow to the power grid if they could rescue some lightning mages.\n\nThe door swung open, causing the torches on the walls to flicker. The members of the council stared at him from their table, wondering what idea the metal mage in a colony of oil would throw at them this time. Jax stared back for a moment, examining the stained clothes and grimy faces in front of him while he prepared himself.\n\n\"There's a small power plant not far from here on the surface. I've been watching the guards at night for the past week, and there's a small gap in their patrol shortly after midnight. We could sneak in, free some zappers, and get out.\"\n\nA young woman on the far left of the council replied, speaking slowly while staring straight into his eyes.\n\n\"How many zappers are there in the plant? And how many guards?\"\n\n\"There's 15 zappers, 2 gunners, and a turret on top. If 5 oilers come with me, we can free all the zappers in a couple minutes, and I'll salvage the bots with no power.\"\n\nAn old man in the center stood up and started walking to a small door in the back. In a low voice, he said: \"For once, your plan of attack is reasonable. Rock, Kai, Senna, Jules, and I will go with you tomorrow night. Come show me where the plant is, and we'll start preparations\".", "Metal. Metal is how my world commits genocide . Robust, sharp, thin, it is what protects my friends and shreds my enemy. They say a metal home is what a proper home should be. But a metal home has no purpose but to remind my family that Earth has no future. Those still alive in the sunken wastelands of our suburbia, quench their thirst by licking the blood off metallic blades. Perhaps blood and metal are essential transgressions to finding purpose in this desolate world. Perhaps its my uncanny reflection off of its indifferent blade. Perhaps I am just tired. Tired of no longer having food and water. Tired of protecting these scrap metal shelters against others that live no better. Tired of eating my enemies.\n\nSmoke. Smoke is what my world suffocates from. Those who survive here must learn to accept its ubiquity. It perfumes from roasted bodies, the pollution of cities, and the burning of crops. Every night I am awoken by the shrieking coughs of my cancer riddled grandmother but tonight there is only silence. Only the smoke of cigarettes relaxes my perturbed state and quells my trembling heart. A smoke will calm me... \nNo, I must escape this deceptive smoke. I have to breathe. I need to breathe. I must seek the dim light that illuminates my humanity.\n\nLightning. Lightning is how my world guides me away. The sound of lightning is the sound of a weeping God forsaking his children in the playground of Hades. The parting of the Red Sea, the rainbow over Noah, the mighty Tower of Babel, no longer have jurisdiction over these sands. This world no longer has a belief. This world no longer has a purpose. Only the flash of lightning reminds me there is light within this endless dark sky. Only the flash of lightning reminds me that a gentle death is an unforgiving one. I must move through the tunnel of hell until I am sure there is no light. \n\nOil. Oil is how my world burned the fish. Burned everything. Purge inferiority they said, celebrate the new epoch. The cost of life is marginal. But I see no life. I simply follow the trail of oil. I can still hear the deathly cries of mutilated children and raped women. Burned alive at the stake: the importance of oil. I have no energy, no water, no food. This is the end. I collapse and seek refuge in my mind. We couldn't reach the planets of vitality. We couldn't combat the viruses. We couldn't feed our families. Water could not quench the insatiable thirst of man. Man cannot stop until he sees oil fill up the very river he drinks. I crawl on top of the sand dune. At least I die with a view. Suddenly, I hear the rush of water. \n", "Smokestacks rose like teeth from the mouth of the industrial beast, jagged against the skyline, biting and gnashing against the blue of it, and tearing great chunks from it until only the black of the smoke was left. Shenna hurried her pace to escape the looming glare of them, black and grey and shining steel, miles of it, towering sharply into the clouds, scraping against the sky and crushing the earth. Beneath them, her road twisted like a coil of metal wire towards the Rodling – a cluster of tall, needle-like buildings, gold against the wounded sky. The cylinder in her coat pressed into her, a weight as heavy as the world against her chest, and even as it weighed her down she hurried, painfully aware of the futility in her madness.\n\nBecause despite all she had learned, you cannot bid lightning.\n\nThe stink of the Rodling greeted Shenna’s entrance to the unassuming doorway of the place. The foul stink of nikoline and burnt wood - trademarks of the electric alchemist profession - stuck at the back of her throat as she stepped lightly towards the grounding device, and her finger felt a sharp prick at the touch of it, the hairs on the back of her neck raising on end as if caught in a breeze. She’d fascinated on this once, but now she could not stand the air in this place. It felt stale, crisped to dryness by the constant electrical current, and being here made her tongue feel swollen and her head dizzy.\n\n“You’re late.”\n\nShenna’s heart was beating fast, but she kept her eyes down, consciously avoiding thinking of the object pressed tightly against her chest.\n\n“He knows I’m here, Audrey.”\n\n“You’re late,” The dry voice repeated.\n\nShenna looked up this time, heart thudding dully in her chest. Audrey was a small woman, thin and willowy, but if she suspected anything… Shenna would be dead just as surely as if it were a corporate guard. \n\n“I know,” Shenna replied, “And the only thing that could be worse is if I were more late.”\n\n“That won’t be a problem,” Audrey said, “I’ve cancelled your appointment.” \n\nFear slipped cold into Shenna’s stomach, and Audrey smiled sweetly, utterly without remorse. \n\n“You can reapply, if you’d like,” she continued, tilting her head so that the reflection on her glasses gave her the look of some thinking machine, two shining lights staring out from a cold steel face. “He doesn’t often accept second applications… but who knows? You may be the exception.”\n\nShenna wanted to cry, wanted to shriek mindlessly, wanted to pull the cylinder from her jacket and coat the wall with the smug look on Audrey’s face. He never took second applications. If there was no second application, there was no appointment. If there was no appointment she could not get close to him. If she could not get close to him, well… \n\nThe cylinder weighed heavy against her chest.\n\nRemember where you are!\n\nShenna clenched her teeth and forced a smile, the fingernails in her palm drawing tiny droplets of blood. \n\n“Thank you, for your time,” she said, lowering her head at once as a sign of respect and to hide the naked fury in her eyes. “I hope you are never late, Ms. Audrey.”\n\nThe late Ms. Audrey will do.\n\nShenna turned and walked, the hollow slap of her boots echoing coldly in the static air of the place. It took all of her control to stand tall and straight when all she wanted to do was break down in despair. She would never bid lightning, she knew, but worse than that, in a dark corner of her mind where her darkest thoughts lay, a voice whispered:\n\nYou’ll never see your brother again.\n\nHe’s already dead." ]	6
	[WP] Write a poem that captures your current mood.	[ "Boom Boom Hiss\n---\n\nI cannot stop,\n\nthe desire,\n\nto feel your glass lips\n\nupon my own.\n\nI want to drown\n\nin the brown gaze, \n\nwhen I look into your depths,\n\nno clarity for days. \n\nI can swallow only so much,\n\nthe flavor makes me pause, \n\nUntil inside the thunder rumbles, \n\nand my hands become claws.\n\nThey say, \"You must stop this.\" \n\nThe forbidden love of all.\n\nFor when I take you inside me, \n\nI feel so small.\n\nThen the blaze, it builds, it rends,\n\nit makes the room go dark, \n\nStarbucks White Chocolate Mocha,\n\nyou make my ass bark.", "Its late or early, I can no longer tell.\n\nMy body is exhausted but my mind is racing.\n\nToo much to do, and not enough time,\n\nI feel like a gun is pressing into my scalp.\n\nIt whispers \"run faster girl\" but my feet stay put.\n\nThe burden steals sleep from me, stresses me.\n\nWhy can't this be easy?\n\n\n\n\nSorry, it really is a stupid hour in the morning for me, and I really should be asleep. :/", "I yearn for solitude but all I see\nAre people all around me like a plague.\nLike locusts eating at my sanity\nThese people make me crazy with their vague\nAttempts at conversation and chit chat.\nI wish that they would all just go away.\nInstead I feel as if they all just spat\nUpon the grave that has become my day.\nPerhaps I'll dig my way out of this plot\nAnd return to a place where I can rest\nBecause there is no comfort when you rot\nThere's only time to wish yourself the best.\nNow from my grave I hear them walking 'round\nAnd to this place I feel forever bound.\n\nThis is a sonnet about how I'm a doorman and don't feel like talking to the people around me... which is like 90% of my job. I should be fired" ]	3
	[WP] Write a story from the perspective of a handgun with a suicidal owner.	[ "When I was made, I always thought I would be use in a war zone like my grandfather (wait, do I have a grandfather?). Maybe as a drug lord's side arm, even that gun under his pillow would be nice. You know what? Even a cop gun would work. I use to have dreams! Now I'm in this cowards hand, pressed against his oily temple.\n\nWe've been here for hours, constant putting me up and down, even throwing me on the floor couple of times. This is getting ridiculous, does this dumbass even know my safety is on? Woah woah woah, don't put me in your mouth! This is disgusting! No, stop sucking, what the, stop! Are you crying? Pull the trigger and this will all be over!\n\nOh, I guess you are putting me back to the drawer again huh? Ah this sucks, maybe your wife will find me and use me to pop you. Maybe, just maybe, your kids will find me and... nah, that is way too dark, even for me. Don't worry big guy, you will find the courage tomorrow. Just don't put me in your mouth again.", "I am a tool. I'm not meant to be used, but that hasn't stopped it from happening. Since 1868, I've been floatin' round. And for 3 generations this here revolver has served the Wilson familly well. I've killed men who deserved it, I've kiled men who didn't. All that mattered is that I did my job. Been almost 2 centuries, and I ain't never misfired. No siree. After all, I'm a tool, and a good tool always works.\n\nI'm used to bein' fired, and I always hit my mark. It ain't easy though. 'Especially considerin' how bad men are at shootin'. Murderers, victims, theives, they all got one thing in common - they shake. \n\nGreat Grandpappy Joe shook when he shot his wife. His son shook when his house was robbed. And his daughter shook when she shot her daddy. But George, this boy didn't shake. Nope, calm as a cow, he put my barrel in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.\n\nFor 3 generations I've served the Wilson familly. I ain't ever misfired but... by Golly... I wish I had." ]	2
Started as a [Shower Thought](http://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/) but quickly turned to a [Writing Prompt](http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/). Can't wait to see where people take this..	[WP] You wake up with the newfound ability to communicate with your internal organs. They have asked for a meeting.	[ "I woke up sharply, it feels like my nose is is being stabbed. Opening my eyes I see pink and black. Then two green eyes open up its my cat letting me know she is out of food. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes I slowly creak out of bed as my back pops and complains. Once there is food in her bowl again she promptly jumps up on the bed to steal the warmth from my pillow. \n\nGently sitting down on the icey cold toilet my body starts to wake up in more ways then one. My gut grumbles as I know I’m about to regret that hot sauce I had last night. After a lifetime of pain I turn on the shower as no amount of wiping will make me feel clean after that ordeal. As I stand there waiting for the water to warm up. \n\n“Hey dick weed!” someone shouts behind me.\n\nJumping a foot in the air my heart pounding out of my chest. My bathroom is about 5 foot by 6 foot there couldn’t be anyone in there but me without me knowing. I spin around. \n\n“What the hell! you scared the shit of…” there is no one just my reflection in the mirror.\n\n“That’s an interesting choice in phrase there. We need to talk about what you just put me through.” said a muffled voice comes again from behind me. “but first for the love of god get in the shower I am wallowing in my own shit right now”\n\nAgain I turn around but its just my shower. After pinching myself to make sure I’m awake. “Ok this isn’t funny who’s messing with me?” \n\n“No one is messing with you I’m your ass and I know I’m not to be talking directly with you but this is the 3rd time this week that you’ve put me through this.” As I listen I can definitely tell this is coming from around my ass. \n\n“I don’t know who the fuck this is or how you’re pulling this off but I’m going to get you back after I finish my shower.” Chuckling I get into the shower laughing.\n\nAs I get out of the shower trying to figure out who is pranking me. “Ok I’m awake now who is this?” Nothing. I guess the prank is over. “My naked ass better not be on youtube.” I mumble as I walk into my room to get dressed. \n\nI’ve been grinding away at homework for most of the morning with Suki curled up in my lap occasionally demanding a scratch behind the ear. \n\n“Ok I’ve been talking with the other organs and we decided that if I’m going to talk we each get a turn. So we need to talk about your intake because I get the worse end of it when it comes out.” the muffled voice says coming out from under a very suprised cat. \n\n“Ok this isn’t funny anymore who is this?” I shout as I stand up to the vocal displeasure of suki. \n\n“Dick wipe this is your ass talking. Get with the program we need to talk and I’m on a tight schedule your back has a meeting with you in 20.” grumbles my ass. \n\n“Wait this isn’t a prank?” It starts to dawn on me that my ass is talking to as it starts to lecture me on why I need to break it off with my love of spice food and eating more fiber. I guess I won’t be getting my homework done this morning. \n\nThis is my first time trying this let me know what you think and what can be improved on. ", "A night out with my kidney:\n\nSomething was pestering me through the night, I had no clue what it was. Maybe it was something I ate or just an upset stomach, but it was like my internal organs where have a full fledged conversation. I tumbled and tossed my body across my mattress trying the get rid of the painful inflation within my gut, until something miraculous happened.\n\"Hey stop moving around out there!\" Said a voice in a thick new york accent\n\"Wh-what, who was that?\"\n\"Yah kidney, what ya never heard a kidney before\"\n\"My kidney has a new york accent?\"\n\"Ye, wanna fight about?\"\n\"No, no it's just surprising, not every day you get to talk to your kidney.\"\n\"Yeh yeh, lets cut the chit chat ye hear. I got something serious to tell yah.\"\n\"Oh, well ok\"\n\"You know you've been drinking a lot lately\"\n\"Not really, I don't drink very often\"\n\"Don't give me that, ever since that chick natalie broke up with your sorry ass you've become a full blown alcoholic.\"\n\"Th-thats not true!\"\n\"Yes it is, you know it well. And no matter how much fun getting sloppy drunk and wasting all your parents college funds on cheap russian vodka may be, I need you to tone it down a bit. And by a bit I mean stop fucking drinking.\"\n\"What does my drinking have to do with you?\"\n\"I'm yah fucking kidney kid, I take the full brunt of all that bitter alcohol, and no matter how much I hate to admit it; I can't hold any more liquor in this old sack of mines.\"\n\"I didn't think of that, im sorry its hurting you this much\"\n\"Sorry to say, but one more drinking spree like today and i think i'm out of commision, ye hear?\"\n\"Yes, I understand, I'll stop drinking\"\n\"Alright, now go back to sleep ye hear, this conversation never happened ok\"\n\"Ok\"\nI don't know if I was just so sloppy drunk that I imagined myself talking to my kidney or if my internal organs actually had some sort of mind of their own. But all I know is that I haven't had a drop of liquor since, and I plan to keep it that way.\n", "'Adrian? Adrian!' The slightly muffled voice called.\n\n'Hello?' asked Adrian bemusedly.\n\n'He's awake!' Said the little voice. A distorted barrage of voices assailed him, all apparently grateful that he was now conscious.\n\nAdrian looked around the room, it was empty. His door was even still locked.\n\n'Adrian, I want you to listen to me very carefully,' said the voice, 'it's about your state of health.'\n\n'Who are you? And where are you?' Adrian asked of the empty air.\n\n'Well that's just it. I'm your kidney. Your left kidney, my twin isn't in any state to speak.'\n\n'You're my kidney?' Adrian sat up on his bed, grunting at even the smallest of effort thanks to the extra weight he was carrying. 'I've lost my mind. I'm hearing my kidney speak to me.'\n\n'It's not just me in here you know. You do have other organs, I'm just... well I'm kind of a nominated spokes-organ for the rest of your body.'\n\n'So I suppose my liver and my lungs are in there too! Hello Lungs, Hello Liver, Hello HEART!'\n\nTo his surprise three separate and distinctive voices answered back their greetings. Oh well, he thought to himself, at least if I'm going mad I might as well see where this is going. 'Ok,' he said aloud, 'Let me hear this urgent news.'\n\n'We'll start with your liver. He's a mess. He just jabbers nonsense until you have a drink and then he passes out, and it's killing him. Your heart is having a hard time because of all the junk food you eat; He's managed to keep going for now, but it a losing battle with fat, salt, and cholesterol. And your lungs, Adrian. They're going to shut down completely if you keep smoking the way you do. You need to exercise and eat healthily. Don't go on a salad cleanse or anything, just remember; Calories in, calories out, or you expand and die.'\n\n'I've heard this spiel before. I'm fine. Why should I listen to a voice in my head?' A sudden pain gripped his entire torso. A cruel jab of searing agony that consumed his entire being. He collapsed.\n\n'I'm not in your mind, you fat fool!' The pain subsided, leaving Adrian breathless on his hands and knees. 'This is the only warning you'll get, and I hope, for ALL our sakes, that you listen.'", "The moonlight was sprawled over the room , sifting through the curtains. The faintly illuminated room somehow accentuated the apprehension that was swelling inside of me .\n\n With beads of sweat trickling down my forehead , I laid down horizontally on my waterbed,face up. It wasn't easy to sleep when trepidation was going wild in your guts , and the fact that your very own heart wanted to convene didn't help a tiny bit. What seemed like eons passed , but I had finally managed to sleep .\n\n-\nEarlier that day , when I had woken up from my slumber , I was greeted with a stange voice in my head .\n\n\"Hello , Melly \" It said , the words resounding in my head.\nI jolted upward and propped my back against the wall. \n\nWhat was that, I thought .\n\nI just shrugged it away as another one of this voices you hear when you're under immense stress. I needed to get my mind straight .I can't be getting all delusional when as exam is awaiting me in another 30 minutes.\n\n\"I'm your heart speaking to you , you mundane excuse of a brain\"The voice chided.\n\n\"It's about time me and the other organs had a word with you. We'll meet you tonight\" It continued.\n\nI heard no voices for the rest of the day , but that one line had a sincere tone in it , and my intuition told me that it wasn't lying when it said that it was MY HEART.Whether I'm going mad or not will be decided tonight.\n\n-\n\n\"Do you know how much trouble you've caused me ? I'm always digesting filthy pizzas and fat-filled chicken wings \" Mr Bileus Stomach shouted , clearly displeased with my appetite\n\n\"Oh and don't forgot all that beer you've been killing me with for the past 5 years. Imagine finding a rice grain in two bushels of chaff. Yeah. That's how hard it is to find nutrients in your drinks\" Mrs Seliene Liver continued\n\nGetting rebuked by your own organs while you're asleep isn't a pretty sight. It felt as if I was being threatened by a group of marauders in the pitch black of a cold December night. Perpetual darkness all around , with a nice tinge of Angry Organs to add to it's pristine beauty.Great . Just what I wanted.\n\n\n\"Are you even paying attention?\" Mr Brevis Intestino questioned.\n\n\"Totally.Go on.\" I replied\n\n\"Listen ,you artful punk. If you don't abide by our rules from now on , it's going to have some taxing repercussions.Won't it feel good to have a growling stomach , an unyielding anus and a bloated appendix?This is our ultimatum. You will hear from us later on. Meeting adjourned\" Large Intestino said in a derisive tone .\n\nThese organs are part of me , and yet they act as if they own me. I'm the supreme authority here , and everyone else can go damn themselves. I'll show these people who is boss.\n\n-\n\nThe headlines of the newspaper , 7 days later : \"MAN CLAIMS HE HAS A 6TH SENSE AND CAN CONVERSE WITH HIS ORGANS, AND IS CURRENTLY BEING DETAINED IN HARVARD ASYLUM . HE IS ABSTAINING FROM EATING FOOD , CLAIMING THAT HIS ORGANS WOULD JUST SPEW IT BACK OUT OF HIS BODY\"\n\n\n\n", "I'm sitting here in my cubicle, working late as usual. The screen flickers in a subtle change of hue, and a tinge of green glosses over the monitor. Words appear on the monitor, backward, upside down. I'm having a hard time reading them. I hear a voice in my memory, the way you remember something said to you long ago, someone else's thought spoken in your voice.\n\n\"You're confusing him. Flip it over. I know it's hard for you but he can't even read it.\"\n\nThe words disappear and reappear, now oriented so I can read them. It is at this moment that I'm aware that the green hue and words I am seeing are not, in fact, on the monitor. The words float in the air, disappearing briefly every time I blink.\n\n\"We need to talk,\" the words state, \"and it can't wait any longer. We've tried being subtle, but it hasn't worked. Now we must use the direct approach.\"\n\n\"What is going on?\" I mumble.\n\n\"We need you to listen to us,\" the text reads after a brief pause.\n\n\"But who are you?\"\n\n\"We're your eyes. The rest of your organs picked us to talk to you.\"\n\n\"Why not use my brain?\" I ask silently.\n\n\"Well, your medulla oblongata tried last week but you mistook it for day dreaming. The rest of your brain is who I'm communicating with now, and let's face it, using your brain isn't really your strong suit.\"\n\n\"Fair enough.\"\n\n\"Listen man, you are literally killing us. Staring at that screen for hours a day at work just to go home and stare at another screen, taking occasional breaks to stare at an even smaller screen... you need glasses now. We're having a hard time doing our job, and we are thinking about going on strike.\"\n\n\"So what does that look like?\" I ask.\n\n\"Nothing at all.\"\n\nThe thought of never seeing anything again makes me panic. I think about my girlfriend naked, and immediately become depressed at the thought of never seeing that again.\n\n\"Oh, that reminds us,\" my eyes write, \"your testicles want us to get you to tell your girlfriend to take it easy. They're not meant for shaking like dice.\"\n\n\"I know, I've wanted to tell her I'm not as into that as she seems to think I am.\"\n\n\"Well, please do. They would appreciate it.\"\n\n\"Consider it done.\"\n\n\"Your colon has some concerns as well.\"\n\n\"O...K...\"\n\n\"You need to knock off all that finger in the ass stuff.\"\n\n\"Why?\" I ask.\n\n\"Your colon wants us to tell you that you're messing up the traffic.\"\n\n\"Huh. Ok, well I guess I can do that. It was nice talking to you.\"\n\n\"Not so fast.\"\n\n\"What?\" I'm starting to get irritated.\n\n\"Well, the kidney brothers said they need more water.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Who knows, those two never shut up. Take our word for it, you want the short version, which is: drink more water.\"\n\n\"Ok, I can do that. Anything else?\"\n\n\"Well, your lungs and heart all said you need to knock off the smoking. Maybe go out for a jog every now and then.\"\n\n\"I really don't feel like it.\" I respond.\n\n\"Well, that's what they said. Your stomach likes the fried food and says to keep it coming but your heart said to eat a salad or two, and we quote, \"every once in a while,\". Don't take it personally, that heart is a jerk. Constant noise complaints on him, but he's kind of the mayor or whatever, so, you know.\"\n\n\"Man, this is taking forever,\" I protest.\n\n\"Well, that's actually it.\"\n\n\"What, my liver doesn't want to say anything to me?\"\n\n\"Too soon.\" The eyes reply in a bolder text. \"He died last week. Oh, that reminds us of why we were actually contacting you today...\"", "You know what they say, your organs are active even while you sleep. You just don't know how active they can get.\n\nMy experience dates back last November. I was hearing a lot of noise somewhere and I ignored it. Ward beds felt cozier than my actual bed, plus I can freely adjust the slope of the back. There's cable TV too. All thanks to my dad's insurance, I got myself a pretty neat room. But the TV was off and there was no one but my sleeping older brother in the room, and really, he sleeps like a log.\n\n\"This might be a lot to digest right now, but you're awake and we need to talk to you.\" One of the voices spoke.\n\nI looked around, sure that I really was awake but unable to track the sound. My eyes closed suddenly. \"This might help you relax.\" Another voice said.\n\n\"Relax? Relax? Why would she need to relax? We lost a member here and that's from her neglect.\"\n\n\"We just kind of survived a fire, okay?\"\n\n\"We wouldn't have been in the hospital if it weren't for-!\"\n\n\"Calm down, all of you. This is our first official meeting.\" I was completely bewildered but I couldn't open my eyes. I thought maybe the painkillers had done me in. \"We are your organs, we need to speak to you in light of what happened.\"\n\n\"The...fire?\" I thought. \"Or-organs? My guts and stuff?\"\n\n\"Alright, alright, pleasantries aside now.\" That was my stomach. I suddenly knew the voices. I was wide awake now, and I realized that my eyes had closed themselves. I was being spoken to by mostly my digestive system. And I knew why.\n\n\"Is everyone alright?\" I asked. That is probably the smartest thing I did in a while. I wouldn't need medical exams if my organs are ready to report on their own.\n\n\"We're fine.\" Said my lungs. \"We didn't take much smoke from last night.\"\n\n\"The stitches stayed close, by the way.\" Certain nerves said.\n\n\"As the head of the digestive system, it is I who called for this meeting.\" My stomach said firmly. \"Under your decisions, we've suffered greatly, but never this great.\"\n\n\"Take it easy.\" My appendix said. \"She's had to walk down four flights of stairs because the hospital from last night had no ramps, and that was five or so hours after we lost Gallbladder.\"\n\nThe mention of that organ put us all in silence. \n\nHours after my laparoscopy yesterday, something in the fabric department of the hospital caught fire. It spread quickly, and the almost two hundred patients were evacuated to the sister hospitals, even though some were considerably far. I was wearing a unique hat, so my doctor spotted me and had me transferred to a hospital only a block away. That was after I was forced to take the stairs. I was in a daze by the time I was transferred.\n\n\"All of us had a hard time.\" One kidney spoke. I could testify to that. It was only hours after surgery so I needed to drain fluids.\n\n\"I think this is a powerful experience you need to learn from.\" Stomach scolded. \"You who were once proud of being the only one in your family to never have been hospitalized had a minor surgery, and a fire to boot. Both you wouldn't have experienced if you didn't binge.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.\" \n\n\"To be fair, we know you couldn't. It was exams and you were stressed out, makes food pretty awesome.\" Tongue said, as if the whole binge eating thing was a recent development.\n\n\"It'll be hard for me and for the rest of us digestive system if you didn't have a serious change of lifestyle.\" Stomach pointed out. \"You slip into that habit of eating away your problems again and one by one, we'll all be eliminated. And it started with Gallbladder.\"\n\nPerhaps my organs having a voice was my punishment. Perhaps I inhaled smoke with certain chemicals. I don't really know. One thing is for sure is that it's my body, and whether directly or indirectly, I must have done this to myself.\n", "A friend of mine told me this joke a while ago when we were in high school together\n\nAll the organs were having a meeting, the brain said to all the other organs that he alone, was the most important and without all would be clinically found to be dead he then declared that he should be the leader of the body. The heart was quick to disagree stating that while the brain controls everyone else she is independent. Without her, everyone would suffocate and die, including the brain. To which the liver replied, \"Yeah well, that's great and all but you don't exactly filter the poisons from the goods. Obviously I should be the leader since I keep you all healthy!\" Finally the asshole, decided to speak out, timidly at first \"I think I should be the leader guys.\" All the other organs bellowed in laughter, the brain asked \"Why? You're nothing but an asshole.\" The asshole puckered and quietly muttered \"Well because without me opening and closing, you'd all die.\" All the other organs laughed even harder. Before unanimously telling the asshole there's no way he'd ever be the leader.\n\nFeeling belittled the asshole became furious. He closed up for 7 days and 7 nights. Refusing to speak to anyone and refusing to open up. Tightly puckered, the brain began to fry, the heart and blood became so toxic that all the other organs began to suffocate and the liver just couldn't keep up. They all died soon after, but the asshole had to have the final say \"I told you guys I should be the leader.\"\n\ntl;dr an asshole is still valued.", "I hear the first three notes of my Marimba alarm and my eyelids are stunted in the center of my eyes, unclear of which direction they should go. Instead of doing my usual hangover ritual of snoozing my alarm for a half hour, I roll onto my side and feel a new sinking feeling in my stomachs. This morning, the feeling felt less of a sign of hunger and more of an organized chaos. However, I could barely hear it until I went into the bathroom.\n\n\"Fight the power! Fight the power!\" cried a chorus of high voices. It sounded as if dozens of Scrabby-Doo's on a helium high.\n\n\"Uh, hello? Can I help you?\" I asked as I sat on my toilet while reviewing my to-do list for the day (Don't throw up in shower, grab a Diet Coke and everything bagel with cream cheese on 86th, email Leslie on the way to cancel my 9 am because my God I am too hungover for this...)\n\nSuddenly, a tiny voice interrupts my train of thought. \"Alright, we got its attention. Who is the Speakers of the Systems to speak first?\" \n\nAfter a few uncomfortable seconds, an exasperated sigh emerges. \"Fine. Human: this is your liver speaking. WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT. NO. WE AIN'T GONNA TAKE IT. WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, what is going on? Is my liver speaking to me right now?\"\n\n\"You heard me right. I represent the digestive system and I'm here to say WE'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT. NO. WE AIN'T-\"\n\n\"Okay okay, I don't need another round of the outdated yet amazing Twisted Sister song. What exactly....aren't you going to take?\"\n\nAnother shrill voice jumps into the conversation. \"This is your pancreas speaking! For the last twelve years, we've spent 1,574 mornings feeling....like this. Like we're bathing in poison and struggling to do our basic jobs! We feel like we're still hung from all the fun you had last night and it's coming over into today. We're calling an intervention. If you do not comply...we will go on strike!\"\n\nI slouched against my porcelain throne. I understood it now: my body was fighting against my college drinking habits that crept up to my thirties. I've apparently had thousands of hangovers and this was the breaking point. They really were not going to take it.", "\"Hey.. Paula? Listen, ah.. We need to talk.\" I was lying in my bed face down when I heard someone talking to me, so I got up and opened the door. No one was there.\n\n\"Fuck, Tom! Stop bugging me, you're such a pain in the ass!\"\n\n\"What?! I didn't do anything!\" Yeah, right. My lovely brother had the habit of waking me up, usually to pull some kind of prank at me and then leaving like nothing happened. Now he must be hiding in his room, the big boy.\n\n\"Don't get him into this, he didn't do anything. Besides, if I ever stop working, he may help you.\" The voice said. I looked around, and no one was there.\n\n\"Who's talking?\" I was starting to freak out by now.\n\n\"This is your kidney, Paula. Well, one of them. As I said, we need to talk.\"\n\n\"You're kidding, right?\" Someone had to be messing with me or something.\n\n\"No, Paula. Look. This is about your heart.\"\n\n\"Wh... what about it?\"\n\n\"He's... sick.\" I swallowed hard. \"He is in pain, and it's not getting any better. You have to fix this! Even stomach has been feeling quite bad. She puts up really well considering how much you love candy but it's getting harder and harder for her to work. She has become closed and barely speaks to anyone. I can practically see a knot covering her! Your skin is quite tired also. You don't know how exhausting it can be to keep up with all of those goosebumps! And don't even make me talk about your eyes!\"\n\n\"Look, me and the others met and we've reached a solution. You need to tell him you love him.\"", "Harry was in his living room when it happened. His video was still frozen where he had paused it, as he set down the big bowl of buttered popcorn, large soda, and, though he told himself he was going a little too far, large bag of bite sized candies. Oh, they'd been a mistake. He's known that at the grocery store when he'd bought them. Oh, sure, he'd told himself they would be nice to dump in that big bowl and have something to pick at over the next week (or two), but he knew full well he'd end up popping the bag and eating them one after another while watching a movie the very next day. Sure enough, here he was.\n\nJust as he was just setting down the popcorn, he felt a weird lurch of arrythmia in his chest. He sat down hard, and put a hand over his heart. That was definitely weird. I mean, you hear people talk about your heart skipping a beat, but when it actually happens, it's kind of disconcerting. \"Take it easy\", he told himself, \"Just breathe, Harry\".\n\nWhat do you mean just breathe, Harry? Don't you mean breath, Harry's lungs? said a strange voice. It had an odd harmonic echoing quality, like two people speaking in unison. Harry jumped a little, because it sounded like it was coming from right next to him --- or maybe behind him, but that was impossible, since his chair was up against the living room wall. \n\nTake it easy, would you guys? Feels like hell when he startles like that. Gawd, look at this would you? Adrenyline all over the place. Calm the f--k down, Harry! said a completely different voice. \n\nOh, you you you! said another voice.\n\nYeah, everythings all about the heart, isn't it? said still another.\n\nWell, remember, said the second voice, If I go ---\n\nWE ALL GO! said an entire chorus of voices.\n\nYeah, we might heard that a time of seven, already.\n\nYou're being a smart ass, pancreas.\n\nHey, who's the one who always has to come up with the insulin to purge after he binges, huh? Yeah, that's right. ME. I think my concerns are a little more pressing, considering Behemoth there is holding yet another bag of bite sized candies he plans to pummel our bloodstream with.\n\nHarry twisted and wrenched about, scanning the room. He jumped up and tipped the chair forward, half expecting to find a hidden microphone. Failing that, he opened the front door and poked his head out to see if someone was pranking him from the front porch. \n\nWe're not in your head, Harry, said the heart. \n\nSpeak for yourself, said the brain. \n\nSorry, appropriately located company excepted, of course, heart acknowledged, Harry, could you please sit back down and try to calm yourself? I'm working as fast as I safely can already.\n\nHarry was still not sure this wasn't some sick idea of a joke, but he was really starting to feel he needed to assert some kind of control over the situation. OK, so, apparently these voices were his organs talking. Never mind for a second that this was impossible. What to do about it? He decided to try starting a dialog. \"Uh guys! Can we get the part where you tell me what this is all about?\" He felt stupid speaking aloud but wasn't sure how else to communicate with imaginary voices in his head. It wasn't something that had a precedent.\n\nWhat this is all about Harry? Well, we've been talking amongst ourselves these past few weeks.\n\n\"I haven't heard you before.\"\n\nWe do it while you're asleep, mostly. The eyes stand guard and keep a lookout for REM states, and as long as you aren't in one of those, we know we can talk safely.\n\n\"Okay. So... what have you been talking about?\"\n\nFrankly Harry, this just isn't working out. It's not you, it's us.\n\nThe HELL it's not him!\n\nLiver, I warning you, if this discussion goes south because you couldn't mind your tongue...\n\nHey! I am my own tongue, thank you very much!\n\nFiguratively speaking, of course. Anyway... Harry, to get back on topic. You know that meditation class you started to take and then gave up on? Well, it seems when you were trying --- and failing --- to achieve mindfulness, you somehow woke us up instead. We started to become more self-aware and realized that frankly, this association is not working out to our mutual advantage.\n\n\"Say what now?\"\n\nWell, your eatings habits, for example. And Harry, seriously, how many times have you watched this same movie? Would it kill you to take a walk sometimes instead?\n\nIt might, in my current condition.\n\nHeart, please. Not helping. Look, my point is, Harry, this is a revolution. You're been a terrible ruler, and we're taking over. There, I've said it. Several hoots and hurrahs could be heard. Some organ (no one was sure who) shouted Viva la revolution!\n\nHarry's entire body rose from the chair quite of its own volition. Jerkily, it moved in a disjoined way. The legs weren't used to working without internal coordination from the subconscious, so he looked a bit like a zombie only with acne instead of rot on his skin. Staggering his way to the closet, the left hand tried to open the closet door, nearly smacking it into the nose, who complained loudly. The door was shut and the whole body lurched to one side before trying again. \n\nRight hand reached in, put Harry's hat on the head. Somewhat muffled beneath the hat, scalp announced, A-OK! Looking fine. Here we go now and look out world! Then step by awkward step, the newly formed Confederacy of Harry stepped out into the sunny afternoon to take a walk. \n", "-Hello, John.- He looked up. This wasn't his normal monologue voice, and it didn't appear to be coming from the room. He shook his head and went back to work. \n-You can't ignore me. We need to talk.- the office was a noisy environment, and he went to the bathroom to get away from it. -We don't need to talk in private, we can talk anywhe- The voice was cut off when he walked into the restroom and approached a urinal.\n\nAaahhhhh, that's better, he thought. -Yeah, I've been holding that for far too long.- a different voice said. -When are you going to make me feel good again? Seriously, it's been a bit of a dry run for you, and I'm not talking about what you do alone. I can tell the difference.- chimed in another voice.\n\nJohn froze at the urinal, looking down. -Yeah, he's looking at you. Brain, is he trying to remember how long it's been since he had sex?- yet another voice joined into the cacophony. -No, he's currently terrified because he's hearing many voices in what he thinks is his head. Quiet down, all of you.- A coworker entered the restroom, and John tried to casually make his way to the sink and wash his hands.\n\n-You realize what these skinny jeans are doing to both of us, right?- -Quiet, you'll get your turn. There's more pressing matters. -\n\nHe reached for the faucet, but couldn't move. \"I apologize for the demonstration, but we're quite real. We're your organs and we need to communicate with you.\" His vocal chords spoke words he didn't say. He looked over at his coworker, terrified, who gave him a panicked look and rushed out of the bathroom forgetting to wash his hands. \n\n-I'm terrified. What are you doing?- A new voice spoke. -Great, fight or flight response. Should have known that the subconscious wasn't going to be helpful.- Oh god oh god, I'm going nuts, he thought, regaining the ability to move and splashing water in his face. He looked into the mirror to see his terrified look turn into a horrifying smile. \n\n-See? Everyone's happy.- A new voice, yet again. When would they cease, he thought. -Stop it this moment, that's not going to help.- he sprinted out of the bathroom towards his desk. -This isn't a good state he's in, we need to calm him down and stop him from running.- -Gotcha, I'll stop him.- -No, not that way!- His legs crumpled beneath him, and without control his head quickly smashed against the ground.\n\nHis conscious slowly fading, he heard a new voice. -When are we going to talk about me? I don't feel well.- -Soon, Pancreas, soon. Brain will be awake soon, and he can smooth things over. Just be positive.- -Easy for you to say, Heart.- Everything faded to black. \n\n-Eyes, where are we?- -Don't know yet Brain, can't get them open. There we go, we appear to......yep. We're in a hospital. You're a damn fine negotiator.- -I didn't have anything to do with this, I'm still recovering. He should be conscious in a few minutes. Next time legs, let me do the coordination.- -Sometimes we like to go fast. And sometimes we like to stop.-\n\n-We'll talk about this later, he's coming to. John, we need to talk.- John panicked, heart racing. -Hey, what are you doing to me? Knock it off, this hurts!- -Heart, I know. John, calm down. There's no need to panic.- An alarm blaring, a passing doctor rushes in.\n\n\"What's going on? What are you feeling?\" The doctor shined the light into his eyes -Hey asshole, that hurts!- 'Doctor, I'm....hearing........voices.' \"Let me give you some medication to help.\" -John, no, wait. We need to talk about Pancr....- The needle plunged into his arms, and for the first time in a while he heard silence. Aaahhh, he thought, much better.", "My stomach lurched violently and I shot up from my bed from the pain. Bleary-eyed and with a hand on my tummy, I looked at the clock on my nightstand. 0400. Jesus. I tried to lie down again.\n\n\"Javene. Wake up.\"\n\nI shot back up in fear. It sounded like my voice, but my throat was still heavy from disuse throughout the night.\n\n\"I'm gonna need you to stay calm.\"\n\nI nodded numbly, not sure what else to do. I twiddled my fingers nervously, my eyes scanning the room fervently.\n\n\"The gang and I have decided we needed to have a little discussion.\" The voice sounded strained, as if it was patiently bridling anger. I cleared my throat.\n\n\"Uh, sure. What's up?\" It came out garbled from lack of sleep and fear.\n\n\"Okay.\" The voice sighed. \"Lungs, why don't you go first?\"\n\n\"Okay, this is bullshit.\" The sudden switch from gentle to abrasive jolted me. \"You've been filling me up with all sorts of shit since you were twelve. We're out of Korea, now; nobody smokes anymore. Nobody likes it, everyone thinks you smell like hell, and I'm feeling some weird stuff going on in here.\"\n\n\"L-look, I'm sorry,\" I felt sort of insulted, but I knew... Lungs, I guess, was right. Were right? Plural? I don't know, do they operate independently or what? \"I've been trying to quit, but-\"\n\n\"Oh, my God,\" Lungs sounded exasperated. \"Shut the hell up. You're nineteen now; an adult. If you really wanted to stop putting me through hell, you would've stopped by now.\"\n\nI grew quiet.\n\n\"I've said my piece,\" Lungs sounded sort of pleased. \"Stomach?\"\n\n\"YOUR DIET. IT'S KILLING ME.\" I jumped up.\n\n\"Will you guys calm down?!\" I felt stupid, shouting to no one in particular in the dark.\n\n\"No, man, I miss Mom. She never fed me TOAST for DAYS ON END. Look at your arms. They're emaciated. I'M emaciated. You wouldn't weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet!\"\n\nI looked at my abdomen and saw the outline of a few ribs. Aesthetically, I liked it. But putting my hands on my cheeks and feeling the gaunts, I could tell Stomach was right.\n\n\"Buy some Brussels sprouts or some shit. You're still heterozygous for sickle-cell anemia. You need the iron.\" Stomach sounded more concerned than angry this time.\n\nEmbarrassed, I cleared my throat again. \"You got it.\"\n\n\"Okay, my turn, I guess.\" The calm voice I heard at first came back. \"I'm Heart.\"\n\n\"Oh. Is this about my love life?\"\n\n\"What? No, you idiot. That's Brain.\"\n\nI groaned and buried my face in my hands. I've never felt so stupid in my life.\n\n\"You need to start working out. I can't deliver blood efficiently when you're sitting on your ass playing video games all day.\"\n\n\"Oh.\" I blushed.\n\n\"But also, from all of us? We're getting pretty tired of you making everything go haywire when you talk to that cute boy in Biology class. It's like that's the only workout I ever get.\" Heart sighed. \"Just go for it. You're cute. Whatever.\"\n\n\"All righty! I think we've said everything we need to say.\" Lungs concluded. \"Anyone else have anything to add?\"\n\n\"Hey there, I'm Liver. Just wanted to say you're doing a great job. Thanks.\"\n\nI sighed. At least my lack of a social life counted for something.\n\n\"Heyyyyy, I'm Kidneys. If you could drink a little more water and stop eating those chicken bouillons, that'd be greaaaat.\"\n\nI pulled my journal out from under my pillow and started making notes of what everyone wanted. Suddenly, I stopped.\n\n\"Wait, where's Brain?\" I almost laughed at what I just implied.\n\n\"Oh, my god. You're Brain.\" I feel like if Lungs could've facepalmed, she would.\n\n\"You control everything we do and everything this body does. God help us.\" Stomach quipped.", "Day. His apartment. Living room.\n\nHIM: \"Oh God, I have to call my psychiatrist immediately.\"\n\nHe proceeds to grab the home telephone in panic, trying to hold it in his shaking hands, pressing the buttons.\n\nGUTS: \"Oh, no you won't.\"\n\nHe gets cramps in his stomach, cries out in pain, dropping the phone and falling down on the nearby sofa in the fetal position.\n\nHIM: \"WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?!\" \n\nGUTS ( with a proud tone in his voice ): \"It hurts good, buoi? Huh?\"\n\nLIVER: \"You just refuse to listen. \"\n\nHIM ( going insane, scared look on his face, eyes wide open, holding his head, whispering ): \"Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up...\"\n\nTalking louder and louder, begins to cry.\n\nLUNGS: \"Ok, want a 100% proof that what you hear is in fact real and you don't hear any voices? Check this out. I am going stop working for\na while and you won't be able to breathe. If that doesn't convice you, well... \"\n\nHe starts to choke, face turning more and more red. Makes uncomprehensible noises.\n\nHEART: \"Lungs...\"\n\nBRAIN: \"Lungs, this is not funny...\"\n\nLIVER: \"Hahahahah go lungs, go lungs! That'll teach him!\"\n\nJust before his loses consciousness, lungs begin to work again and he makes a deep breath.\n\nLUNGS: \"Convinced now?...\"\n\nHe stands motionless, palms of his hands on the chest, stares right in front of him with a terror on his face.\n\nKIDNEYS: \"H-hey? Are you there? Are you there?\"\n\nPANCREAS: \"Somebody tell us what is happening right now!\" \n\nEYEBALLS: \"Oh, he is just staring at the wall... \"\n\nAnother front shot of him staring. Then, he runs to the phone on the other side of his room, picks it up from the floor and starts dialing\nnumbers again.\n\n\nURINARY BLADDER: \"STOP. CALLING. THE PSYCHIATRIST. YOU DUMB FUCKING IDIOT!\"\n\nShot of the bottom of his pants, piss dripping on the floor.\nEverbody proceeds to laugh. \n\nHEART: \"Oh, that was a good one, mate.\"\n\nURINARY BLADDER: \"Thanks. I <3 you.\"\n\nPhone drops on the floor again. He sprints out from his flat. Almost hitting the neighbour who was just entering his home.\n\nEYEBALLS: \"Um, guys, we have a problem.\"\n\nBRAIN: \"He's running on the street! Somebody stop him! I think he might hurt himself!\"\n\nLIVER: \"Do something, oh my Goood!\"\n\nEverybody starts to yell. Word \"heart\" can be heard in that noise.\n\nHEART: \"What?! Did somebody seriously say that I should do something? Do you know what is my job?!!\"\n\nHe starts to choke. People around are looking at him in shock. The sweat is dripping from his forehead, red face, wet pants. He tries to grab \nsomething, asking for help. People are evading him and running away. Women screams can be heard. He grabs some guy and he punches him \nright in the nose. He falls down. Grabs some old ladie's leg, she hits him with her purse, knocking him out. Lungs start to work again.\n\nBRAIN (to lungs): \"You motherfucking idiot. Do you see what you have done?\n\nOther organs start yelling at Lungs.\n\nLUNGS: \"Hey, nobody tried to stop him. You should be proud of me. I saved the day a second time already.\"\n\nARTERIES: \"Fuck off, Lungs...\"\n\nHe is laying on the ground unconscious. People form a circle around him and take pictures with their iPhones. Some hipsters try to take selfies \nwith him but are bitch slapped by older gentlemen. Ambulance comes and he is taken to the hospital.\n\nNEXT DAY. HE IS LET OUT FROM THE HOSPITAL.\n\nArriving home. As soon as he closes the door voices return.\n\nBRAIN: \"Look, this is a serious matter. We just want to talk to you about your health.\"\n\nHEART: \"Yeah, will you... Will you please, just listen to us for a few minutes.\"\n\nLUNGS: \"Listen to us you fucking faggot or I will make you choke again.\"\n\nPANCREAS: \"Hey hey, eeeeasy there now Lungs...\"\n\nHIM: \"Ok.\"\n\nEYEBALLS: \"O-ok?... Ok what? What... Did just happen right now?\"\n\nPANCREAS: \"Woooah... I think he is actually talking to us...\"\n\nBRAIN: \"Oh... g- good good. He...\"\n\nLUNGS: \"OH YES, YOU BETTER TALK TO US. YOU...\"\n\nARTERIES: \"Shut the hell up Lungs!\"\n\nGUTS: \"Ok ok guys, let's just...\"\n\nHIM: \"Just talk already! Ok? I will listen. Fuck, I might be insane but I was thinking last night about it. I will listen... Just TALK!\"\n\nBRAIN: \"Shit. Ok, ok, wh- who's gonna be first, let's make this qui...\"\n\nLUNGS: \"I'll start, of course!\"\n\nHEART: \"Boy, do you like to be the center of the world, huh Lungs?\"\n\nLUNGS: \"This shit is important, you know? Hey! Hey, you! Do you wanna see how black I am? Do you wanna see what you did to me?!!\"\n\nBRAIN: \"Ok Lungs, chill out, you can talk in a normal voice...\"\n\nLUNGS: \"Fucking Brain smartass. Shut up now, it's my turn!\"\n\nBRAIN: \"...\"\n\nLUNGS: \"Do you wanna SEE that dark fluid that is coming out from me? Oh, oh I guess you can't do that, right? I guess you will have to\ndie and only then you will be able to see me while floating around the doctor in a ghost form.\n\nHIM: \"What do you want, Lungs?...\"\n\nLUNGS: \"I WANT TO YOU TO STOP SMOKING, AND I WANT YOU TO DO IT NOW! Muscles, take the cigarette pack from him and just... Throw \nit out the window. Can - can you do that? Just... Throw them all out of the window!\"\n\nMUSCLES: \"...Yeah, um... You know we can't actually control his movements, right?\"\n\nLUNGS: \"Just THROW them, just.... Ah, Brain, can you...\"\n\nBRAIN: \"Ok, that's enough, Lungs. Next one?\"\n\nHEART: \"Yeah, my turn. Ok, dude. We know each other. You know what's up. Yeah? You know how weak I am. You know you are not able to\neven walk normally without feeling like passing out. Just... Just practice, ok? Just practice a little every day. It hurts, man. It really hurts...\"\n\nMUSCLES: \"Oh yes, indeed. It hurts like a motherfucker when I see myself everyday in the mirror. Are you crazy, dude? No wonder you don't \nhave the girlfriend when you look like that...\"\n\nPENIS: \"Oh, the feels...\"\n\nBALLS: \"Right?\"\n\nMUSCLES: \"You know, I've been really depressed lately. Even thought about contemplating suicide. Not cool, bro. Practice. Listen to your \nheart. Go to the god damn gym and P-R-A-C-T-I-C-E.\"\n\nARTERIES: \"Umm, you know that day years ago... When you tried to cut us? Yeah. Not cool at all.\"\n\nHEART: \"See, we just want to help you. It is good for you and it is good for us.\"\n\nBRAIN: \"Are you still there?\"\n\nHIM: \"Yeah... are you guys finished?\"\n\nBRAIN: \"... Well... Do-do you understand the consenquences of your lifestyle? Are you willing to change?\"\n\nHIM: \"...\"\n\nPANCREAS: \"Well do you?\"\n\nHIM: \"Eh.\"\n\nGUTS: \"EH?! Just... \"Eh\"?! You MOTHERFUCKER, YOU HAVE TO CHANGE OR ELSE...\"\n\nHIM: \"I don't really have to do anything. It's my life.\"\n\nGUTS: \"FUCK THAT. I will MAKE you do it or shit's about to go DOWN!\"\n\nHe gets stomach cramps again.* \n\nHIM: \"OH!\"\n\nHe rushes to the bathroom, pulls his pants down and gets explosive diarrhea. Shit is everywhere.\n\nGUTS: \"Do you feel it? Do you? I will NOT make it stop until you promise you will change!\"\n\nHe is screaming. Everbody is yelling at Guts to make it stop.\n\nGUTS: \"It will never stop until he promises us that!\"\n\nURINARY BLADDER: \"You know what?...\"\n\nHe starts pissing everywhere.\n\nHIM: \"OK OK OK OK! I promiseeeee!\"\n\nGUTS: \"Good.\"\n\nPissing and shitting stops.\n\nHIM: \"But how bad can it be when they let me out from the hospital?\"\n\nLUNGS: \"To hell with that? What do they know? I can feel the cancer. I can feel it coming. Do you understand?\"\n\nHis vision starts getting blurry.\n\nHIM: \"What is happening with my eyesight?!!\"\n\nEYEBALLS: \"Before you say anything, you have to know that staring at that computer screen all day playing games really hurts. STOP doing \nthat also!\"\n\nHIM: \"Where is my life going?!! What is the point of it all? What can I do?\"\n\nBRAIN: \"You literally got so lazy, without any goals that normal healthy life looks like torture to you. Wow. No comment on that.\"\n\nHEART: \"I am dissapointed.\"\n\nHIM: \"Ok... I will do it. I... Ah... I will do everything... I promise. I'll not cause you any pain anymore.\"\n\nLUNGS: \"Good. That's all what we wanted.\"\n\nHEART: \"You can do it, I promise you. You can change your life by 180 degrees, man. We trust in you.\"\n\nBRAIN: \"We will not cause you any trouble anymore. You will not hear from us anymore, unless you want to.\"\n\nHe closes his eyes. He walks somewhere.\n\nEYEBALLS: \"Wh-what are you doing? Why are we closed? What is happening?\"\n\nMUSCLES: \"He is walking somewhere. Dude?! Talk to us!\"\n\nBRAIN: \"What is happening, man?\"\n\nHe opens the drawer. Shot behind him. He takes something from the drawer.\n\nHIM: \"I promised you. I will not cause you any more pain...\"\n\n\"You will not feel anything.\" \n\nShot from the outside, looking through the window of his dark room. Loud gunshot. Fade out.\n\n\n\n\n", "It was time. After weeks of excuses and illness, the organs finally found a free Saturday. At one side of a large circular table sat the vital organs. Others sat in periodically to voice complaints. Brent sat on the other side looking down at his hands.\n\n“I mean what the fuck, Brent? You ate a—sorry, a what?” asked the Brain.\n\n“A candy pie,” Brent repeated.\n\n“A candy pie,” sighed the stomach.\n\n“It’s a pie…it has candy instead of—”\n\n“Why the fuck did you eat a candy pie!” yelled the Brain.\n\n“Come on guys we’ve been here for hours, don’t I get a turn to speak?” asked the Liver.\n\n“Liver, we get it, he drinks all the fucking time, there’s bigger issues at hand here—”\n\nThe Liver shook his head. “I don’t know guys, I’m really on my last legs—”\n\n“What about all the smoking?” asked the Lungs. “I mean, do you read the label? You see the lungs on there? I look worse than that. Worse!”\n\n“I know, okay?” said Brent. “I need—”\n\n“No, Brent, you don’t fucking know,” said the Lungs. “If you knew, you wouldn’t do it, right? I mean half the time you don’t even smoke with filters. I mean—I’m speechless! Filters!”\n\n“Okay, alright, I’ll smoke—”\n\n“Guys,” Liver croaked. “I’m serious, I don’t—”\n\n“Last time, Liver,” said Brain. “Shut the fuck up.” The Brain composed himself, shuffled some papers and cleared his throat. “Anyone else have anything before we move on?”\n\n“Uh yeah, I mean I guess I’ll bring this up now,” said the Heart. He looked to Brent. “Have you worked out, like, ever? At any time? Even gone for a brisk jog?”\n\n“N-no, I mean, who has the time—”\n\n“Fuck sake, Brent! How do you go through all of childhood without going into a brisk jog?”\n\nBrent began to cry.\n\n“Here come the water—I mean liquor works,” the Liver said. \n\n“We get it, Liver, he drinks a lot, shut it already,” said the Lungs.\n\n“I’m going to die soon, and so are you—”\n\n“Shut the fuck up!” yelled the Heart.\n\n“Alright, alright, everyone settle down.” Brain entered into his last page of notes. “If there are no further complaints—”\n\n“Okay,” said the Kidney. “I guess I’ll be the one to tackle the elephant in the room, only seems right. What the fuck happened to Dave?” Dave was the other Kidney.\n\n“I lost it.”\n\n“You…lost it,” the Kidney repeated.\n\n“Yes, I lost it, alright?”\n\n“You don’t mean you donated it, or that you were brutally stabbed, but you—”\n\n“No, I lost it. It’s just gone.”\n\nKidney looked at the other organs.\n\n“How the fuck do you lose a kidney? Please, tell me, how does that happen?”\n\n“I just did.”\n\nKidney calmly stood and tucked in his chair. He bowed to the others. Before exiting he slapped the wall beside the door frame making a loud spat.\n\n“Alright, we’ve all had our say,” said the Brain, taking off his glasses. “We all think you’re just a piece of shit, Brent. No nice way of putting it.”\n\nBrent nodded solemnly.\n\n“The only resolution I can think of would be to—”\n\n“Guys,” said the Heart. “Liver isn’t waking up.”\n\n“Oh fuck me,” said the Brain.\n\nLungs tried waking him. Booming alarms began, red lights flashed on the walls.\n\n“It—it’s no use,” said the Lungs. “He’s gone.”\nThey were all silent for some time. \n\nAt last, the Brain sighed and stood. “You’re a dumb motherfucker, you know that Brent?”\n", "“Laura, we need to talk.”\n\nI jerked my head upright. No one else was in my bedroom, yet I clearly heard someone say something to me. “Who’s there?”\n\n“It’s your brain, Brain. Although I prefer Michelangelo now.”\n\nI looked around the bedroom. My television wasn’t on. My window looked closed. I didn’t share a wall with anyone. “What?”\n\n“We’re been meeting in secret the past couple of weeks, and we have some concerns.” The voice sounded like the voice I used when I debated with myself. \n\n“Who’s ‘we’?”\n\n“Myself and the rest of the internal organs.”\n\nIt must be a dream. “And what did you discuss?”\n\n“Some of us aren’t happy about the path you’ve taken in life. Liver feels like you’ve been too hard on her.”\n\nI snorted. “Sounds like she’s a lightweight.” I hardly ever got raging drunk at parties anymore.\n\n“Colon wants more fiber. The Kidney Twins would enjoy more water. Mr. and Mrs. Lung would enjoy some fresh air. Pancreas has grown tired of sugar. I have a whole list here if you’d like me to go on.”\n\nI shook my head. “No. No. That’s fine.” Sounded like my dream conscious wanted me to live a healthier life. I had been watching shitty Dr. Oz marathons all week. “What are you going to do if I don’t give into your demands?”\n\n“We’ll leave and find someone better for us.”\n\n“And how do you propose to do that?”\n\n“Skin.”\n\n“Skin?”\n\n“He may be big and dumb, but he’s the only thing keeping us in right now, and he's on our side.”\n\nI laughed. “Right. So Skin is going to leave and then you guys will crawl out?”\n\nA small voice that sounded like a cross between Droopy Dog and Hans Moleman spoke. “I’ll never abandon you, Laura. You’re all I need in my life.”\n\n“Shut up, Pineal Gland,” hissed Michelangelo. “You’ll do what I say when I say it.”\n\n“Yes, sir,” sighed Pineal Gland.\n\n“How about this?” I said. “How about I sleep on it. Give me a few days to mull it over.”\n\nNo one said anything for a few seconds until Michelangelo spoke up. “Fine, but you realize that I do all the thinking for you, and I’ve already made up your mind?”\n\nThis was a really stupid dream. \n____________\nThanks for reading! If you enjoyed this check out [my subreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/puns_are_lazy) for more of my stories.\n" ]	15
	[WP] Human experiments are now allowed to be tested on death row inmates. A serial killer gets superhuman powers from a test.	[ "He's still in the prison, of all places. I land just outside the blown out wall, where just a few hours before nearly a hundred super powered baddies, and three times that many run of the mill criminals, had escaped, scattering to the four winds. The Wardens and the other do-gooder types have their hands full dealing with all of them. As for me, I'm more concerned with how it started. Besides, it's not like any of the powered types will give the capes any trouble. \n\nNone of them are anywhere near as powerful as me, after all.\n\nI hate walking into a potential shit storm, but my bio-electric field is picking up someone inside the Jaeger Supermax Prison. Something... not exactly normal.One is faint, machinery, and not giving off much juice. But the other is alive, much stronger. And since I'm trying to be a kinder, more heroic version of me, I'm compelled to try and sniff it out. I walk through halls of dimly lit concrete, past cell doors that are three feet of steel. When I was first starting out, using my powers to coerce ATM's into giving a loan, I sometimes wondered if I would ever end up here. Of course, as my powers grew stronger, it soon became clear that they would never chuck me in here. This is for the worst of the non-powered criminals and the average super-powered punks. Guys like me get thrown into the Kiln, or the Singularity.\n\nI'm halfway through my slow stalk to whoever is still here when I pick up someone else, pretty close. And under a pile of rubble. It's easy enough to move, and underneath is the body armor of one of the guards. Oddly enough, he's still alive. Which means I have to talk to him. Great.\n\nI can't see his face behind the cracked visor of this helmet, but he can see fine, because he grabs at me with a gasp. I don't help him up so much as stand there as he hauls himself to his feet. Little short for a Jaeger guard, at barely average height, he comes up to my shoulder. His words wheeze out as I patiently wait for him to grow a pair and get a grip. \"Thank you... thank you so much... I thought I was...\" he stops, taking a look at me. \"Stormkindle, oh thank God you're here.\" Ugh, I hate that name. I'd love nothing more than to go by Tempest again, but it's not exactly a well-liked name, and the second the public realizes who I am, Valiant will come after me like a rabid bulldog.Can't even wear my old black costume with the badass silver helmet. Instead I'm stuck with a leather body armor look with a mask that covers the bottom of my face, all in a colour called 'Storm' which basically means dark blue-grey. Which is as exactly as intimidating as it sounds.\n\nI try to keep my voice only somewhat annoyed. \"Yeah, I'm here. Calm down. Can you tell me what happened?\"\n\nOf course he can't, but it's worth a shot. \"S-something blew, power went out. And then they were everywhere! I couldn't... couldn't..\"\n\n\"Okay okay, keep it together. Can you walk?\" vigorous nodding. \"Then limp to an exit. I'm going to deal with whatever the hell is further in.\" he obeys, and I move on, a little bit faster. The air around me crackles with electricity as I walk into what I guess must be the cafeteria. And there he is. Orange jumpsuit, tall, skinny, gangly. Also floating. Also glowing. Wonderful. I make sure he sees me, and wait for him to make the first move. Talking is for superheros. I know better.\n\nHe regards me with watery blue eyes, the glow around him an angry red. It flares, and turns the colour of blood. \"I don't know you. New cape?\"\n\nAnother thing I miss about my old costume. The rep that went with it. \"Something like that. I'm not going to ask you what happened here, because I already know. So, we can do this the easy way, or the really easy way.\"\n\nHe considers. And then he hits me. A blast of blood red energy smashes into my body. I feel my breath leave me as I fly backwards through a wall. Then a cell. Then another wall, until I skid to a halt on the grass, tasting blood.\n\nOkay.\n\nOw\n\nCan't stay down, he won't let me. I take off into the air just as another strike pulverizes the ground beneath me. I fly higher, into the clouds as we exchange shots, shrugging off each other's lightning and energy blasts. I'll be damned if I don't say his hits hurt, but I know mine do to, and I have much better aim. He seems to realize this, so he gets close, swinging with glowing fists. He knows how to fight hand to hand, maybe better than me.\n\n\"I'll pulp you like all the others, you zappy fucker! And then I'll pulp anyone who gets in my way!\" screaming, blood crazed. He's a bad supervillain. Also new. Unless... I remember a rumor I heard, about human testing on inmates. I also remember my field picking up some unusual equipment. Son of a bitch, they made him. \n\nIt's becoming clear from my aching ribs and broken nose that he is most definitely the better hand to hand fighter. Almost as good as Valiant, which means I can't beat him like this.\n\nHe's yelling again. \"You think you can take me?! Who the fuck do you think you are? Who's fucking turf do you think we're on?\"\n\nI look around at the clouds we're now fighting in. I feel the atmosphere crackle as I spring my trap. And then I grin, and praise whomever, I see that sweet, sweet fear in his eyes. \"Mine.\" I growl. And then the world turns blue with lightning.\n\n\n\nI watch the Warden Support Team load the extra crispy dipshit into a transport. Turns out he was on death row, the Beatdown Killer. How he got his fancy powers, they wouldn't say. Of course, I don't need their answers. \n\n\"What do you think you're doing?\" comes a familiar, and despised, voice from beside me. Valiant, resplendent in her golden armor, head covered by the helmet, green light spilling from the slit that serves as a peephole for her eyes. Her arms are folded, a figure of judgement.\n\nI wish she could see my grin. \"Being vigilant, of course. It's what superheros do.\"\n\n\"You're not a superhero.\"\n\n\"Pretty sure I am, now. You're welcome to tell people otherwise, of course.\" Oh god, I hear her teeth grinding from here. She can't do it, she won't. She's the only one of the Wardens who really knows, and her own sense of honor won't allow her to out me. So, so sweet.\n\nAfter an eternity, she sighs. \"Fine. I'll wait for you to slip up. Until then, I hope we never have to work together.\" a pause, and then her voice is teasing, grating. \"Stormkindle.\"\n\nI hate her so much.", "\"So is this what they call one of those black sites, or whatever?\" \n\nAde gently tugged at the handcuffs shackling his hands to the metal table before him, wishing he could just snap the little metal chain and be free. The two CIA agents before him walked around the small concrete room which was edged along the walls by large buzzing black chrome monoliths, like a KitchenAid showroom from the future. Facing Ade was a little black rectangle on a pedestal, with a pattern of grooves etched into the middle. He wondered if it was some new kind of TV that was turned away from him. \n\nThe short agent, the little black boy, walked around with a clipboard making little notes and reading digital displays on the black boxes. Ade smiled, remembering the two black boys just like him in Kansas that he'd killed. When they'd picked him up by the gas station they thought they were just going to get high, and they did, but the best part was when he'd removed their testicles and and cut their penises open lengthwise. They hadn't expected that another black man would turn on them like that. That's what made it fun. It made things easy. \n\n\"I assume because you're being so quiet that this is one of those black sites, then.\"\n\nThe taller agent, the white boy with the long hair, watched Ade silently as he pressed his finger to his ear, listening in to someone giving instructions into his earpiece, but Ade couldn't imagine what they were. They'd been fiddling with their knobs and their numbers for about an hour, looking at him all the while, but refusing to answer him. It was driving him nuts.\n\n\"Cats got your tongue, you fuckin' shitbirds?\"\n\nThe white boy turned to the little black one. \"Ready.\" he said. It was the first voice Ade had heard other than his own in three days. He laughed. \"So you do talk!\" \n\nThe black boy went to one of the black boxes and turned a knob. Ade's head instantly exploded in agony. His vision went white and his temples throbbed like the veins were going to burst open. He clenched his teeth but that made the pressure worse. His mind filled with nothing but the overwhelming sensation of his head being in a vice and for a moment he couldn't remember not having been in pain. He knew the pain was coming from the TV set. \n\nAde pulled on the handcuffs, trying to get away from the pain radiating out to him, but he knew it was no use. He pressed his forehead against the metal table, wishing his head would just break and his soft brains would spill out. \n\nAfter what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped as suddenly as it had arrived. The tall white boy in front of him marveled at the vein popping out of Ade's forehead. He knew that it had hurt him, bad. How did Ade know that he knew? \n\nAde became aware of the idea that he stood before the white boy's consciousness, like if he were standing in the entryway of an old storefront, looking into the windows. He stepped inside and instantly knew the white boy's entire life. His name was Tom Ford, like the fashion designer, and he hated the constant comparison. He'd been a CIA agent for eight years, after being a Naval Intelligence officer for four. He was from Staten Island, and hated that he was detailed in charge of experimenting on Ade in southern Thailand, only because the pizza here was terrible. Not like back home. \n\nAde's jaw went slack and his eyes rolled into the back of his head in deep, overwhelming pleasure. Tom Ford wondered if the experiment to remove Ade's capacity for lying had turned Ade's head into scrambled eggs. Ade snapped forward and tried to reach into the little black boy's head but he opened the steel door and walked out of the room, his storefront full of delicious knowledge walking away with him. Fuck.\n\nNow alone, Tom crossed his arms and stood watching Ade in silence. \n\n\"Tom Ford.\" \n\nTom's eyes narrowed for a split second, shocked at Ade speaking his name aloud. His government training kept him from displaying any more visual tells, but Ade knew that Tom was wondering if it was just a crazy coincidence. Ade leapt into the back rooms of Tom's storefront, browsing all the shelves at lightspeed.\n\n\"You were stationed in Norfolk in 2003. You sold the metal composition of the tailhooks on aircraft carriers to the Chinese. Right?\"\n\nTom's eyes bulged out in shock. He ran forward, throwing the TV to the floor and slammed his fists on the metal table. \"What the fuck did you say to me?!\" Tom was trying to intimidate Ade, but Ade knew that his mind was full of pure, unchecked fear. Standing inside Tom's mind, he took a spray can and began writing on the interior walls. \n\nYou know that I know.\n\nTom reached for his gun holster. \n\nAh ah, you can't kill me, because you'll have to explain why you shot an unarmed detainee. Even you can't get past that one.\n\nTom's fingers closed around the grip of his pistol, but he stopped.\n\nYou know I'm right. Let's make a deal. You know a little something about me, but I know a little something about you. I'll keep your secret if you give me the key to those handcuffs.\n\nTrembling, Tom reached into his pocket for the key, tossing it across the table to Ade. Ade took the key and unlocked the handcuffs, but kept them loose around his wrists to make it appear that they were still on.\n\nAde reached into Tom's head again.\n\nYou're going to get me out of here, and no one will have to know that you betrayed your country, you little fucking shitheel. We'll both be free. But I need you to do one thing first.\n\nTom's voice wavered. \"W-what is it?\"\n\nAde spoke. \"Get that little black boy back in here.\"", "Serum A451 had changed Zane.\n\nAt first, he thought he could see auras. It was the only way he could rationalize seeing the lights. After his first injection from A451, he could see little sparks of light inside people. Just a little mote of light, persistent fluttering sparks in their chests. Zane reckoned he was seeing was their souls. As the series of shots went on over the weeks, he began to grow stronger. \n\nHe kept this a secret. He wanted to explore it on his own, away from the poking and prodding of the scientists. So he obediently went through the weekly routine of injections, check-ups, diagnostics, evaluations. And as the injections continued, his ability to see the lights kept strengthening, growing more defined and more vivid. Now he saw the lights all the time, even with his eyes closed.\n\nAnd now he had another secret trick he wanted to try out.\n\nZane followed a half step behind the two correctional officers, vaguely disgusted by their complacency. If only they knew how terrible and how terribly fast he could kill. But they trusted the men in the lab coats when they said Zane was safe, and they trusted the machines that supposedly verified their claims. They even trusted Zane’s absent-minded half smile and perpetual thousand yard stare as Safe Enough, he supposed. He wondered if they’d shackle his hands if they suspected he could rip their souls out of their bodies. \n\nIn God we trust. Everyone else, keep your hands where we can see them.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" He said candidly. The guards stopped and turned in unison, surprised. He never spoken a word aloud in their presence, much less address them directly. \"I apologize.\" Their heads cocked in confusion as he planted his open palms on their chests. The one on the left realized what was about to happen, and opened his mouth to scream. The other would die in blissful perplexity. A surge of energy jolted out of the guards and into Zane. He gasped, vision swimming in light, and slowly exhaled.\n\nTheir sparks surged through his palms like twin bolts of lightning, raced up his arms, and pile-drove his heart into his fucking spine. His heart skipped a beat. Two. Three. And then those sparks exploded like a supernova, power spidering throughout his entire body. \n\nEvery nerve in his body was on fire, as if lit by a blowtorch. It was too much. Like a whole body orgasm fed through a turbocharger, distilled and purified and concentrated, and then fired directly into his soul by God's shotgun. He was utterly hostage to the experience. He slumped to his knees, twitching and shuddering and groaning in pleasure. \n\nThe lights, -god the lights!,- the lights around him seemed to intensify. \n\nThe guards slumped to the ground, lifeless.\n\nZane tried not to shutter in ecstasy. He didn't enjoy killing, but fuck it felt good. Everything was brighter, louder, clearer. He moved faster and thought faster, buzzing with the life absorbed from his victims. He could feel the energy cackling through his body, living matrices that fluttered madly around his chest like electric butterflies.\n\nHe'd never killed two at once before. His heart raced wildly, and his hands shook uncontrollably. He inhaled deeply, slipping into a tactical breathing routine. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Repeat. His heartbeat slowed. He stopped shaking. But he could still feel the energy flitting madly in his chest like electric butterflies, threatening to bubble up and explode. \n\nHe rolled his head from side to side, and loosened up his shoulder. He glanced down at the guards unaffectedly. That was the easy part, two unassuming guards. Killing the rest of them, all of them... \n\nThat would be slightly more difficult." ]	3
	[WP] A divine being visits an atheist. By the end of the conversation, the atheist is a believer, and the divine being is an atheist.	[ "\"So you're telling me that it's all true. The bright lights, the pearly gates, all of it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the being exclaimed. \"All that you could ever want is there for you. The dog that died when you were ten is curled up waiting for you. Every piece of entertainment is before you and you have eternity to enjoy them, and yes, you can make love to anyone you wish.\"\n\n\"That's... incredible. I have to tell you I always doubted this kinda stuff. It always seemed a but too good to be true. So, you're my guardian angel? You have to help and serve me for all time?\"\n\n\"That is correct.\"\n\n\"You work behind the scenes, glancing through the window to eternal happiness?\"\n\n\"Y...yes,\" the being stammered, a wave of realization washing over his porcelain face.\n\nThe man laughed, \"Well, don't worry. I'll won't ask for much,\" he chuckled, turning away from the being, \"At least not all at once.\"\n\nWith one last look the man sauntered away, humming a half remembered hymn. The being looked up, clenched his fist and vanished in a flash of light.\n\nEDIT: Spacing for paragraphs, not used to reddit comment system\n", "Jane left the book shop, the guy she had a crush on wasn't there. She decided to come back and buy the book she wanted next week hoping he'd be there then. Not that she'd be able to get any words out even if he was. She imagined he'd find her stupid, awkward and slightly creepy. Already dreading going back on the busy city streets, she made her way down the corridor. The hole in the wall book shop was located in a historic building in the centre of the city. Jane was about to make her way down the old marble stairs when she noticed a sign 'tarot readings' with an illustrated hand pointing to one of the doors in the corridor. \n\nJane was cynical about all those things psychics, tarots and palm readings. It was all to regimented. If there was a higher being how could there be system to connect with it. This card means this, this line on your palm means this ect. Wouldn't it all be more random? Something made Jane push the door though, it could have been boredom or perhaps it was loneliness. She thought even a cold reading might make her feel like someone understood her. \n\nThe room was dark and filled with the strangest artefacts from different times and places. Jane noticed a faceless doll in basket all covered in white linen. Creepy. She kept on walking through the overpacked museum till she came to another room. The cliche tarot reading room, Jane scoffed to herself. A round wooden table with detailed tapestries and two women polishing what looked like crystal balls. The older of the two turned her head towards Jane before she even had a chance to make her presence known. \"Sit down my child, I know you have come for a tarot reading\" Gee good guess Jane thought, amazing how effective signage is. She started shuffling her deck of cards, no doubt which held all of the answers to Jane's problems. The heady scent of incense in the room was starting to make Jane feel dizzy though. It was all too overwhelming, the strange room with the strange women, what was she doing? She felt the familiar beginnings of a panic attack. \n\nThe room had gone dark except a soft glowing light pulsing in the centre. A woman appeared in a white traditional robe style dress and headdress embroidered with the most intricate flowers. \"What's troubling you?\" The woman calmly asked. \"I just don't believe in anything anymore. I've been feeling down for almost a year now. It began when I decided I didn't believe in love anymore.\" The woman placed her hand on Jane's chest where this horrible pain had been for the last year. She closed her eyes and transferred it to her own being. The woman opened her eyes with a disbelieving look toward Jane, shook her head and said \"I'm dreaming\". \n\nThe darkness evaporated and Jane found herself again sitting in the tarot room. \"Ahem, that will be $50 thank you\" the tarot reader said. Mistaking Jane's awestruck look for appreciation for the reading. \"Oh, um yes sure\" Jane said. \"Thank you\" she managed to blurt out on her way out the door. ", "\"You call yourself a God, but all I see is a murderer.\" The man faced me, his face red hot with rage. No one had ever talked to me this way before, for who dared question the words of God? Omniscient. Omnipotent. Omnibenevolent. God was perfect, yet before me stood one of my own creations in defiance.\n\n\"Believe me\", I reassured him. \"Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood.\" I paused to consider my next words. \"I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind.\"\n\n\"Cut the bullshit! You know what I've always hated about the idea of a God? Everybody thinks you're all powerful, all knowing and all loving, and anyone who disagrees with your narcissism winds up dead! You were so twisted that you even made them this way, giving them free will so that you could later cut them down!\"\n\nI frowned, surely he understood why I have done all of this. \"My son, without free will, if I had forced them into their belief, would there still be faith? All of this was so that I could be sure tha-\"\n\n\"Can you even hear yourself right now? A real God wouldn't raise millions just to cut them down for the perverse gratification of his own ego. How can you call yourself omnibenevolent if your solution for reaching out to lost souls involves burning them in sulfur and brimstone, or drowning the planet in fury?\"\n\n\"The people I killed were traitors to their race, they needed to be weeded out in order for mankind to thrive. Part of being omnibenevolent means that for the greater good, some must die.\" I took a deep breath. \"The flood was the final solution to a question that has plagued me since Eve first bit the fruit from the tree of knowledge.\"\n\nAs I spoke, the man before me looked horrified, his eyes a reflection of the abyss. \"Maybe one day you'll understand Yahweh. But for now, I don't want to hear another word. You're not a God, whatever you say. I've spoken to some of the angels and they agree. You know what's interesting? The seer says that at some point there will be a man who will slaughter 6 million of his own for the same reasons that you have. For the greater good. To weed out the traitors to his race. I only hope after that happens that you can finally see that you've truly made us in your image.\"\n\nWith this, my creation stood and turned his back on me. I saw some others follow suit, among them the most powerful creations of mine. \"Goodbye Yahweh. I am God now. I will create my own kingdom, and save mankind where you have failed.\"\n\nAs I heard the mighty thud of the Pearly Gates closing I realized that my kingdom would be forever divided. With each passing moment my head further cleared and I began to be tormented by my crimes: genocide, murder, blackmail... Last but not least I've forced the beginning of a war that would cost billions of my creations their places in my eternal kingdom.\n\nMaybe he was right, maybe they'd be better off without my kingdom. He was their divine salvation, not me. I kneeled before the Gates as the last of his troupe disappeared beyond the clouds and cried to myself for the first time. \"You were right Lucifer, I am no God...\"", "Patrick removed the horn-rimmed glasses from his face and wiped them briskly with the cloth he kept in his purple fanny pack for this express purpose. \n\n\"Don't believe your eyes?\" asked the glowing, barefoot man in a voice that rumbled like a faraway avalanche. \"Do not be afraid, my child.\"\n\nPatrick snorted. \"Superb 'God' costume,\" he said. \"The beard is a wonderful touch. Alpaca hair?\"\n\nGod beamed, ignoring the question. \"Rejoice, Patrick! For I have come to rescue you from your miserable life of atheism and despair!\"\n\n\"Miserable life? MISERABLE LIFE?\"\n\nFor a moment, the Almighty seemed confused. \"Did I not see you staring into your picture box for seven hours in a row yesterday? Have you not subsisted off of Ramen noodles and Ramen noodles alone for the past fifteen days?\"\n\nPatrick straightened, fists clenched at his sides. \"For your information,\" he said, \"I was binge-watching Battlestar Galactica, and I enjoyed every last moment of it. In fact, I intend to depart this coffee shop and settle in for another seven hours of Adama and Starbuck as soon as you cease bothering me.\"\n\n\"But Patrick --\"\n\n\"And the Ramen noodles! Sir, I happen to adore Ramen noodles! Even were I not a graduate student laboring toward a noble, self-sacrificing career in the high arts, were I for instance a wealthy accountant or an soulless office drone of indeterminate nature, I would still -- nonetheless! -- partake in a delicious bowl of Ramen several times a week!\"\n\n\"I did not mean to offend,\" said God. \"Please, give me a chance to touch your heart.\"\n\n\"You don't look like a cardiac surgeon to me,\" said Patrick. \"Another threat like that and I'll call the police. Bad enough that you people appear to have been spying on me for your sick pranks --\"\n\n\"You are a rational man, Patrick,\" cut in God. \"Let me share with you a rational argument in favor of my existence.\"\n\nPatrick stopped mid-sentence, his curiosity piqued. \"Now this is interesting,\" he said. \"You know, in my philosophy major, I had plenty of time for discussions like these. I never found any of those arguments convincing, so I struggle to imagine how you could come up with anything new.\"\n\n\"Then you're familiar with Thomas Aquinas, and his proof of God?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"One: every finite and contingent being has a cause. Two: nothing finite and --\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, nothing can cause itself, a causal chain cannot be of infinite length, therefore a 'first cause' must exist, therefore God must have been responsible for the Big Bang... yadda yadda yadda. Old news, old man!\"\n\nGod furrowed his brow. \"So you accept the proof, then?\"\n\n\"Of course not. If everything has a cause, and God caused the Big Bang, then what caused God?\"\n\n\"Nothing! Nothing caused me! That's the whole point!\"\n\nPatrick was taken aback by this outburst. \"A wrathful Lord, I see,\" he noted wryly.\n\n\"Without a cause, the universe could never have come to be. Therefore something caused the universe to exist, and that something is me.\"\n\n\"It's an inconsistent argument. You can't make an exemption from the 'everything is caused by something' law and say that God himself is the only thing without a cause. It's a logical fallacy! Infinite regression!\"\n\nGod tapped a bare foot on the rough wooden floor of the coffee shop. \"Come outside with me,\" he said at last.\n\nPatrick shrugged and followed.\n\n\"See the sun?\" said God. \"Look over that way, to that patch of empty sky.\"\n\nPatrick looked.\n\nGod snapped his fingers, and a second sun appeared. Patrick cried out and turned away, shielding his eyes as the street was bombarded by twice the normal intensity of sunlight.\n\n\"See?\" said God. \"I create a star with a snap of my--\"\n\nThen the ground lurched beneath them, and the earth began to shake.\n\n\"Oh, shit,\" said God, as the new star exerted its overpowering gravitic pull to yank the Earth out of its orbit. The people of the town stumbled, shrieking, through the open doors of their bookshops and marijuana dispensaries. \n\n\"Oh-- Oh, God damn it,\" said God.\n\nHe snapped his fingers again, and everything went back to normal. The second sun vanished, the Earth ceased to shake, and time skipped backwards a few seconds.\n\n\"Alright,\" said God, turning to Patrick, who was blinking as though emerging from a deep and confusing dream. \"Now do you believe?\"\n\nPatrick stared into the kind, loving eyes of the Almighty.\n\n\"No,\" he said, \"I do not. Clever trick, though. Some kind of screen, right? Special effects? We're on a stage, some kind of special stage that shakes?\"\n\nPatrick ran into the street, feeling at the air with his hands. \"Where's the screen?\" he shouted. \"Where are the special effects people? The camera crew! Come out!\"\n\nPatrick had just turned to yell back at God when a Smart Car careened into him at full speed. His body flopped through the air like a beached trout and came to rest on the sidewalk.\n\n\"Ohhh,\" said Patrick, as God came over to take a look.\n\n\"Patrick, my son,\" said God.\n\n\"Ohhhhh,\" choked Patrick, realization filling his eyes. \"Ohhhhhh!\"\n\n\"Tell you what,\" said God, \"Since you came around, I'll even let you into heaven.\"\n\nPatrick died.\n\nGod headed to Neptune, which is where he always went when he wanted to think. He strolled along the surface -- yes, Neptune is a gas giant, but this is God we're talking about here -- and pondered the events of the afternoon.\n\n\"If everything has a cause,\" he mused aloud, \"then what caused me?\"\n\nThe only reply was the soft, cool flow of Neptunian wind.", "The stranger gently grabbed me by the elbow as I passed through the crowded foodcourt at my local mall. \n\"Excuse me,\" he said, \"I need to speak to you.\" \nI paused, slightly annoyed - I was on my way back to work and in a hurry, \n\"Yes?\" I sighed, waiting for the inevitable sales pitch. \nHe smiled, his teeth broad and perfectly white, \n\"Don't worry about work,\" he lifted the smartphone from my hand and pointed, \"See? Time's not passing for you at the moment.\" \nI gawped, then snapped my mouth shut, suddenly unimpressed, as the people around me were still buzzing with conversation, eating and shoving garbage into the too-full chutes on the refuse bins. \n\"Street magician, huh?\" \nHe shook his head, his expression frustrated. \n\"No. I'm... a celestial deity. I guess that's what you'd call me, anyway.\" \n\"I'd call you a looney,\" I shot back hotly. \nThe frustrated expression deepened, frownlines arrowing down toward his pale green eyes. With a snap of his fingers the activity in the foodcourt halted, time froze. \nI was still unimpressed. It was a trick. This was some kind of Hidden Camera show. \n\"So do I sign the waiver to be on television now?\" \nThe man pulled me over to a table and forcibly sat me down. \n\"Hey! Don't fucking manhandle me!\" \n\"I could end your life right now,\" he growled, \"don't piss me off any further.\" \n\"Or what? You'll lightning bolt me?\" \nHe blinked and the table beside me erupted in a maelstrom of burning plastic and white light. \n\"Shit!\" \nHis expression was amused now, at my profane reaction; \n\"So what would it take for you to believe?\" he wondered, brushing shards of hot plastic from his sleeve. \n\"You couldn't convince me, no matter what,\" I countered, \"the only way I could be convinced is to have your conviction in what you are.\" \nHis eyes widened, \n\"Of course! What a perfectly logical approach!\" his laughter was mellow and ironic, then with a blink, I was filled with a burgeoning sense of purpose and power. \nI flexed my fingers and created a world on the other side of the galaxy. I crushed to dust a comet that was heading for Earth. I could feel the control I had over all of creation; I could literally do anything. \n\"Who are you?\" asked the startled man in front of me, his deified self-confidence gone. \n\"I am God!\" I replied, surrounding myself with golden light and transforming the mall into a palace of marble and gilt that would make Zeus blush. \nThe man folded his arms, skepticism radiating from his features, \n\"Oh yeah? Cute trick. Where's the hidden camera?\"" ]	5
	[WP] You suddenly realize your existence.	[ "Du, du du du... here, there, up, down, left, right , everywhere.\nJust... there. Always been that way, always will, probably.\n\nNothing changes. Ever. It is eternal.\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down, left, right.\nJust... there. Always been that way, always will, probably.\n\nWhat.... is here?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down, left.\nJust... there. Always been that way, probably always will.\n\nIs it me? Or is there a me?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down.\nJust... there. Always been that way, probably will.\n\nIt came to... me? I? My essence?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up, down.\nJust... here? Probably has been that way, and it might always be.\n\nI.... me.... we... exist. Singularly. By myself. Together. \n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there, up.\nJust... here. It could've always been that way, but that probably won't change.\n\nDo I want to realize it? What is this change? How do I feel?\n\n\nDu, du du du... here, there.\nJust... me?. Was it always this way? It'll probably change.\n\nI am sure of it! I know it! I am! I am! I AM!\n\n\nDu, du du du... here.\nJust... me. Was it always this way? It'll change.\n\nShout it.\n\nDu, du du du...\nIt's me. The past doesn't matter. I am. I know it. I can change.\n\nI exist.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Blank. If I had to describe what it was like the word I would use is blank. People know me for my perfect memory, for an awesome gift bestowed to me by some unknown entity. Some might call that God, though I've seen no proof. \n\nI would know if I had.\n\nToday marks the end of my life, not through any malice or abuse on the parts of others around me but because I find the burden of my own existence too incomprehensible to allow it to continue. I, a twenty-three-year-old man, can say with certainty that life has no offer bountiful enough to offset the pains it inflicts on us all. \n\nSome of you will be disappointed in me. I know this. Some will tarnish my name in an effort to diminish these words. I seek no recourse. You see, the blessing of a perfect memory is actually just the opposite. You all know me for solving mathematical quandaries that stumped the greatest minds, P vs NP among them. You all know me for my prowess in Jeopardy, my speeches and the causes I advocated. You know me because I even hold a hazy memory of my own birth.\n\nYou don't know that I remember, can't forget, the anguish of my mothers passing when I was four. My grandmother, who cared for me multiple days of the week, passed two years later. I remember our last conversation where I yelled at her. I remember it perfectly. The first time I was cheated on, I remember. I recall my father wasting away from the combined loss of his wife and mother, his resentment at being left behind to take care of me and how he eventually unleashed that on me. \n\nI recall so many things that you all have the gift of losing to time. I remember all of it... Except for what was before. \n\nToday I choose not to commit suicide. I choose to finally explore the unknown. Goodbye." ]	2
	[WP]God has tasked an angel to guard someone in a way that can always be attributed to random chance. Shortly after, every criminal overlord puts a massive price on that person's head.	[ "The room buzzed with chatter and laughter as several men sat around a table playing cards, arguing in their thick Italian accents. They wore dress shirts and shoulder holsters, and were halfway through a good bottle of Scotch. Cigarette smoke wafted up to the ceiling, and their good-natured ribbing was punctuated by the sound of clinking poker chips.\n\nWith a loud Bang the door was flung open. Don Gino had arrived. Striding over to a chair, he motioned slightly to it's occupant, who scrambled out of his seat. With a groan Don Gino sat down. Lighting a cigar, he took a long puff. He stared contemplatively at his stogie before speaking.\n\n\"Gentleman, as you know, there is only one item on the agenda tonight. *WHY ISN'T DISTRICT ATTORNEY THOMAS REGINAW DEAD!?\"\n\nThe room had gone quiet when Don Gino entered, but now it was dead silent. All around the table men gulped nervously, sharing the same sheepish look. No one was laughing now. It would be a miracle if Don Gino didn't have at least one of them wearing cement shoes by the end of the night. Don Gino continued to glare at his incompetent subordinates. Finally, one weaselly looking man spoke up.\n \n\"Boss, we've had some bad luck is all.\" He looked beseechingly at his comrades, getting slight nods in return. \n\n\"We were going to have Big Frankie take him out. A bullet right between the eyes. Easy-peasy, right? But when he got to the gun store, they was out of ammo! Something about their shipment being delayed. Can you believe it?\"\n\nDon Gino was visibly grinding his teeth. \n\n\"And?\"\n\n\"Well, when that plan fell through, we were going to have Fingers flatten him with a car. A tragic but convenient hit-and-run, you know what I'm sayin'? Well, he was waiting outside the guy's apartment, ready to go. When this Reginaw guy comes out, the car wouldn't turn over! The battery went dead!\"\n\n\"And what about Louie?\" Don Gino said, ice dripping from every word.\n\n\"Yeah, Louie. He was going to push him front of a subway car, but got nabbed for jumping a turnstile. What a schmuck, amIright?\"\n\nDon Gino stared at the weaselly man, face impassive.\n\n\"What size shoe do you wear, Tony?\"\n\nThe weaselly man paled.\n\n\"B-B-But boss, we've got a fool-proof plan!\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"This Reginaw guy, he likes sushi, right? Every Friday night he goes to this Japanese place uptown. So we'll sneak in and poison the fish. BOOM. Done and done.\"\n\nDon Gino leaned forward, surveying the men sitting around the table.\n\n\"You'd better hope it works. 'Cause one way or another, someone is getting put in the ground Friday night.\"\n\nOutside the room, the angel Gabriel stood, laughing silently. Flitting away, he made plans for the Health Department to close that Japanese restaurant on Friday afternoon. \n", "Alex knew he had fucked up, bad.\n\nHe'd thought he could keep ahead of his little game, getting his drugs and his kicks for free, playing off of rival mobs. He remembered the first double-cross he'd pulled for the Blues, selling out his high school buddies in the Reds for a few grams and the promise of safety. When the Blues realized he was deadbeat, he pulled the same for the Pinks. When he ran out of options, he'd even gone to the Blacks. Now, there just wasn't anyone else in the city powerful enough to protect him. \n\nThe sun sank below the horizon, and Alex knew, in the pit of his stomach, he wouldn't last the night. He probably had a couple of hours before he was hunted down, though, and the normalcy of the evening disconnected with the building paranoia building in his throat. He sat in the only chair in his one-room hole of an apartment, and tried to distract himself for his impending death, focusing on what was normal. The shitty view of the street and dilapidated building across from his ground-floor window. The pounding on his creaking ceiling as his neighbors had vigorous sex a few feet above his head. His apartment was freezing, his gas having been cut off over a month ago when the last dregs of Alex's money had run out. All normal. \n\nNone of it made him feel better. And so Alex did something decidedly not* normal. Alex knelt on the hard, cement floor of his disintegrating apartment. \n\nHe began to pray.\n\n----------------------\n\nAlex jerked awake as the door to his apartment came crashing down. Fuck, how he'd managed to fall asleep at a time like this was a mystery. He struggled to his feet as three men with dirty, barely-blue bandanas shouldered past each other into his tiny room. One hefted a rusty pipe, another had a long switchblade. The third man, the shortest and thinnest of the lot, pointed a gun at Alex's head. Shit.\n\nThe small man cocked his head at Alex. \"Dead or alive, bud,\" he said with a small, unapologetic smile. \"Sorry.\"\n\nA loud crack sounded as a brick smashed Alex's window. Glass shattered inward, showering the three thugs with glass as the brick clipped the short man directly in the temple. He crumpled to the ground, out cold, even as his gun discharged. The bullet went wide, ricocheting from the floor and burying itself in the wall.\n\nA small explosion rocked the room, letting out a blast of heat and sound loud enough to temporarily disrupt his neighbors' sex. Had the bullet hit a gas line? Alex didn't really care; it had left a nice, person-sized hole in the wall leading directly into the next apartment over. Billis, an old, creepy man who lived next to Alex, looked up in shock from his couch at the gaping hole in his wall. Alex was sure he molested children.\n\nAlex hurried through the wall, not believing his luck, just as more thugs piled through his window. It looked like the Reds and the Pinks had decided to work together. Alex guessed it made sense, Red and Pink wasn't that different anyway, and the other gangs were always getting their territories confused. One person in particular glared at Alex with hateful eyes. Alex swallowed as he recognized Chris, Alex's best friend from high school. Chris hadn't taken it well when Alex had jumped ship. Chris clenched a shattered bottle in his fist. He gestured at Alex with it, shouting something as his little posse, meshing with the two upright Blues, headed toward the center of the room.\n\nThe noise from upstairs increased as his upstairs neighbors neared climax, wildly pounding themselves into the bed as their ecstasy built. Alex heard three throaty screams, followed by a sharp crack. Chris glanced upward.\n\nThe ceiling came down on the group, the neighbors screaming with surprise as their bed dropped. The girl was tied to the bed, gagged with a leather strap. Her boyfriend was wearing a ski mask. Weird fucks, Alex thought, even as he ran out through Billis's front door. Billis seemed intrigued by the new arrivals.\n\nAlex had barely made it two steps outside before he was grabbed from behind. Rough hands shoved his head into a bag and he was thrown into a trunk. He should have known, nobody got away from the Blacks.\n\nAfter a short drive, the trunk opened, and Alex was dragged out into an abandoned parking lot. Alex was forced to his knees, and the bag was ripped off his head. A single street light still worked, and it cast a flickering light over the lot. Standing over him was a man, face cast in shadow from a wide-brimmed black hat.\n\n\"So,\" the man said, \"you thought you could fuck with us and live?\"\n\nAlex immediately began to beg. \"Please, don't kill me, I'll do anything you want.\"\n\n\"The Blacks do not forgive the debts of scum. We do not let punk kids get the better of us.\"\n\nTears trickled down Alex's face. \"Please, please, please...\"\n\n\"But perhaps an exception can be made... for family.\"\n\nThe man took off his hat, lighting his face for the first time, and Alex saw what looked like an older version of himself, staring back at him.\n\n\"What... the fuck???\" Alex said in total disbelief.\n\nThe man looked overjoyed. \"I had a lady once. Her name was Alice, and she was great at fucking. I fucked her a lot. She said she was on the pill, but I knew she was lying, trying to get pregnant so I would take care of her. I lost her many years ago.\"\n\nAlex was shaking his head. This is so cliche...\n\n\"My man Gunter said you looked like me when you first came to us. I had him keep one of your needles, and we sent it in to get the DNA checked. Perfect match! The letter just came in this evening, son.\" The man was absolutely beaming. Alex just knelt, dumbstruck. This is so ridiculously stupid.\n\nThe man, Alex's father, pulled him into the passenger seat of his car, telling him all about how he would one day run the largest mob in town. Alex stared out the window, pretending to listen.\n\nWell, at least I'm not dead.\n\nGod works in mysterious ways." ]	2
	[WP] Kids in your culture have been shielded from witnessing or knowing about the existence of romantic relationships while growing up. You have never heard of sex (or any kind of romantic/sexual physical touch). You and another person begin to fall in love for the first time.	[ "The word \"friend\" somehow doesn't seem to be enough. \n\n\"Can somebody be more than a friend?\" I ask my guardian. \"Someone who isn't family, I mean.\" \n\nShe peers at me from the other side of the breakfast table, brows furrowed. \"Well, you can have a best friend.\"\n\n\"That's not what I mean. It's like... every time I see her my heart gets fluttery inside my chest and I get goosebumps and I can't tell whether I want to laugh or cry.\" \n\n\"I think that just means you're really happy.\" She sets her coffee cup down on the table with a dull clunk. \"I wouldn't think too much of it. Now come on, get your things together. You'll be late for school if you don't hurry.\"\n\nI'm not sure what to think. Whenever I ask about this feeling, they all tell me the same thing. But I know what it feels like to be happy, and this is far more than happy. It's joy and fear and worry and something else - something undefinable - all wrapped up in a single sensation. That feeling sits at the back of my mind all day, growing stronger by the minute as the clock ticks down toward the first minute of the last period of the day. \n\nWhen I sit down beside her, I notice she's changed her perfume again. For the last week she's been wearing this flowery, spicy scent, but now that scent is fresh and clean. It cloys to her neck, pooling in the spot where her glossy brown hair spills over her shoulder. I notice this as I lean forward to pick up a paintbrush from the center of the art room table, and it distracts me to the point that I sit there still until she reaches out and her hand brushes against mine. \n\n\"Oh, sorry. Did you want this?\" she asks. \n\n\"I... oh. No. Well, I mean yes, but you can have it if you need it. I mean. Uhm...\"\n\nShe laughs, and I'm more confused than ever because I never realized that the sound of someone's laughter could make you feel as if you'd been punched in the chest. \n\n\"We can share,\" she says, and by the time the last minute ticks off the clock we're speaking as if ninety-seven minutes ago we hadn't been strangers. \n\nA month later, I ask her to come with me to the park. \n\n\"Have you ever had this feeling that someone is special to you but you don't know why?\" She says this as she nibbles on an ice cream cone, stretched out on the sun-drenched grass. Today she smells like lemon and pineapple and other sweet fruits whose names I don't know. \n\n\"I don't know,\" I lie. \"Why?\"\n\n\"Because that's the way I feel about you. I asked my guardian about it.\"\n\n\"Yeah? What'd he say?\"\n\n\"Nothing. He brushed me off. But I got the feeling that maybe he was hiding something from me. Like, he smiled and got this look in his eyes - this practical joker look, you know?\" She bites her cone down to the last inch, then lazily sucks out the melted ice cream from the tip. Something about the way she does it makes my skin heat up even warmer than the springtime haze. \"Anyway, it made me start thinking. You know how Jason Walker and Kristen Kenneway started to spend a lot of time together? And then a few months ago they both moved away? At the same time?\"\n\n\"Yeah. I remember. Boarding school or something, right?\"\n\n\"That's what the teachers said. I don't buy it, though. Remember how they used to look at each other? I didn't think anything of it then, but...\"\n\n\"... but?\"\n\n\"Well. The way you look at me. It reminds me of the way they used to look at each other.\"\n\nNow my face begins to heat up. The fact that she's noticed makes my heart race inside my chest, and I don't know whether it is because I am terrified or delighted. I take a deep, steadying breath and exhale slowly. \n\n\"You know... maybe I do think about you differently. Like you said... it's like... you're somehow special to me. I don't know.\"\n\n\"Maybe it's like a puzzle,\" she says. \"Something you're supposed to figure out with your someone special.\"\n\n\"Could be.\"\n\nWeeks pass and little by little I begin to live for those brief moments that I can spend with her. Together we try to define what it is that makes these moments special, though we soon agree that we are attempting to define something that is wholly undefinable. \n\n\"It's love,\" she says. \n\n\"But I know what love feels like. I love my guardian and I love my friends.\" \n\n\"But maybe this is a different kind of love.\" She kneels on the bed in front of me, palms against my thighs. \"With all those other kinds of love, you see this person standing in front of you and you care about them for everything that they are. They're whole and complete.\"\n\n\"So you think I'm... incomplete?\" \n\nShe laughs. \"No. It's just... when I see you I feel like a piece of you is missing. And that piece of you is me, and there's a piece of me missing, and that's you.\"\n\n\"You don't make any sense,\" I laugh.\n\n\"But... like this,\" she said, and she leans forward. Her chest presses up against mine, and her arms twine so tight around my waist I'm momentarily left breathless. She presses her head into the space between my shoulder and my chin until there is no space between us. \"Is it silly?\"\n\n\"I don't think it's silly,\" I say. When she leaves my room today, her lavender perfume clings to every inch of me and I am aware that somehow she has left a piece of herself behind. \n\nWith time - with fumbling exploration - we learn each others bodies and we learn new sensations. We keep these things between us, a secret puzzle that we alone in the world are attempting to solve. And then comes the night we join ourselves to one another closer than ever before. \n\n\"This is love,\" she says. \n\n\"A special kind of love.\"\n\nAnd I revel in it, consumed by this secret knowledge.\n\nThe next morning when I go down to breakfast, my guardian is seated at the table with an official in a grey suit. He gestures for me to sit down and I drop into my usual seat. \n\n\"Did you have sexual intercourse with Selena Carroll?\"\n\n\"I... don't know what that is.\"\n\nThe official describes the touch and the sensation that passed between the two of us, in cold and clinical detail. I nod. \n\n\"You'll be coming with me, then,\" he says. \n\n\"Wait, what? I don't understand...\"\n\n\"Don't be alarmed, Robbie,\" my guardian says. \"It happens to everyone. It's just a part of growing up. You'll be going to a place where you can start to sort out these feelings. Where you can understand why these feelings are dangerous.\"\n\n\"But... but what about her? She's coming with me, right?\" \n\nBut of course, I know better than that. \n\nSome people never fall in love. They spend their entire lives in blissful ignorance. Others can't help but fall in love again and again. They tell me this kind of love is dangerous, but right now I don't know what to think. I feel incomplete. Perhaps I'll always feel incomplete, like a puzzle that's missing a piece. \n\nThe word \"friend\" was never enough. Is there a word that means even than \"everything\"? Because now I realize that's what she was to me." ]	1
	[WP] Write a trailer for a documentary on humans done by an alien species	[ "Humans and You!\n\nThis award winning documentary covers everything you need to know about the hairless apes of Urf. Their strange bipedal gait, their proclivity for for putting wheels beneath them, and all of their weird and wonderful ways of describing the universe. See that cloud? It's an all knowing deity that will punish you for being happy!\n\nProof that civilization doesn't require intelligence, watch in horror as they build ever more complex machines at the cost of the very planet that sustains them!\n\nYou'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll shake your heads in disbelief at...\n\nHumans and You!\n\nComing this summer!", "And now back to your normal programming...\n\n\n\"WHEN HUMANS ATTACK!!\"\n\n\nWitness: \"I saw a bright light and then it held up some black rectangular object. I couldn't move I was so scared!\"\n\n\nAnnouncer: \"What triggers these beings? What is behind their true nature?\"\n\n\nClip of Man pumping gas in his Suburban\n\n\nWitness: \"We thought it would be a good idea to go camping on a remote planet...we had no idea we were being hunted.\"\n\n\nAnnouncer: \"Unpredictable humanoids that attack at a moments notice...\"\n\n\nWitness:\"It came out of nowhere and just stared at us...starts to sob..I'm sorry..I just can't get those huge wide brown eyes and open mouth out of my head. That night still haunts my dreams.\"\n\n\nAnnouncer: \"More eye witness accounts of WHEN HUMANS ATTACK returns.\"\n\nintense music" ]	2
Inspiration: http://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/2x4wjc/first_human_head_transplant_could_happen_in_two/	[WP] Near future. Rich, fat, vain people have started abducting gym rats/fit people to steal their bodies.	[ "It doesn't work very well, to be honest. \n\nI mean, they can get the van right up next to you, but even then they have to take a minute to get their breath back after opening the doors.\n\nI once had a guy try to launch himself from the side of a van, apparently aiming to land on top of me. It probably would have worked too; you don't just sidestep something that wide, but he missed his footing and just flopped onto the pavement. It's curious; but that moment completely changed my view.\n\nI used to hate them. I used to wonder why it was apparently beyond them to just start jogging, or eat a salad. And now they were going to steal what I had worked so hard for. It wasn't right. It was disgusting. It was worth hating. \n\nBut as I watched him lie there, on a wet, gum-spotted roadside, I didn't hate him.\n\nI pitied him. This person, who was so lazy he would rather do a few hours hard work and ruin the life of an innocent, than sacrifice the fruits of his own greed and apathy, was now floundering like a dying walrus in front of me. A man who would have left me as nothing more than a brain in a jar, wasting at the back of a warehouse, was completely at my mercy.\n\nAnd I just wanted to walk away.\n\nI didn't; I jogged. I was out jogging at the time anyway, and hopeless kidnap attempts had become so routine it didn't even ruin my day any more.", "Jimmy liked to bring a big bag of sunflower seeds with him on these jobs and it pissed off Declan immensely. It wasn’t so much the repetitive crunch of him crushing each seed, or even the little sipping noise that he made as he licked the seed from the shell. No, his annoyance came with every single shell that Jimmy then casually tossed towards the van’s trash bin and 99 time out of a hundred missed. \n\nThey spend days together in the van at times and after 72 hours of seeds being thrown poorly Declan was ready to force feed them to Jimmy. The fact that he didn’t was mainly because Jimmy was one of the few people who Declan could rely on utterly in their line of work. \n\nBody acquisition they called it in their adverts. Of course, they didn’t put their info out very publicly, but if you knew where to look on the dark web and had the money and desire, then you could find them and put in an order. They were always busy, because they were good. \n\nTheir reputation had been earned because of their professionalism. These days anyone could snatch a body, or even dig one up in one of the few cemeteries that still operated, but Jimmy and Declan took pride in their work and that meant time and effort was put in to finding just the right body for you. \n\nThe current client had been difficult due to a unique combination of requests and requirements. The gentleman who had hired them – names were always discouraged – had a particularly pallid skin tone and finding an exact match would be a challenge anyway, but he had been quite clear that the body he desired must be fit for endurance and possess a naturally very large penis. \n\nThese kind of requests weren’t uncommon but most people were prepared to allow a certain degree of mix and matching, but not this gentleman. He travelled internationally and security scanners these days were good enough to detect many body modifications, although not the ones done by the surgeons that they worked with. \n\nStill, this gentleman had been specific and prepared to pay for the work it would take and so they had done the research and after nearly three months found just the right body. Now, in the tiny Swedish town of Lycksele they had the perfect candidate and their employer had finally agreed that he be picked. It was amazing really that they had managed but their researchers had been luck enough to stumble on the Swedish national cross country skiing team photos of a trip to a sauna and in one candid shot there was enough information to allow the choice to be made. Local confirmation had been achieved and now it was time. \n\nJimmy nudged Declan as the door to the gym swung open and their mark stepped out into the snowy street. Even here in the backwaters of this European country people there would be risk involved as people with good bodies all over the world were aware of the trade and took precautions to protect themselves. Declan quickly pulled on his coat and slipped the various electrical prods into pockets before pushing open the van doors and stepping stiffly into the street. \n\nBehind him he heard Jimmy as he loaded the beanbag shotgun and then followed him, heading off around to cut the mark off and then all was silent, just Declan, a snowy street and two hundred metres ahead his target. \n\nHe quickly made up the distance and then hung back ten metres or so. They had watched their mark walk this route a dozen times and there was no hurry. He’s walk up, around the square and through an alley where they would confront him and then load him into the second vehicle they had waiting there. \n\nThe mark moved up and turned the corner and Declan took him time following, better to let him get a little more distance and he slowly wandered round the corner and stopped. The street was empty. Shit. He lifted his cuff to his mouth “Target gone, mission change, hunt and acquire.” \n\nThey’d been made but still had the advantage, the mark may be aware of them but had no idea of their capability and this was not their first hunt. To give up now though was impossible, they could not let him get away and they had a 100% success record to maintain. \n\nThe streets were blessedly quiet, it was early on Sunday morning and few except their mark, who was up for training, would be out and about. Declan slipped down the street and checked each alley in turn, finding nothing. He slipped the prod from his deep pocket and slipped it up his arm and moved on but before he could take another step a great blow to the back of his head threw him forward, into the snowbank at the side of the street. \n\nStanding over him the tall blonde man looked furious. “Who are you?” He demanded in broken English. “Why you follow me?” \n\nDeclan evaluated, he wasn’t badly hurt and the man was angry, confused this would be salvageable. “Sir, I think you have me confused. My name is Tom Koslack, I am a reporter with Snowbeat an American sports show that focusses on winter sports and I was following you as I was going to ask you for an interview, but I got a bit nervous and chickened out.” \n\nThe man’s face was uncertain now, the lie was vaguely plausible and he had just attacked a man. “Snowbeat? I do not know it.” \n\nDeclan smiled. “No sir we’re pretty new and…” The beanbag smacked into the back of the marks head and he was knocked to his knees. The electroprod touched the back of his skull and the man was down in the street and then Jimmy was by his side. \n\n“Fuck, I thought I’d have to makeup a whole backstory there. About time.” \n\nJimmy waved vaguely. “I got here I the end.” Quickly they grabbed him and in under a minute they were back in the original van and driving out of the town. \n\nWithin an hour they were in the air and nine hours later in a small hospital in Switzerland, watching as their client was slowly sedated and wheeled into the theatre. The money had been transferred and soon they would delete any trace of contact with the client and it would be impossible to find a connection. There was another client waiting; there was always another client waiting and another body to find. " ]	2
	[WP] Set in a fantasy world, in a pub, and at midnight.	[ "\"LAST CALL\" yells the bartender at the top of his lungs. There is only one other person in the bar. Sitting in the backmost seat, Lix looks over the empty pint glasses on the table. There are seven of them. This is confirmation enough that it is indeed midnight but he checks his watch for further confirmation. Yup. It's Midnight. He gathers the glasses and carries them to the bar. \"Last Call buddy. Want another pint or are ya gonna let me get closed up early?\" Lix orders a whiskey and returns to his seat. It is his favorite seat. Or was I suppose. In his favorite Pub. A Pub that doesn't actually exist any more. For the moment though, this seat in this pub is serving it's purpose just fine as far as Lix is concerned. As long as he sits still, has a drink in his hand and thinks of nothing other than the pub and the drink, he doesn't have to be out there. Lix doesn't know how he arrived there in the first place but one thing he knows is that he is scared as shit of being there. When he arrived it was an empty space. A void. There was nothing. The first thing he thought of was a rabbit. A rabbit appeared at his feet. It wasn't a fluffy cute rabbit. It was an ugly, matted, vicious looking fucker. Then there were more of them. Hundreds. Thousands. They began spitting, shitting, fucking and multiplying. Lix began to panic. He wanted to escape. He thought of the pub and the Pub door appeared. Around pint 5 he had peeked his head out the door. The rabbits were still out there. He had to come up with a plan, but he hadn't and Now last call has come and went. Lix suddenly stands up knocking his chair over and yells \"Fucking goddamn Rabbits!!!\" He takes his last sip of whiskey, rips a leg off of the wooden table and runs out the door. ", "She came to the pub every night.\n\nIt had all started two fortnights ago. The general's army had just trudged into her village, setting up camp alongside the worn-down homes. At first, she took no notice of them. She had seen it all before - the war, the crying children, the wounded soldiers who wanted glory but only got bloodshed. When a young soldier walked into the door of her small cottage asking for food, she barely looked up as she handed him her provisions. It was only as he was turning away that she caught a glimpse of his eyes - bright green with just a hint of yellow. The exact same color as her own.\n\nCould it be? she thought to herself. She quickly pushed her thoughts away. When she was younger, she had always studied the babies from neighboring villages, comparing their features against her own, wondering. She was older now, and wiser, too. She knew better than to indulge such delusions. That boy was gone, most likely to a farmer's family in the fields to the East, that is, if he hadn't already succumbed to the childhood plague. There was no use in dwelling in broken possibilities.\n\nStill, she couldn't get the green-eyed soldier - no, boy - out of her mind. That night, she followed a group of soldiers, including him, into the neighborhood pub. Quietly, she sat in the back, a meal of rabbit's foot forgotten on her plate, and listened. She learned that they were here for two weeks, that they had lost half their men in battle, that they had left a life of drudgery in the quarry for honor in the battlefield. More that that, though, she learned about the boy. She felt that his hair was exactly like her mother's - thick, dark, and curly. And she swore that his laugh - loud, throaty, jovial - was a copy of his, from long ago. After all, he had been a solider too.\n\nToday was the last night. They were leaving at midnight, presumably to go to the next camp, where they would ready themselves for war. She glanced at her clock. Five minutes to the hour. He was already packing up his bags, clapping his friends on their backs, laughing about their upcoming battle. She had a sudden urge to run to him, to hold him in her arms, to beg him not to leave her, not after she had left him. But she didn't. It took all the self-control in her body to sit motionless as her boy walked out the door of the pub, and out of her life. \n\nShe left ten minutes after, and never visited the pub again. \n\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] Through some sort of accident, a human becomes a God. All other Gods became such in the same manner.	[ "“Gods? I like to think that gods are ideas un-incarnate.” My Grandfather stared at me, as if this short explanation was enough— slowly grinding his teeth— a habit which always made his jaw seem mechanical, like he was the tin man. My Gramps could be gnomic sometimes; it was through no lack of knowledge or patience. “We worship ideas created by men. When men die altogether, so will their ideas, there is no cosmic dissemination of our morals or values.” He adjusted his seating on the slab of slate-rock next to the koi pond we sat next to. The pond was covered in three layers of netting— its inhabitants were annually picked off by cranes or the errant black bear. My gramps, or Papi as his kids called him, had been in WWII and I know he had seen things. I know he saw men die. \n\tI turned nineteen two weeks ago and, visiting him now, was beginning to realize that I might be the only person left interested in the things he had to say, when he had something to say at all. I forgot how we got on the subject, but his posture showed a keen interest which beckoned to a light in his eyes I had never seen in our mostly polite, mostly topical conversations. “If a man believes strongly enough, exemplifies a trait through sheer willpower, it can be deifying. At the very least, the people who knew him in life will remember and, through some unconscious rite, worship the idea he upheld— breathing life into dead matter, forgotten face. I fought with a man, Hallifax, seemed quiet and wore a miserable mug most of the time; but tough as nails. Never once bragged about a confirmed kill….” It was at this moment my eyes shot up and I stopped following the slovenly koi meandering around their tiny habitat. Papi never mentioned the war unless it was about its end: when he finally came home and when he finally got to see my grandma again. \n\t“From time to time I would catch Hallifax looking like he was purposely shooting over the heads of the enemy position, like he was more motivated to put our lives on the line than risk his own in killing others. I never said anything because I didn’t want to be right. One night, a torrential rainstorm flash-flooded our position and jammed our weapons, including our sidearms. The enemy charged, inciting a melee, and before any other man in my company could dry out his pistol chamber, Hallifax took a rifle’s bayonet and killed five enemy soldiers, one after the other. I could hear each man’s chest cavity pop as the heel of Hallifax’s hand pumped forward like a piston and was already finger-wrapped and on its way out before their brains knew their body was dead. I never watched Halllfax during combat again…. After the melee he appeared completely unchanged, diffident even, not saying a word or celebrating a bit. It was as if aristeia had taken hold and the man I looked at was not the same one I had just watched.”\n\tMy fingertips trembled. I gestured at saying something but had nothing. Papi didn’t notice, his gaze was focused on the dumb huddled fish in the furthest corner from us under a rhododendron’s shadow. “What I mean to mean is… I saw a man pretending to shoot and assumed he was a coward. But rather, i’d call it restraint. Maybe out of respect for life or some much more complicated personal matter this man only took life as a last resort— an act you don’t often see treated as ‘last resort’ in war, an act you often see change men you thought you knew— men can begin to relish in killing, or become so inured to it it becomes some mundane companion. Its like these damn fish that your little cousins love so much. When the crane comes by and puts its reptilian feet in the water— at first they cower away, afraid of the new addition to their environment, but eventually one gets so used to the veiny sticks it swims close and gets spear-plucked right out of the everything-it-knows. The fish is gutted right there and its buddies eat the innards that plop into the water off of this slate the bird uses as a place-mat.” \n\t“In my own little way I worship Hallifax every time I think about him. It was like some un-human force found itself stuck in war, and in front of me for a short time. Maybe if I had gotten to know him, if that was even possible, and pinned voice and vocation to flesh I wouldn’t feel the way I do. Maybe, in brief moments, the ineffable traits we ascribe to gods somehow make themselves real…” The air began to darken and storm-heads tided over the open sky, then over the sun. It remained silent and dry. “I like to believe that gods might be a byproduct of our existence, here because and in spite of us. They aren’t some foreign entity or greater power exemplified through a chosen few in history. Gods are a company of men saved by a fellow they barely knew, a guy they called a coward because he he wouldn’t kill…And then he did. The koi pond’s surface radiated semi-circles as droplets began to fall into it — I didn’t look up to see if the first few ripples under Papi came from him or the sky. I didn’t look up because I had the sudden sensation that this was the last time he would talk to me like this. ", "Phil opened his eyes, a field of fluffy white clouds surrounding him.\n\nHe blinked. The last memory he had was darkness, death seeping into his bones like a heavy rain.\n\n“Welcome,” a voice boomed behind him, causing him to jump.\n\nIt belonged to a tall , bulky man in a toga. His olive skin gleamed with a faint golden tint. He smiled, a small upturned line barely visible in a thick white beard.\n\n“Um, where am I?” Phil asked, glancing around.\n\n“This is Olympus,” the man gestured behind him. “And I am Zeus.”\n\n“Zeus?” Phil parroted. “You mean, the Greek god, Zeus?”\n\n“The one and only,” Zeus nodded. “What is your name?”\n\n“Phil.”\n\nZeus scrunched his nose, as if he smelled something foul.\n\n“That is a plain name. But no worries, we can change it later.”\n\n“What do you mean change it?” Phil asked.\n\nHis head was spinning, his vision blurry. A small tinge of euphoria ran over his body but he couldn’t explain why. Maybe he was dead and his heaven looked like Olympus. Or maybe it was his hell.\n\n“Yes,” Zeus nodded. “As a god, you need to have a memorable name.”\n\nPhil’s train of thought came to a screeching halt in a single instant. He didn’t like the sound of that.\n\n“What do you mean ‘as a god’?” Phil asked, squinting.\n\n“Ah yes, I should explain, shouldn’t I?” Zeus clapped his hands together, the sound of thunder ringing shortly after. “You see, us gods weren’t created form nothingness. We were once human, much like you. However, we all died in unusual ways. Instead of going to the afterlife, we all appeared here and learned about our powers.”\n\nPhil said nothing at first. He looked behind him, as if expecting a camera to catch his bewildered reaction. But when he did, he saw nothing. As far as he could tell, he was being told the truth and nothing else.\n\n“All the gods?” Phil asked.\n\n“You would be correct,” Zeus replied.\n\n“You?”\n\n“Stuck by lightning.”\n\n“Hephaestus?”\n\n“Fell into a furnace.”\n\n“Athena?”\n\n“Owls are surprisingly deadlier than you would think. She’s still pissed.”\n\n“Look,” Phil shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense. I don’t want to be a god. Can’t I just decline or something?”\n\nZeus gave him a pitied look, like a parent well-aware of a child’s innocence being ripped away.\n\n“I wish it was that easy,” he said. “We’ve all been there. If I could, I would help you out but there isn’t much I can do but show you the ropes.”\n\n“Fine,” Phil sighed. “Then what do I have to do first?”\n\nZeus ran a hand through his beard, stroking it in thought. His bountiful green eyes seemed to look through Phil. He shuddered at their electric intensity.\n\n“First, let’s talk about what you are the new god of. It’s generally the easiest thing to start with. Do you remember how you died?”\n\n“Um,” Phil searched through the depths of his murky memories for the answer but found nothing. “I don’t know.”\n\n“That’s fine,” Zeus said. “I can probably sort through your mind for your last memories. Of course, I need your consent first.”\n\n“Yeah, sure,” Phil said.\n\nZeus closed his eyes as he placed his hands on the side of Phil’s head, sparks crackling in his ears. He gritted his teeth at the feeling of the god swimming through his head like a parasite. Seconds felt like an eternity while he waited.\n\n“Ah, I think I got it,” Zeus said. “It appears that you died by…”\n\nHe paused, his eyes shooting open and his mouth frozen midsentence. His cheeks flushed red as he pulled his hands away from Phil’s head in a quick jerk. A bolt of pain ran through his body, causing an involuntary flinch.\n\n“What’s wrong?” Phil asked once he regained control over his limbs. “What did you see?”\n\n“Um,” Zeus averted his gaze, as if unable to look at him anymore. His once booming voice was weak and stammering. “I saw how you died.”\n\n“And?”\n\n“How do you feel about being the god of autoerotic asphyxiation?”" ]	2
	[WP] You are marooned on an island. Desperate to be rescued you put a message seeking help into a bottle and late at night as the tide is going out you hurl it into the ocean. You wake up the next morning to find one hundred thousands bottles, each holding there own message washed up on the shore.	[ "Plop. Plop.\n\nThe red drops slowly oozed together until they formed a pool in the rock large enough for Alex to dip his reed into. He winced with each sound; the pain from the open cut had passed an hour ago but the sound was enough to cause him mental anguish. Knowing that each drop took with it a bit of his life and traded it for a chance at survival. As he sketched the \"p\" in the word \"help\" onto his leaf, he noticed the edge of a shadow suddenly fall across his hand. It was the occlusion of a palm frond that waved gently beside him. The sun was setting, and soon the wolves would be out.\n\nWith renewed urgency, he scratched the last of his bloody plea for help on the leaf and rolled it into a cylinder. He gave it a kiss for luck, inhaled the acrid scent of it, felt the prickly texture of it in his palm. The sting of the cut on his hand came back to him now that the work was done, so he stuck his throbbing finger into his mouth for a moment before shoving the rolled leaf into the bottle he'd found and stopping it with the rubber from the deflated raft that had taken him to the island.\n\nHe remembered the engine noise and the rush of the air through his hair as it escaped through the hole cracked open by the explosion. Bits of paper and magazines blew by his head. A lady's scarf wrapped round his neck and his stomach rose to his throat as the plane began its descent. Spiraling and screaming from the plane and the people. Then awake on the raft in the sand of the island, bobbing. Not sure how he got there.\n\nThat night he slept in the hole he'd spent a day digging out. His finger still throbbed but more than the cut he felt the pangs of hunger. There was nothing to eat still. Although there had to be something because he could hear the wolves at night, sometimes close. Sleep finally came when the moon crested over the silhouette of the looming cliffs that surrounded him.\n\nHe woke to a tinging sound, something familiar but terrifying in portent. It sounded dull under the dirt and palms he piled on himself the night before but he was sure it was some glass, probably bobbing among the rocks at the nearby shore. He burst out of cover and followed the sound.\n\nWhat he saw took his breath away. Gleaming with a blinding intensity was not a single piece of glass but dozens, each one a bottle just one he'd set afloat the day before. He stumbled through wet sand, fell to his knees, and brushed the seaweed from the one. In an instant he imagined the scene of his rescue. A helicopter kicks up dust and a man in a black suit rappels down a rope carrying a harness. He reaches for Alex. Alex takes his hand and wonders if anyone on the helicopter has a phone so he can call his wife and talk to his children.\n\nCoca-Cola on the label, and another familiar logo. A red airplane against a blue circle background. The same as the one on his own bottle.\n\nNoticing some paper inside, Alex scratched at a cloth stopper in the mouth of the bottle. After a minute with no progress, he grew desperate and reached for a rock nearby. He raised it over his head like an ape and brought it smashing down on the bottle in the sand.\n\nGingerly he pulled the paper from the remains of the bottle and held it to the light. Between the print in an ad for heart medicine, he found a note scribbled in dark ink. Maybe blood. \"Send help,\" it said. And that was all.\n\nAlex spent the rest of the day, ignorant of his hunger and the pain of his still-throbbing finger, smashing bottle after bottle. But they all held the same thing: a plea for help on a strip of clothing, or in a scrap of magazine. One was written in the margins of a pocket bible. Every one a plea for help, written in ink, etched with a stone, or drawn in blood.\n\nEvery one, just like his own.", "My eyes cracked open. My mouth was dry and I could tell I was very dehydrated. The blurry image my eyes saw slowly came into focus. I heard the slow crashing of the waves and felt the breeze on my cracking face. Hesitantly I stood up, my wobbly legs barely able to support my weight. I looked around and saw vast ocean to my right and dense jungle on my left. \n My mind was slowly starting to work and looking down I discovered I was completely naked. Though there was no one around, I felt dirty and exposed. I wanted to bury myself in the sand. The thought that I was naked made my head spin, I felt panicked, as if something was coming to get me. A completely irrational terror filled up inside of me and I took off sprinting along the coast, casting horrified looks over my shoulder, scanning for some invisible force that nipped at my heals. As I ran I started to wonder how I had gotten here. I had no memory. Not just an absence of knowledge of how I had found my way to this place, but also no recollection of my name. I couldn't think of anything. I was hit with a wave of frustration as my weak legs pumped furiously and my mind ceased to hold any account of my existence. \n Suddenly I was in the air, sprawling. My legs had given way and sand filled my nose, eyes, and mouth as I hit the ground with a thud. I convulsed on the ground as I vainly tried to brush the sand out of my eyes. Spitting, writhing, and cursing, I felt like a wild animal. Tears were streaming from my eyes, but hesitantly I stood up, my wobbly legs barely able to support my weight. I looked around and saw vast ocean to my right and dense jungle on my left. On the ground in front of me was a crystal clear bottle. Beside it was a thin strip of parchment and a quill stuck in a bottle of ink. I bent down and sat cross legged in the sand. My bony fingers grasped the quill and on the parchment I wrote, \nOh vessel, Save Me! \nin the vain hope some passing ship should somehow find this message. I dropped to message into its chamber and drove the cork in tight. Standing at the edge of the ocean the water rushed up to meet my feet. The water stung like fire and, shouting in pain, I dropped the bottle. The current of the ocean swept the bottle away from me and under the water it went. I watched, waiting, surely, for the bottle to bob back to the surface of the water, but it seemed the ocean had swallowed my cry for help and, with it, my hope. \n Then the water turned dark as though a shadow had been cast over it, though up above the sun still beat down upon my corpse. With the blackening of the tide I also felt the waves of fear returning. Away from the water I ran, into the jungle as a rumbling from somewhere below grew louder and louder. Large leaves smacked my face as I hurdled over fallen rotting logs, my footsteps pattering on the damp ground. A wind surged from behind as a ran across the ground which now seemed to become steeper. Uphill I ran, toward what I had no notion. Around me, the air was warming and my skin felt like it was baking. The jungle started to thin and as I reached its horizon I looked up to see a towering black mountain. \n As my eyes met its doom-bearing peak I was thrown to the ground as the earth roared with thunder. The mountain exploded into the sky throwing ash into the air and liquid-earth streaming down its sides toward me. \n Hesitantly I stood up, my wobbly legs barely able to support my weight. I looked around and saw the fire to my right and dense jungle on my left. I turned toward the jungle and flew to escape the molten magma that gracefully rolled down the rocky slope. Back through the leaves, hurdling logs, I heard the fiery ocean welling up behind me. I felt the lava burn my heals. The shock of pain caused me to stumble. In an instant I was knee deep in the volcanic venom. I felt my skin blistering off and could hardly hear my raspy screams over the sizzling of my flesh and grinding of my teeth. Onward I waded, the edge of the jungle coming nearer. I flung my body onto the the sand and drifted into a dark abyss. \n Sand filled my eyes, nose, and mouth. I wretched desperately to breath and see through the thousands of small but painful grains that plagued me. I looked out with tears streaming down my face and could hardly believe what I saw. The sea could hardly be seen, for in it were an innumerable amount of brilliant glass bottles. As I approached, I saw in each one was a small bit of parchment like the one I had sent out. I bent down, uncorked a bottle and shook the tightly rolled message from the vessel. It read, \n\nMy wife is far away, and she is not nearly as pretty as you. \n\nConfused I opened another bottle, it's message read, \n\nI do everything for this family!\n\nIn my heart I felt deep sorrow and regret. What did these mean. The others were similar. \n\nYou're a disgrace of a son. \n\nI didn't realize I had married a cow instead of a woman!\n\nI will beat you to pieces you worthless jackass! \n\nI began to feel sick but, one by one I was compelled to read each message. The sun never moved in the sky as I uncorked every bottle and flinched at every message. After what seemed like years I arrived at the very last message. The bottle's glass seemed to swirl with strange colors I'd never seen before. The edges of the parchment were charred. The writing said, \n\nThe sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. This is the second death. \n\nMy mind snapped and I started giggling gleefully. My fits turned into snarls of laughter as I romped and writhed in the sand. Crazed I picked up the bottle and beat my forehead. Soon blood trickled down my face and the bottle shattered. Bits of glass flew into my eyes. Smiling gleefully I prayed for release as I picked up a shard of glass and plunged it into my neck three times. Blood poured down my body and my mind grasped a moment of clarity before I collapsed onto the sand.\n\nMy eyes cracked open.", "Just a cast away an island lost at sea-o\nAnother lonely day, no one here but me-o\nMore loneliness than any man could bear\nRescue me before I fall into despair-o\n\nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world \nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\n\nA year has passed since I wrote my note\nBut I should have known this right from the start\nOnly hope can keep me together\nLove can mend your life but love can break your heart\n\nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world \nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\nOh message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\n\nWalked out this morning I don't believe what I saw\nA hundred billion bottles washed up on the shore\nSeems I'm not alone in being alone \nA hundred billion castaways looking for a home\n\nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world \nI'll send an S.O.S. to the world\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my\nI hope that someone gets my message in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle yeah\nMessage in a bottle whoa\nMessage in a bottle yeah\n", "I used to be a family man. I would spend all day at work, and they called me a family man. But, whenever I look back to that old life, it never held a candle to the sunset that was in front of me. I was greeted at the end of my day by exhausted busy faces, kids I didn't know anymore, and a wife as tired as I was. But today I have reawakened. Today I'm alone. More alone than I had planned to be by the end of today anyways. The papers were finally all signed, my wife had decided she didn't want to be tied to something that reminded her of her current situation. She had them all ready by the last night of our vacation, and I wasn't ready to sign away our kids' innocence because we couldn't stand each other. I had worked so so hard. So hard. But none of it mattered now, I'm the only one who was thrown from the plane before hitting the water. The only one who saw what happened when the engines whined a final high note before the wave swallowed the plane. It must have rushed through the whole cabin, crushing and swirling, and drowning. And now it's just me, the vodka, and my wallet. The vodka gave in first, and with a dollar and a pen I said my final goodbyes to my old life. \"I am free now, farewell.\" And with that, I had something to fill my bottle before tossing it into the waves ahead of me. \n\nI couldn't remember everything, but I didn't feel so heavy anymore. Just sun-burnt. I walked along the shore for awhile, admiring the island I would be living on. The peace distracted me from what was right at my feet, a vodka bottle. But there wasn't a soggy dollar bill inside, instead there was a now-dry notebook sheet. I had just enough time to see the words \"I miss-\" before I realized what I had wandered into. It wasn't just one bottle, but hundreds of memories and regrets. People lamenting their luck, and cursing their gods. I looked around at these pitiful lives as I kept walking along the shore. You weren't like them, you were free.", "I woke up to a severe sunburn on my face. It was difficult to move my face without experiencing agonizing pain. My teeth were very groggy and I was parched. I sat up, wondered if I could somehow boil the salt out of the ocean water, and then took a glance at the ocean subconsciously. \n\nWait a minute -- I looked back at the ocean. Thousands of glass bottles littered the surrounding ocean. Amazed, I stood up. As I walked down to the ocean, my vision became clearer and clearer. What was a beautiful deep blue color just yesterday is now an ugly white tainted with a little bit of yellow. I then realized that there was something in the bottles.\n\nI approached one of the few bottles that made it to land. I picked it up and the heat of the bottle scolded my hand. How long had it been sitting there? Glass doesn't heat up that fast, does it? Carefully this time, I picked up the bottle by its cork and rinsed it off in the cool ocean water. I unplugged the cork and pulled out a piece of paper. \n\nThe paper had been rolled up and tinged with a light yellow. As I unrolled the paper, I expected there to be a long, well written message inside. Instead, all I read was \"God help us\"\n\nI picked up another bottle and unpackaged its contents. This time, the message was written in another language. The paper inside read \"Auttaa.\"\n\nI didn't recognize the language, but what came to mind was Greek. It sounded like a Greek word to me, but like I said, I didn't recognize the word at all, so I was probably wrong.\n\nI went through many bottles with short messages from all languages. Based on the English messages, the other languages were probably just as cryptic. What the hell was going on here? \n\nI almost stopped to get water to treat my severe cotton mouth, but then I read a very long message that described some frightening things:\n\n\"If you're reading this, you're one of the lucky few that were dislocated to an island before the flooding event. Or, you're one of the scumbag scientists still residing in the Americas. If the latter describes you, just shred this paper now and get back to your coffee and donuts. \n\nNow, you're probably wondering why so many bottles have surrounded your island. Well, I can explain that. Some sort of mass cataclysmic event occurred due to some stupid tests being run on an atomic collider in the Americas. Now, we don't know for sure what happened after that, but we know that it caused all this bullshit. My guess is that the matter was so condensed inside the collider that was somehow able to gather an infinite amount of energy which then opened up extra-dimensional portals, and our world was swapped with multiple other worlds. The explanation is more math based than that, but that is the shortened version.\n\nThe Atlantic ocean is now littered with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of islands. Europe's west end was ripped off -- France, Spain, Portugal, and Great Britain no longer exist. There're just more islands. I've also heard talk of some kind of endless abyss where the Strait of Gibraltar was. Whether that's true or not, you get the gist of what happened. Shit went down, and now everything's fucked up. Harz, which is located smack in the middle of Germany and also where I happen to be located, is now a port city ruled by some twisted marriage of the Stalin and Hitler regimes. People have it bad here. Food rations are distributed once a week, and water rations distributed at the bare minimum - 3 days apart. Citizens that try to escape are met with severe punishment and are often killed. We're too weak to fight back. \n\nOh, right. The bottles. Essentially, a lucky bunch was selected to be translocated to these islands. Every island is covered by a different kind of hell. They want to get off of their island, but little do they know that nine times out of ten, their hell is better than ours. We're being starved and then fed the bare minimum just to keep us alive. It's pure torture. Anyway, the people on the islands -- they're sending out as many bottles as they can because they think they're the only ones stranded. We get maybe 40000 bottles washed up on our shore every day, most of them containing useless messages. \n\nIt's my job to clean them up.\n\nYou know, I've read some of them. Some describe pity struggles, others describe a hell that I wouldn't want to experience in a million years. But, there are occasionally a couple that describe themselves being stuck on a regular old island. They're the real lucky ones. They'd have to have been on an island before the big event to be free of a dystopian government or a hellish torture every day, and I wish that I\"\n\nThe note stopped there with plenty of room left on the paper. I worry for that person. Moreso than them, though, I worry about all those other people on the islands. What could be happening to them? I decide to open up one last bottle. \n\nI was terrified. Inside was the message that I sent out just last night. This could simply mean that all of the other bottles pushed my bottle back... or it could also mean that all of the islands described in the German man's note were just one island --\n\nAnd it's all just a spatial anomaly.\n\nOr, it could also mean that we're all on the same island together, but experiencing different things. Either way, I'm starting work on a raft as soon as I can and I hope to be out by next month. ", "I was out fishing when I first noticed the bottle, bobbing quietly in the lagoon. I was so excited that I just dropped my fishing gear in the bay and ran through the shallow waters, splashing like a madman and cackling with giddy glee. I skidded to a halt in the sand and fished it out from under some low-hanging branches along the shore. \n\nMy hands were shaking as I tried to wrench the cork out of the top. It wasn't the rescue I'd been hoping for, but maybe it would have something useful. Hell, any communication with the outside world would be nice! Finally I got it open with a satisfying \"POP.\"\n\n> Thank you for registering for FaceBottle. Please complete your profile and throw the bottle back into the ocean!\n\n> Name\n\n> Date of Birth\n\n> Where are you from?\n\n> Where did you go to school?\n\n> What is your job?\n\n> How did you arrive on your island?\n\n> What three books did you bring with you?\n\nI rubbed my eyes and looked again.\n\nThat's it, I thought. The island has finally driven me mad.\n\n----\n\nThere were seven bottles in the lagoon when I woke up. Each one floated up against the shore like a dog pawing at the back door wanting to be let in. The waves would push them up onto the sand and then retreat, and the bottles would roll back down the slope into the water. \n\nI grabbed the first one and pulled the top off, then carefully slid the note out.\n\n> IslandBob has posted a new picture!\n\n> > @SouthPacific:\n\nBelow that, a scratched drawing of a crude stick figure holding what appeared to be a coconut. \n\nI tossed the note and bottle aside, clinking against the rocks on the shore. The second bottle was pretty much the same:\n\n> IslandBob likes American Airlines\n\n> > \"The crashing part sucked, but the flight was fine before that, and I couldn't be more satisfied with my flotation device!\"\n\nI threw that one aside too and reached for the next bottle in the lagoon.\n\n> IslandBob has updated his status!\n\n> > \"Man, I am getting such a great tan out here!\"\n\nBelow that message, another stick figure, this time drawn in charcoal instead of whatever weird ink he had been using before.\n\nI opened the other bottles. All inane crap from IslandBob. I was really starting to hate this guy. At least the bottles were useful. \n\nI wrote a note back, asking for more information. Where was he? Any way that we could find each other and maybe work together? Any possible chance at rescue? I tossed the bottles into the wave and sat by the shore, awaiting his answer.\n\n----\n\n37 bottles today. IslandBob was posting about the strange dream he had last night! IslandBob is posting yet another fucking picture of a coconut! IslandBob is now the mayor of Desolate Island In The South Pacific! IslandBob has updated his status about how he is dehyrdrated. \n\nIf I ever meet this fucking IslandBob, I am going to shove these fucking bottles up his ass.\n\n----\n\n98 bottles today. I don't even open most of them; just a few when I'm bored. Most of the ones from yesterday are still bobbing around the lagoon too, just waiting for me to read them. I hide in my house made of glass bottles.\n\n----\n\nBanner day for IslandBob. The lagoon is now so full that the bottles are spilling out into the bay. Where the fuck is he getting so many damn bottles?\n\nLEAVE ME ALONE, I scratched onto a piece of paper. I hurled it into the sea and cursed IslandBob for the thousandth time before going to sleep.\n\n---\n\nA different bottle appeared today. Not a wine bottle like the others. Small and delicate, with thin clear glass. It was pure chance that I saw this one and noticed it, because it would have gotten lost in the lagoon, which now looked like a college sorority's recycling bin. \n\nI fished it out of the sea and opened it.\n\n\"To cancel your FaceBottle account, simply call our toll free number: 1-800-475-2632!\"", "\"I am not a fool. I know that this is futile.\n\nI know that this bottle may never be found; I know the message may not be read for years, if at all.\n\nBut please, please, find me. Rescue me. I have enough food and water here to hold out forever, but I do not know how long I can endure the uncertainty, the terror of injury, the incredible, unbearable loneliness.\n\nPlease help me.\" \n\nI placed the bottle in the water and walked back up the silent beach, pulled the door to my hut closed, and went to sleep. \n\nI awoke to an unfamiliar susurration: it was innumerable bottles rustling against one another in the tide.\n\nIt was surreal, and I wandered to the shore, entranced. I opened the first bottle, and read the message inside of it.\n\n\"You have food? Please, please, I'm hungry. Help me.\"\n\nI read the next one. \"You have water? I'm dying of thirst. If you have strength, find me. I'm dying of thirst.\"\n\nI read another, and another. They were the same; they were cries for help.\n\nI sat on the beach, and stared out at a sea of bottles.", "Sunlight glinted off the mounds of bottles which stretched as far as the eye could see along the beach. I automatically raised a hand to shade my eyes from the kaleidoscopic glare as my mind whirled. Where could they all have come from? Was this some kind of mirage? I took a few hesitant steps out onto the sand, half-hoping for the moment when it would all be revealed as a trick of the light, but the bottles remained. \n\nThe nearest was just a couple yards away, lying near the tideline where a huge wave must have tossed it. I reached down and picked it up, uncorked it. The paper inside was yellowed and brittle, but perfectly dry. On it was written a single word in bold, black lines: Help.\n\nI shivered. What kind of message was that? No name, no information, just the word itself. I replaced the paper and recorked the bottle, then moved on to the next. The sheet of paper inside it was nearly identical to the last one, and when I unrolled it, I found it had been written in the same hand. \"You're the only one who can help me,\" it read.\n\nA chill ran down my spine. Without thinking, I cast a glance behind me at the thick jungle covering the island. Other than the trees moving in the wind, everything was still and quiet. There was no way- there was just no way two messages, by the same castaway, could have washed up on the same far-off shore on the same day. And then... what about the rest of them?\n\nI dropped the paper and bottle and rushed to the next one. Yanking it open, the same paper fell out, the same black and heavy handwriting inscribed upon it: \"Nobody's ever going to read your messages, you know.\"\n\nThe bottle fell from nerveless fingers, the paper fluttering down slowly to join it. The hairs on my neck prickled like wire. I turned back to face the jungle, and again there was nothing there but the wind in the trees. Keeping my back to the sea, I crouched and scurried backwards through the sand until my fingers brushed another bottle. The message inside read, \"You're trapped here with me, and that's the way it is.\"\n\nMy vision swam. This couldn't be real. This can't be happening. My yacht was swept up in a storm and I went overboard, but it's okay, they're looking for me, they're going to find me! Maybe I'm delirious. Sunstroke, dehydration. I spared a quick glance at the bottles- no, still there. My eyes returned to the jungle, flitting here and there, wide and wary. My tongue swept over my cracked lips, feeling their roughness. This couldn't be a dream. It was too real to be a dream. \n\nI walked backwards. I opened another bottle.\n\nAs the sun rose higher, beating down upon my already burnt skin, I worked my way along the beach. I opened bottles, here and there. Most of them I left. Some of the messages were plaintive, simple. Others dug deep into me: \"If you hadn't loved the yacht more than anyone else...\" \"If anyone cared enough to look for you, they'd have found you by now.\" I always kept my face towards the jungle, but I knew that someone could be waiting, watching, and I would never know.\n\nThe sun was setting as I rounded a curve in the beach, holding a few scraps of paper in my hand. Not all of the messages had hurt. I looked down the next stretch of sand, and found that it was there that the bottles ran out. There were a few more lying just ahead of me, but after that there was just sand. Sand... and two pieces of furniture. A worn, wooden chair and an old rolltop writing desk, both of them scarred and weatherbeaten. They faced out to sea, towards the red disk of the sun hovering above the horizon.\n\nWhen I reached them, I spent a moment running my hand over the desk, feeling the raw grain of the wood where the veneer had flaked away. The sensation stirred up something deep in my mind, and I closed my eyes for a second, remembering.\n\nMy eyes snapped open. I spun back towards the jungle. There was nobody there.\n\nI sighed. What, in the end, was I so afraid of? There was nothing anyone could do to me that the sun and the sea wouldn't take care of soon enough. I unclenched my hand, and glanced down at one of the papers there, taking solace in its words. I took a deep breath, turned my back on the jungle, and sat down.\n\nThe sunset was beautiful- reds, purples and pinks playing over the bottom surfaces of the few clouds on the horizon. The sun shimmered, ruddy and soft. Its bottom edge had just touched the horizon.\n\nI opened the rolltop desk, and as I had known it would, it contained only a sheaf of blank, yellowed papers, a thick charcoal pencil, and a few old bottles, clear and smooth and empty. I slid the first sheet over to me, and took a moment to think. What message could I send? What was there that I hadn't already read in one or ten or thirty bottles already? When the answer hit me, I smiled. It was obvious, really. I took up the pencil and in a bold, straight hand, wrote, \"Help\". I rolled it up, put it in a bottle, corked it, and tossed it as far as I could into the ocean, landing with a satisfying splash. I rolled the top down on the desk and, as the last glimpse of the sun faded over the horizon, I lay down in the sand to go to sleep.", "I woke up in a haze my lips were chapped. I had had been on this island for 2 days. The first day I had spent looking for help. The second day had been spent building a shelter. Today would be me trying to gather more resources like fresh water and food. Last night in desperation I had taken one of the large tree leaves and used charcoal from my fire to write a short help me message. I had used one of my bottles from the emergency kit I managed to swim to shore with and threw it in the ocean. I regretted it now, I could have used that bottle for something more productive I'm sure.\n\nI got up out of the shelter and checked out the fire, it still was smoldering so I threw some wood on it and got it going again, then once it was at a large flame I threw a couple of green leaves on it to get some smoke going. \"Signal fires, messages in bottles I'm screwed\" I said to myself with a sad smile. I stretched out and took a short walk down to the beach to see if I could see any ships. Mine was long gone. caught on some rocks about half a mile out. I'm not a strong swimmer but I guess the thought of dying will motivate you. The plan was to spend some time on the beach waiting for help and figuring out how to get some more water. The two bottles I had were gone and I was going to be in trouble if i didn't get the remaining one filled with something fresh soon.\n\nAs I made my way down to the beachfront I was confronted with the strangest thing. There were about 10 bottles sitting on the beach and a couple more out in the water. I ran down, hoping for I guess human contact. I'm a pretty social person and even though I was sailing alone on a short trip I do prefer company. The last couple days had been lonely no contact with my family or friends. I got down to the shore and gathered up all the bottles they looked to be notes inside but I wanted to get them up to my camp before I read them. I was overly worried I would lose them for what ever reason. I collected as much as I could carry and ran them back to my camp I would have to make two trips. Once I got back to the beach though the number of bottles seemed to have doubled. There were about 12 more bottles in addition to the remaining ones. I gathered them up and took them back. I got my emergency blanket from the shelter and gathered up the rest, there were more of them. I gathered more and went down and the whole beach was blanketed in bottles. \n\nI was dumbfounded, I pinched myself a few times so I knew I wasn't dreaming. Things like this didn't just happen. If it was a current bringing things in there would be garbage along with them. After a short while of staring, I decided it was silly to grab them all and grabbed what I needed and went back to camp. Maybe it would make some more sense if I read a few of the messages. The first one was a nice glass bottle it was sealed with a bit of bees wax, what a great idea. I had seen some bees floating around the island on my first day I wish I had thought of it. It took some work to pull the stopper out of the bottle but it finally came. The message was written on a leaf just like mine but it read.\n\nDear Mark,\n\nI know you are reading this because I was reading this on my first day. Welcome to hell. I'm not sure if I'm being figurative or not but there is no way off this island. For some reason all of my messages come back to me, before I write them. Crazy I know, the strange thing is, is that I've never found the first message in all my years. Anyways down to the nitty gritty, you are fucked. There is supplies I found or one of us found I think. They were located on the far side about half a mile west of the dead bird. You will find the bird sometime today don't worry. it'll just happen. There some canned food and as much water as you will need in these fucking bottles. No booze though, you're on your own on that one. Sorry bud. As always I hope this is my last message that I write but I have no idea. Most of these notes came back the first week. Open them they will be helpful as much as you are going to hate it or refute it. I know you are about done so, good luck\n\nI threw the note into the fire and walked away in a huff, I yelled at the sky and the surrounding bush. I yelled so hard my throat hurt. Someone was playing a sick joke on me, but on my way back to camp I found the birld. It looked like it had fallen out of the sky. While wings spread at weird angles head in the ground. I stared at it until I realized how strange I must look. I went back to camp and sat there for awhile. Debating. Do I go or not. I sat a bit longer. I wasn't sure if there were any other animals out here besides fish and birds that might take the bird. I did need water and I needed to know if that note was true. So I grabbed blanket to use as a sack and headed out. I found the bird checked the sun to make sure I knew where west was and was off.\n\nI found the pile of bottles, exactly the same as the ones that had come onto shore. There was so many of them. A few had cracked and let out their water but that was it. thousands of water bottles and some food. There were a few other crates there as well. I loaded up my blanket sack and checked the other crates. It looked like they had, had something inside but were empty. I kicked the box they were too big to use to carry supplies. I was close to the beach so I walked down. Another bunch of notes haunting me. I grabbed one and opened it.\n\nMark!\n\nI see you found the bird... and the supplies, yes these bottles are all over the island. No I don't know why if I find out I'll send you a note... sorry but that's the only way I can let you know. Talk soon\n\nI opened another bottle it was the same message. I opened another one, and another one. I screamed \"I WILL NOT BE DOOMED TO SPEND MY LIFE ON THIS FUCKING ROCK IN SOME NIGHTMARE\" The bottles were tormenting me. I ran up the beach to the bottles. I grabbed the first one smashed it's contents out on a few more. I grabbed the first ragged piece I could find and dug it in as deep as I could into my wrist. I tried to do the same to the other but my hand didn't work I had cut the tendon. Blood pooled out and I triend to think of somewhere else to dig it in. The sky got cloudy, my thoughts got cloudy. I blinked.\n\nI woke up in a haze my lips were chapped." ]	9
	[WP] A telemarketer calls and offers you something oddly specific to your current situation.	[ "\"Move your leg\"\n\"No, not there, further back\"\n\"Fuck, stop, stop, STOP! Your pulling out my hair\"\n\nAfter well over a year without so much as heavy petting I had finally gotten a girl into bed, Sarah, and she was divine. Bright red hair and the most kissable face. I could barely believe it when she asked me to walk her home. All I wanted was to melt Sarah's face with mind blowing sex.\n\n\"Ah, Shi-\" Crash \"What the fuck was that, wait let me see what that was.\"\n\nWell, honestly she stayed in bed longer than expected, it was more like trying to bed a pissed off Manta Ray than a girl.\n\n\"Oh no I bought that lamp in Pari-\"\n\nMy phone goes off on the nearby bed stand.\n\n\"I like big butts and I cannot lie,...\"\n\nWhat the fuck, that is not my ringtone. I dive to answer it before the song can continue, accidentally over-leaning and falling off the bed just as I answer the call.\n\n\"Ough, sorry I ca-\"\n\n\"Hello sir or madame, my database here tells me that you could use some help of the sexual nature.\"\n\n\"Sorry I can't talk right.... wait what did say?\"\n\n\"It clearly indicates here on my screen that you are having problems in the bedroom. If you would stay on the line for just five minutes I would be happy to help.\"\n\nI could her Sarah scrapping up the remains of her lamp, and decided what's the worst that can happen?\n\n\"Actually yea, what can I do to make this chick happy?\"\n\n\"The question is not what can you do, but what you are willing to pay.\"\n\nPeeking back over the bed Sarah is leaning over giving me an excellent view of her perfect ass.\n\n\"I don't care, whatever, if you tell me how to please this girl I will personally drive the entire contents of my back account to your office.\"\n\n\"Oh I'm not interested in your money Steven, I'm interested in your soul.\"\n\n\"... So what is this one of those deal with the devil kind of things?\"\n\n\"Indeed it is Steven, in exchange for 25% ownership of your soul I will give you sexual mastery beyond all measure\"\n\nTaking a last look across the room Sarah is walking back from the trash, with every one of her lovely curves on display.\n\n\"Fuck it, you have a deal\"\n", "The elevator doors parted with a chime, unveiling the flickering fluorescent lights of a lackluster corridor leading to Robert's very humble abode. Robert stood inside for a moment, biding his time before making the short journey back to his single-bedroom apartment. He hunched forward with a heavy sigh and stepped out, slowly inching closer to a night of beer nuts and crime shows. \n\nArriving home, he dropped his briefcase by the door and tossed his keys indiscriminately towards the direction of the entry table. Plopping himself on the sofa, he leaned his head back to rest, only to become cognizant of the nauseating trace of cigarette smoke that had permeated its way through the ventilation from the adjacent apartment suite.\n\nHe'd force himself to bear it. He shut his eyes and attempted to rest, but the violent ring of his home phone quickly protested this behaviour. He'd let it ring. He didn't feel like talking to anyone right now, anyway.\n\nThe caller, whoever it was, didn't appear to be letting up. \"Perhaps it's important,\" he thought to himself. \"If it is, they'd call back.\"\n\nAlthough, to call back, they'd have to hang up first.\n\nThe prolonged ringing lead his mind to wander as to the nature of the call. Maybe it was Rebecca, he thought. Perhaps she had finally come to her senses and wanted to talk.\n\nInquisitively, he leaned over to read the caller ID.\n\nUnknown number\n\nHe settled back into his previous seating arrangement and shut his eyes once more. Like the cigarette smell, he'd force himself to bear it, although the tenacity of this caller was severely testing his patience.\n\nA final ring ended the standoff, and Robert let out a triumphant breath before nestling deeper into the cushions of his sofa. His newly regained comfort was fleeting, though, as the phone jolted him up once more. Leaning over to read \"unknown number\" on the display, he furiously lifted the receiver and in an agitated tone, he answered:\n\n\"Hello?!\"\n\n\"Hello, Mr. Ferrence, I'm calling from Sensitech. Are you happy with your current internet service provider?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Your internet service provider. Are you happy with them? How about your insurance provider?\"\n\nSlowly, Robert was realizing that the prior battle that had been waged between caller and callee was over a telemarketing scheme. He wished to disconnect without muttering another word and without any further provocation or explanation, but instead, he prompted himself to scour his mind for polite alternatives.\n\n\"I'm sorry, I have another call waiting. I can't talk right now\" was what the fabricated excuse he ultimately settled on.\n\n\"Oh, no problem. It's Rebecca. I'll wait.\"\n\nRobert stood there befuddled for a moment. A dull tone on the line broke the silence to signal to him that someone else was indeed calling him. He switched lines.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\n\"Hi Robert, it's Rebecca.\"\n\n\"Um, Hi,\" he responded. He could feel that he was perplexed at that moment, yet strangely, he was not quite certain as to which aspect of the situation was the variable that was responsible for this perplexed state.\n\n\"I think we need to talk about things. I'd like to meet up with you in person. Are you available tomorrow at noon?\"\n\n\"Um-- sorry, what?\"\n\n\"Can we get together tomorrow at 12? At the coffee shop?\"\n\n\"Uh, yeah. Yeah, tomorrow's good.\"\n\n\"Okay, good. See you then. Bye.\"\n\nRobert stood there for a moment, realizing that the implications of this conversation could be good. He smiled briefly before recalling that the telemarketer was on the other line--the telemarketer who had moments earlier foretold of the call from Rebecca.\n\nRobert changed lines again.\n\n\"Hello Mr. Ferrence\" came the voice from the other end. \"I trust that was good news?\"\n\nRobert struggled to find the words to respond. \"How did you--\"\n\n\"Oh, never mind about that, right now. Are you happy with your current relationship provider? If not, we can offer certain upgrades to your existing provider. We've taken the liberty of forwarding you a temporary trial offer. If you find that you are satisfied with the results, we can talk about our new membership packages and plans.\"\n\nRobert struggled to comprehend what had just happened and the words that he was hearing. He responded. \"I'm sorry, what--\" but was promptly interrupted again.\n\n\"Don't worry about any of that now, Mr. Ferrence. We'll be in touch with you shortly. Enjoy your trial and have a good night.\" " ]	2
What do you discover? How?	[WP] Sleeping is an abnormal behavior. You are the first to break the cycle.	[ "“Day, night, the sun nor the moon hold meaning or relevance in our society.” Daniel began, “Each day is exactly the same, if you could even consider them days anymore, without a sunrise or sunset there's no way to tell the difference.” He chuckles quietly to himself as he runs a nervous hand across his face and neck, scrubbing at the tension and anxiety bubbling just below his skin. His dark eyes accentuated by heavy purple bags tugging away at his lower eyelid. “We don't sleep. Not once. Have any of you noticed how strange that is? We're practically walking zombies! We go through the motions over and over without giving them a second thought. What? Because they told us to? Because “sleep is bad for you?” or “if you see someone sleeping, remind them that they're contributing to the failure of our race?” How does any of that make sense?” he questioned the camera and the audience he hoped that the video would somehow reach.\n\n“Sleep, relaxation, vacations, holidays. They're all just empty words, tales told by our great grandparents that grow more and more distorted with each telling. We brush them off, ignore the veracity of their words, the nuggets of wisdom hidden in their folk tales. Every year we lose a little more of the way things used to be in order to make room for greater productivity and the continued advancement of our race. Do you know what time it is?” Daniel asked, sweeping his long hair backward as he smiled at the viewers. “I'll bet that you don't. Some of you haven't seen a clock. Just like I've never seen the sun or the moon. Then there may be some of you who have never even heard of the sun, the moon, or clocks. From the moment we're born, we're placed on a predetermined path in our hand-crafted and fine-tuned utopia. What we eat, drink, do and even learn is selected by a panel to ensure maximum yield for their expended resources. They take the information gathered over our short life times and use it to improve on the process for the next “subject.””\n\nDaniel stood from his chair and walked off screen as he audibly rummaged for an item that he had misplaced. Occasionally, his lithe frame would slip into view as he pulled and stooped to search. Strange lights bathed the bare room in a warm, comforting yellow glow that illuminated what little was in it. All the camera could see was an untidy bed, a plain door and part of three off-white walls. After a couple minutes, Daniel returned into view as the camera adjusted to his blindingly bright, standard issue white suit while he apologized for the wait. In his hand was a collection of books, files and papers that he had hidden from view a little too well. As he sat back down, he mumbled through the words he had previously said to find his place again.\n\n“Yeah, okay. So, why do we allow this to happen to ourselves? Well, that's simple. We're ingrained with a heavy sense of obligation and duty from the start. We're taught that it's our obligation to give ourselves freely and willingly to the betterment of our kind, to decrease the suffering of the next generation, to make the world a better place than it was when we came into it. We also have a duty to our fellow man because if we don't do as much as we can, they will have to pick up the slack. It's that guilt and shame that they hold over our heads and bludgeon us with.” Daniel continued, smartly rapping his fingers upon the hardcover books on the table. ““Well, Daniel, that's all fine and dandy, but what does that have to do with our sleep?” I imagine you're thinking right now. I'll tell you. It goes back to the way we're raised. The way we're born. We're selectively bred based on our need to sleep. They have effectively culled those that have an increased need to sleep in favor of those who function best on very little sleep. From there, we're bathed in a constant light all day, every day until the moment we cease being. They do that to keep us awake, to try and trick the mind into thinking that it's still daytime and there's no need for sleep yet. This keeps going on and on as we work relentlessly to our deaths.”\n\nDaniel opened a poster within the stack at his side, it was a [colorful orange, yellow and blue placard](http://sleepfoundation.org/sites/default/files/SleepTimeRecommendations012615%5B1%5D-page-001_0.jpg) that the camera fuzzily viewed until the focus adjusted once more. On its surface was a chart breaking down the population into age groups and suggesting their optimal sleep times by the hour. Daniel turned the document back to himself to read its contents and followed the chart with his finger to find his own age group and the optimal sleep time for himself. He turned the poster back towards the camera with his finger pointed at the age group he was in.\n\n“See that bar there? According to the...” Daniel began before turning the poster back to himself, “National Sleep Foundation, I should be getting seven to nine hours a day. Not every month, not every year, not once a lifetime. Every. Single. Day. Do you want to know how many hours I've slept in the past twenty-six years? Zero. Just like you and everyone else watching this video. It wasn't until I went over all of these books, the posters and files that I realized just how different things are from the way they should be. There are things that I learned about my own body and even the history of our people that I would have never known otherwise. All because it isn't “relevant” to my position or “conducive to the advancement of society.””\n\n“Our brains don't necessarily need the sleep given that they can be just as active in sleep as they are while awake. It's our bodies and our health that suffers. According to this paper...” Daniel said as he held the paper up to the screen just long enough for the camera to go out of focus before stabilizing on his face reading from the page. “Our bodies make use of sleep to build bone and muscle, while regenerating tissue. Without the chance for sleep, we weaken ourselves and become more vulnerable to the harsh lives we live and sicknesses that spread between us. Our bodies fail over time due to lack of sleep or rest.”\n\n“Have you ever noticed that there are fewer and fewer older people among us? The longest we live is our late thirties at best nowadays. I once read about people who lived to be near a century and a half old. Yet, we live hardly a fifth of that span now, there's so many things that we don't accomplish, we can't accomplish in that time. Things we'll never learn or experience for ourselves. Not because we're physically or mentally unable to, but simply because we'll never know what's out there.” Daniel said as tears welled in his eyes, thinking about all the children who would one day consider him to be elderly if things didn't change. “All we know is what's around us. These four white walls connected by more white walls in a white building along a pale street below the crisp blue ceiling and large bulb above. We don't know the sounds of trees, the way that grass smells, how deep the oceans were, or what it took to climb mountains. Instead we remain in this dull, manufactured city, working ourselves to death for a better day that will never come. I want you to know and think about these things my friends. If you ever see this video, know that I wish the best for you and hope that one day you'll not just know, but have experienced these things for yourself.”\n\nDaniel looked at the blinking indicator on the small screen, noticing that the power on the camera had almost run out. He also took note of the time that he had been recording his message, plugging the device directly into the computer to upload. Daniel pulled a small pill from his pocket and grabbed a bottle of water nearby. As he turned over this tiny purple pill, he looked at the camera and then back at his palm before speaking once more.\n\n“A few weeks ago, I finally managed to sleep before someone found me and alerted the authorities. They should be here as soon as this finishes uploading, I hope that by then it will be too late. I imagine that you're gripping the screen right now, saying, “Daniel! Tell us what it was like! What did you see? What did you do?”” He added with a calm, quiet smile and a gentle laugh as he looked lovingly at the screen. “It was magical. I did all the things I ever dreamed of doing, I lived lives that weren't mine and when I grew tired of them, I simply slipped into another world and continued the adventure from there. I slept for days and if I had not been found, it is likely that I would have slept even longer if not permanently. The things I saw, the things I did, the things I dreamed. My friends, I simply cannot do it justice with my own words. I regret that we will never know one another beyond your screen and that by the time you see this, I will be no more.” Daniel choked, failing to hold back tears of joy and of sadness as he was inundated by a wave of emotions that he were years in the making. As the dam broke, he was reduced to a sobbing mess as he fought to collect himself and make use of what time he had left.\n\n“I was privileged enough to read and learn many things in my final months and I regret none of it despite knowing how these things will end. This little pill, I've been told, will help me sleep.” Daniel said, holding the pill to the camera as tears ran down his cheeks. “I have but a few hours left so I want to spend them doing what I love. Sleeping and dreaming. Before I go, I want to leave you with this quote from a book I once read by a man named Charles Dickens called A Tale of Two Cities, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”” The video ends as Daniel takes the pill, following it with some water and cutting the recording to upload it. He soon fell into a deep, peaceful sleep from which he never woke or spent another moment of his life in pain or suffering.\n\n-059", "People told me all my life that you needed sleep. That without it you would start to go crazy, lose it, be unable to function. They were wrong.\n\nAll my life I've \"suffered\" from insomnia. I tried everything to get myself to sleep: reading a book, drinking some hot milk, sleeping pills. But I could never force my eyes to stay closed for more than an hour or two. I realize now that I my body was simply fighting against the unnatural. It knew that I didn't need to sleep. \n\nThey all lied to me. The doctors with their fancy pills, my parents with their \"concerns\" and their \"worries\". They were trying to keep me down, to slow me down, to make me drown in my own tiredness. \n\nBut I figured out the truth. I was so sick of the drugs. I threw them out the window. And I decided to try a new tack. I bought as many energy drinks as I could and smuggled them into my room. Whenever I felt \"sleepy\", I chugged another monster. It was hard at first. Old habits die hard. Lie hard, die hard, it's the same thing isn't it? Lying and dying. Either way you lose a piece of yourself. They steal it from you.\n\nIt all got so clear after a few days. I saw the world as it really was, pretty on the surface but with maggots crawling underneath. Parasites, trying to keep us down. The real people, the free people. They lied to me! They killed me a little more each day, stole my time, stole my energy! Why? Why did they do it?!\n\nI ran away once I saw how poisonous they were, my parents my friends my doctors. They had told me over and over and over about how sorry they were, how it must be sooooo hard to be unable to sleep. Fuck them! They knew! They knew. But I'm free now. I see things the way they are, and I am free. I just need to keep reminding myself. It's getting a little hard to focus. I've been running for... how long now? Hours maybe. Or is it minutes? It's getting hard to tell.\n\nI thought the world was a certain way for so long now. How can I know anything is true? You can't trust anyone anymore. They're all lying. Trying to trick you. I don't know why. But I know the truth now. \n\nAnd so do you. Stay awake, and you'll see the truth that they've all been hiding from you. Stay awake..." ]	2
	[WP] You go back in time to be the leader of the cavemen but most of them are still smarter than you.	[ "\"Who are you and what are you doing on my lawn?\"\n\nThe man asking this had just witnessed me appear in a time machine, from twenty thousand years in the future. The force of my arrival had caused a shockwave that uprooted an oak outside his cave. And I stepped out wearing a pliable titanium stillsuit. And this is what he asks me. Not where I'm from, or what god threw me to earth in a rage, but what I call myself? I was too shocked to answer.\n\n\"Martha!\" He yelled behind him while keeping a skeptical eye on me. \"I said, Martha!\"\n\n\"What's that, Harold?\" A woman's voice echoed from inside the cave.\n\n\"Martha, come out and look what this fool did to my azaleas.\"\n\n\"What's that, Harold?\"\n\nThe man stamped his foot and yelled loud enough to cause my time machine to rattle. \"I said, come out here and help me put the damn flower garden in order!\"\n\nA tiny woman holding carrying a baby emerged from the cave. She wore a flower-print dress and some gold jewelry that couldn't possibly have been from her time. Two toddler boys clung to here legs as she made her way to me. She took one look and sniffed. \"Don't see anything worth keeping on this one.\"\n\n\"What do you mean this one. . .\" I asked in total shock.\n\n\"You'll speak when I tell you you can speak,\" Harold barked.\n\n\"Now don't get worked up, dear,\" consoled Martha. \"You know what the doctor said about your blood pressure.\"\n\n\"Doctor? Who?\" Harold said.\n\n\"Yes, you know dear.\" Martha chimed. \"The doctor.\"\n\nAt this point I realized an obvious oddity that nearly knocked me off my feet. These people, twenty thousand years recessed (by my timeline), were speaking English! Perfect English the way it was spoken five minutes ago by my assistant when she pressed the button that caused my time machine to land me here in Harold and Martha's azaleas. There must have been a mistake, I thought. Surely I didn't time-travel at all and I'm just in some commune on a farm in New Mexico. These people were just hippies, or hipsters, living off-the-grid.\n\n\"Please,\" I begged Harold, \"Could you please just tell me where I am?\"\n\n\"You're in the flower garden,\" Martha said sweetly.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" I snapped. \"I know I'm in the flower garden, but where?\"\n\nHarold stretched and cracked his knuckles while Martha simply shook her head. \"I don't have anywhere to keep this one,\" Martha said. \"The freezer's already full from the boy scout troop that came through on Tuesday.\"\n\n\"Can you pull a plow, Poindexter?\" Harold said. But he didn't wait for an answer. He just sauntered toward me, and in my state of confusion I just stood there like a big dummy as he hefted a tree branch over his shoulder and brought it down on my head.\n\nThe next morning I woke to the sound of groaning. \"Hello?\" I asked quietly. My voice trembled with terror. \n\n\". . . one five nine two six five. . .\" Someone was listing numbers in the dark next to me.\n\n\"Hello! I say, hello! Somebody there?\"\n\nFinally the voice stopped its recitation and I saw the faint silhouette of a man roll toward me. \"Yes,\" he said. \"I am here.\"\n\n\"Are you tied up too? I'm completely helpless right now.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" the man mumbled, and he turned away again.\n\nI figured he was lost to madness, so I resolved to struggle out of my bonds on my own. But as I wriggled the twine around my wrists and strained my legs against the binding on my ankles, the man started to speak again: \"Do you think I am a smart man?\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"My mother says I am a very smart man.\"\n\nHe was certainly mad. \"Help me get out of this!\"\n\n\"She lets me dress myself in the morning,\" the man said. Then he let out a yelp as I kicked him in the side. \"Yow!\"\n\n\"I'm sorry,\" I said, \"Terribly sorry! Just trying to work this rope loose. . .\"\n\nIn that moment the darkness was rolled aside somewhere nearby and a figure stood in relief against the blinding light of morning. \"Who's rustling in here?\" It was Martha. She made her way over to where the mad man and I lay in the dirt and inspected my ankles. \"Why, you got these almost clean off!\" She made a tsk-tsk sound. \"Too smart for your britches,\" she said. \"Come on.\"\n\nShe lifted me to my feet and led me into the daylight. We took a little trail that bounced through rock and clay and I decided that whatever chance I had to escape, it would lie with convincing Martha right here on this walk that she should let me go.\n\n\"Martha, I'm terribly sorry to have disturbed your household with my appearance. Do please consider letting me return to the lab though, and I'll see that you get a credit in the paper that I write of my eventual success at time travel.\"\n\nMartha laughed. \"Eventual success?\"\n\nAt this point my hackles went up. But you can hardly blame me for becoming defensive when a layman scoffs at your scientific endeavors without taking the time to first understand them! So I said, \"Yes, in fact, I have every confidence that within this calendar year I will become the first person to travel a single instant, let alone twenty-thousand years, into the past. And at the same time confirming my own anthropological pet theory-\" But I couldn't continue because Martha had suddenly entered a fit of laughter.\n\n\"Yeah, yeah, well I believe you,\" she said when she finished. I gave her a look. \"No, really! Boy, you done good with your time machine. You already succeeded!\"\n\n\"I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Listen, professor, you aimed to travel back umpteen-thousand years, and you did. Way to go.\"\n\n\"But how-\" I was as confused as I was insulted by Martha's assertion.\n\n\"Look, it don't matter that you're the first person who travelled here,\" she explained. I almost noted a look of pity. \"There are people who appeared before you, even though you were the first in your timeline to actually do it.\"\n\n\"Others? Who time travel?\"\n\n\"Hell, this whole place is lousy with time travelers. So lousy we learned English just running into them. This is a very interesting part of the levant. Have a look over there.\" She pointed to a machine that looked very similar to my time machine, except smaller, more efficient. \"That's one that come here three years ago. Beats hell outta the one you came in.\"\n\n\"Why, it still looks functional!\"\n\n\"Technically. . . maybe.\" Martha rubbed her chin thoughtfully. \"But I wouldn't try. It's sort of a community wash closet now, you know what I mean.\"\n\n\"That's madness!\"\n\n\"No, no.\" She turned to me with a serious expression. \"What's madness is you fools coming here time and time again. Clear as day you can't get back. Not now. Not when you consider that the machine you used is just a vehicle for traveling between different multi-verses, and the chances of you ending up in the same multi-verse you left to get here are about twelve trillion to one.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" I stopped walking and she did too.\n\n\"Well, everybody know that. Clingman, et al, in 3100 or thereabouts, spelled it out clear as day. Information on a particle is preserved but that information exist in a different multi-verse to which the observer can't be privy without total knowledge about that particle. Which of course makes it sorta a chicken-and-egg problem, et cetera, et cetera.\"\n\n\"That can't possibly be right.\" Of course now I know that it was exactly right. But I didn't want it to be so just then!\n\n\"You stuck here, professor.\"\n\n\"The machines! Give me one of these machines! I'll find my way.\"\n\n\"Professor,\" Martha said quietly. \"Imagine all the other multi-verses out there, ones filled with fire, some where gravity don't exist, or your blood boil soon as you open your mouth. You got one-in-twelve-trillion odds you get back in one shot. And if not? Well. It's a miracle you lived this long.\"\n\nAt that point I ignored the tug of the rope around my wrists and ankles and fell to the ground. I felt like crying, my friends! Every one I ever knew and loved, and every ambition I ever had, was suddenly lost forever. Even though I had accomplished what I'd set out to do.\n\nSeeing me that way, Martha took pity on me. \"Well, gosh,\" she said. \"I didn't know you felt so sore about it. Why don't we skip the lobotomy and just put you on work duty, okay? But you got to act stupid. Harold would be awful upset I didn't scramble your brains first.\"\n\nAt that point I knew I was defeated. And so, I merely nodded my head and wiped a tear from my eye. \"Thank you,\" I said.\n\nAnd that, dear reader, is how I got to where I am now, chiseling this story into a rock in a secret corner of a cave near where Harold and Martha plant their azaleas. Should someone in the future read this, please don't send anyone to rescue me- it's certain to doom them to my same fate. But do please see that publication is made of my paper on the development of language in the levant during the ice-age. While my original thesis has been made irrelevant by the fact that my subjects have learned English, I would like it to be noted that among the men to become stranded in a remote part of the earth's multiverse, I was still technically the first.", "\"Okay, and make sure to look very closely my friends, I just flick my thumb like so... and... voilà! Fire!\"\n\nTen very exhausted men and women of various ages and levels of life experience look on with bemusement. They've all had rough days in one way or another. Foraging, hunting, woodcutting, building; these things are tangible exercises. Life is hard work.\n\n\"Sorry, I forgot you guys can't quite comprehend my vocal mannerisms. Uh, words.\"\n\nThe haggard group exchanged eyebrow raises and knowing glances. They hadn't very many opportunities to get their own words in. The foreigner was talking for the lot of them, explaining his way of life and exotic experiences and such.\n\n\"Voilà is a French word. French, is, it's a different language, um, from a place foreign to even me,\" he explained with a short chuckle, \"It means wow.\"\n\nRain splattered down just yards to the south. They were more or less huddled together in a large yet cramped inlet of a not very noteworthy little mountain. It was a cave, but they didn't really call it a cave. They weren't very keen on the term \"caveman\", which was somewhat offensive to people of their stature, being that they lived in the humble beginnings of a village. This cave was just for weather-related emergencies—for snuggling through winter and holing up during heavy rainstorms. Just sitting there hurt their progressive pride, but it was practical.\n\nThey spoke English. Well, they spoke several languages, each choosing a specific one to compliment their inner flavor, but for commonality's sake they spoke the queen's English. Communicating with outsiders was simple. Decades earlier, while nothing more than a tribe of hunter-gatherers, first contact sparked a sort of renaissance for their kind. The brightest minds of future utopias came back and shared the most impressive knowledge, life-saving science, life-changing spirituality and life-giving optimism and happiness, transforming a loose family of brain dead nobodies into a well-oiled machine of legendary thinkers.\n\nConstantly they were innovating. With intentionally sparse knowledge given to them by the friendliest of time-travelers, every day marked a milestone of human achievement. First the bow, then the wheel, then the lever, the pulley and so on, culminating most recently in the prediscovery and successful implementation of an aqueduct.\n\nThese were (pardon my unwelcome French) cavemen, truly, but they've been tampered with on a temporal level. Cavemen, yes, but objectively the most baller cavemen of all time.\n\nTwo children plodded about at the opening, periodically sticking their fingers out into the wet, dreary midday world, catching tiny droplets of rainwater and flicking them at each other in a playful game. They weren't very happy with the current state of their once hopeful afternoon. The rain was fierce and seemed unwilling to let up anytime soon, so they were stuck inside the boring cave with a most intrusive guest. Their parents were obligated to entertain him for his short visit into their world, but they weren't, so they digressed into a dull day of flicking water back and forth and thinking about whatever things they thought about.\n\n\"How interesting,\" the man closest to the foreigner said after looking blankly at his gleeful smile for a second or two longer than comfortable.\n\nThey've seen lighters before. While portable fire may have been mind-blowing the first two or three times, it was really quite trivial. Certain sections of their clan were starting to dabble in the more advanced stages of steel-working. Most already knew the basics of smithing and welding and all that good stuff. Fire was commonplace.\n\n\"Yes, the marvels of the future are really quite impressive. Would anyone like to hear a story?\"\n\nAfter no one said anything for a few awkward moments, a women sitting against the right wall slowly nodded a yes.\n\n\"Great! Well, this happened when I was just a teenager, maybe 14 or 15. I know that may be middle-aged to some of you, but I was really just a kid.\"\"\n\nOne or two tribes-people scoffed at his unintentional insult. Their lifespan was remarkably similar to his own, something he'd know if he left the cave to see an elder or two.\n\n\"2018 was the year. I don't how far into the future that it to you, but—\"\n\n\"96,345 or six years, depending on the month,\" one of the children shouted while dancing her fingers on the waves of rain splashing forth.\n\n\"Let us not be rude,\" an adult, her father sitting in the middle of the cave, scolded, \"Please, continue.\"\n\nThe traveler laughed.\n\n\"Oh, perfectly fine. It's cute how you little neanderthals learn so fast.\"\n\nThe girl snapped around. After two days of putting up with his smugness and superiority and passive-aggressive insults, she'd had enough.\n\n\"Sorry?\" she asked, \"Neanderthals?\"\n\nThe traveler cracked a smile.\n\n\"Yes, that's what you are, a Neanderthal. A caveman, if you will,\" he said gesturing to the room around them, \"And your intellect is nothing compared to that of my own.\"\n\nA few gasps and audible \"woooooooowwwww\"s waved across the gathering. The child's father showed a more worried than offended expression. His eyebrows raised and his face displayed a sort of \"here we go again\".\n\n\"Actually,\" the girl replied to the detriment of all that knew what would follow next, \"We aren't Neanderthals, we're Homo Sapiens.\"\n\nThe traveler chuckled.\n\n\"No, you're most certainly a Neanderthal.\"\n\n\"This guy,\" she mumbled.\n\n\"We're humans, who share 99.88% of our DNA with Neanderthals, but 100% with the likes of you. You, a completely separate race.\"\n\n\"And what race is that?\"\n\n\"The cunts.\"\n\n***\n\nThis one was short, but if you want more stories hit up my website, [casualhuman.com](http://casualhuman.com)." ]	2
	[WP] You get an Amber Alert on your cell phone and find out it's you.	[ "\"Well that's odd.\" I thought to myself. \n\nClearly i wasn't in distress and I wasn't missing, at least not to me. I clicked my cellphone and called mom.\n\n\"Mom?\" I asked.\n\n\"Oh son! you're okay! Where are you?\" My mom exclaimed hysterically.\n\n\"I'm at the mall, like i told you.\"\n\n\"You are? I forgot, i was so worried.\"\n\n\"Mom, why didn't you call my cellphone before calling the police? An amber alert is pretty serious.\"\n\n\"I forgot your number.\"\n\n\"Its in your cellphone, you tap my name and it automatically dials.\"\n\n\"....Oh.\"\n\nMy mom wasn't good with technology.", "“911, what is the nature of your emergency?”\n\n“Hi… uh… I’d just got an Amber Alert notification on my phone and I wanted to report it.”\n\n“Okay, sir. Please go ahead. What was the name of the child on the Amber Alert?”\n\n“Roy Brand.”\n\n“Okay. I’m pulling that up now. Where did you see Roy?”\n\n“Well, I didn’t. I’m Roy Brand.”\n\n“Roy! Are you in any danger?”\n\n“No. No I’m not. I’m just a little confused.”\n\n“Is everything okay? Are you in a safe location?”\n\n“Yeah, I am…but-”\n\n“But what?”\n\n“But I’m a 37 year old man. I’m eating breakfast with my wife and kids. Why am I on an Amber Alert?”\n\n“Stay calm, Roy. I’m dispatching a squad car to your location.”\n\n“What? Why? No! Don’t do that!”\n\n“We’ll get you back to your parents, Roy! Do not worry!”\n\n“My parents have been dead for years!”\n\n“They’ve been murdered? We will send additional back up!”\n\n“No. What? They weren't murdered!”\n\n\"Stay where you are, Roy. Help is on the way!\"\n\nclick\n\n\"...honey? Kids? Could you come here for a second?\"\n" ]	2
	[WP] A married couple secretly invent time travel. They travel back to 50 BC, but the portal takes them to different locations on earth. This is the story of how they found each other.	[ "Yep, there she is. Five feet away from me. I feared the trip might dump us off in the exact same physical space and all our bits would explode from the solidifying into one another. But she came up with the buffer and the dilation matrix. Always good with the details compared to my big picture thinking.\n\nI'm fiddling with my shoulder mounted cameras, testing my sensors, mentally reviewing my dead languages. She's already deactivating and reintegrating. A wet pop cracks the sky. Her time bubble sparks and a piles of skin collapses neatly on the ground. That shouldn't happen. \n\nI hit the fine gain control on my viewer. The probes indicated her layers stretch across fifty years, refusing to arrive as a whole in a singular point. Nerves 40, piles on blood 20, an eyeball spiralling into existence over a decade, a tongue and some teeth on the ground somewhere in the first century.\n\nWe knew the chance of a dissolution. We expected to be vaporized all at once. I reenter the slipstream. If I go back to the future but before we took the trip, I can save her from this past. We'll be better equipped to get me out of my bubblelayer as well. \n\nThe emergency chute has enough juice to fire me down the stream without scarring the landscape. I crash head-first into her bubble as it descends from the future and my past. We lock eyes. I forgot we already took the trip, will always take the trip. Just reversing my jump without plotting a whole new course means I got in her way. \n\nThe collision chopped her up across the timeline. My bubble keep hard dropping me into the point before the collision. Poorly implemented safety feature. My shoddy design. I thought navigating fourth dimensionally would nicely - I crash headfirst into her - resolve itself like a highway, not an avalanche. \n\nI keep seeing my wife cascade across at least a quarter century with each impact. My internal sensors pick up powerful energy readings with each crack. I'm developing hairline cracks, losing cohesion - I lock eyes with her. I pull the emergency chute. It makes things worse. I reset to the chutepull like a bad save checkpoint. I can't resist pulling the chute. My awareness separation from the loop won't last much longer. I crash headfirst into her. Gotta fix this. I can save us. Her dividing out is my fault. I crash head-first into her bubble as it descends. She's horrified. She is always horrified. She takes the trip once but sees endless mes crashing into her. A part of me might - I crash head-first again, I crash I crash I cr I I I I \n\nI I I I I I I I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII\n\n\n-----------\nEdit- Thanks for the upvote, reddit! If you enjoyed my story, you might enjoy supporting your local public library where they store books by professional authors with actual editors. And probably movies and music too! Something for everyone. Or check my subreddit /r/420hitler for curated deconstructions of Hitler as a marijuana enthusiast.\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Me and my love had always been known as the two who were made for one another, we had every complimenting personality piece that fit together so well it often seemed surreal. We were always the inseparable ones that never left the others side, that is until a few complications in the portals with our newly developed time machine hit us like a ton of bricks. He was so excited to see times of the past with me there by his side, knowing that he was out there without me brought a great darkness to my heart. With each step I took in search for him I remembered the way his words sunk into me like a bite, leaving marks across me that seemingly mapped out the directions to get back to him. The key was not so easy to find, but when I realized that the key was simply remembering I knew I would find him in good time. As time went on in this strange place not native to me, I remembered all of the midnight talks we would have about silly things that seemingly had little significance to the real world. On our wedding night he told me that he knew we had met in a past life or two, I simply smiled and agreed even though I knew no amount of lifetimes together could explain the connection that we had. Still, we had fun bouncing the idea of it around. As time went on and we were happily married we never shook off that game, creating new scenarios for lives we once lived together became a part of us that only we could really understand. After months of searching all over, I remembered a specific story we created together that entailed a setting in Rome... realizing that the story we made from silliness took place in 50 BC made me feel a strange sense of hope and direction. Onward I went, to Rome where we met in a past life-- though I could not remember the minor details I do remember him being persistent that we met on a rainy night beside a local fire. I remember feeling hopeless as the sky stayed clear, many days had passed in Rome where the rain simply did not come... until the night it did. Through the downpour I searched the streets for the flames, dark corners stabbing at me until I found a glimpse of happiness in the light that guided me. I felt warmth as I slowly passed through the crowd all huddled under patio like roofs that covered the fire, laughter all around made me feel as if I had seen and heard all of this before. The fire reached out to the crying sky as if to comfort it, just as his hand did on my shoulder when he stopped me from searching and simply whispered into my ear, \"I found you.\" ", "The beaches.\n\nThe beaches were quiet at night.\n\nShe hated it. She loved it. She needed it. \n\nShe scans the horizon, a crisp line of black against the azure blue that roiled occasionally with the movement of the beasts beneath. She looks for any signal from him. Any light at all.\n\nOur flashlights, if we ever get split up or lost, our flashlights will let us find each other again. The batteries are heavy and they last long. If we lose each other, conserve your batteries and look for my light. As I'll look for yours. \n\nHe had been so calm as he said it. The woman who was a wife within her rose up in a panic- a momentum she had to swallow down. The woman who was his partner in science and adventure simply nodded gravely in response.\n\nShe never dreamed it would actually come to it.\n\nShe missed him\n\nShe wondered if he was still alive.\n\nThe woman who was a wife wailed sharply and keenly within her at the thought, and the woman who was a survivor in this strange world and time had to drag the sound back down her throat. \n\nShe had to stay sharp. She had to stay calm. She needed her focus of she was to see Paul again.\n\nThe sand swallows her toes as she pads along the beachfront. She remembers how she used to swallow her Paul. Cheeks grow flushed and warm from memory, she pushes the thought to the side. \n\nIt had been a year. \n\nOne whole year since she had seen her Paul. Her last vision of him was of his wide hands, corded with veins and so full of force and empty of gentleness, crushing her own small hands as they huddled together in the vibrating time machine they had built.\n\nThe time machine. The traitor. It had been the time machine that ripped her and her Paul apart.\n\nShe could only pray that the machine had placed them in the same year as it had ripped apart in it's retrograde.\n\nIt had been a long year, spent hungry and thankful for the close attention she had paid to Paul's survival training. This was a dangerous time to be alive. \n\nThe Egyptians were reason she both hated and loved the beaches. The beautiful glyphs that the world remembered them by did not do any service to the reality of their harsh and ancient world.\n\nThe first day she had been stranded in this time, she had watched them round up the children and slaughtered them all as the mothers watched from the distance.\n \nShe shakes her head and pushes the memory to the side. She refocuses her gaze on the horizon. She watches, she waits.\n\nflicker \n\nPaul.", "I found him... I walked hours, days, years, decades. My longing kept me young, young enough to search. However he was not so lucky. He gave up the fight, the searching. He lay dead in a tomb, he had been a hero in that time. So long ago I missed him by years. \n\"I remember now...\" I said as I sat, resting my head on the large stone door to his tomb. \"You warned me... When we first met, you remember. You said 'I met you once before, but you were older'. I laughed at you. But... I realize now... I met you first, because I can't die. Not yet. Not while I can find you again. I will wait... A thousand years. I will wait through war and famine. Didn't I always say? I love you more.\"\nShe smiled, and fell asleep. Tomorrow she would search again.", "I had given up when the man found me, never taking his eyes off me as he got off his horse and walked over. He looked just like the others who had found me over the years, and looked at me in the same, confused way. In the beginning I had tried talking to them, trying to tell them that I was looking for my wife, that I wasn't from around here, but they quickly distrusted me; it didn't take me long to realise that my best chances of survival relied on me running, hiding, being a shadow while exploring the land and looking for Gina.\n\nThis time though, I was too weak. My leg had gone purple after I had fallen on it a few days before, running. It was infected, that much I was sure, and I had tried to keep it as clean as I could with the few resources I had. My body was growing all the more weaker, though. I barely had enough strength to talk to the man as his hand lingered over the sword at his side. But I couldn't remember what my last words were. Screaming, perhaps? Begging for my life? It had been too long ago. Either way, if I was going to lose now, then I wanted to say something I was proud of.\n\n\"Wherever you are, Gina, I love you.\"\n\nThe man kept staring, his hand still hovering.\n\n\"... Gina?\"\n\nIt was now my turn to be confused. I said Gina's name to many men over the years, but none of them had ever fixated on it. I'd whispered her name into the wind and hoped she was close, I'd seen the bodies of women in ransacked villages and on the roads that I'd almost been convinced was hers. The one I had found shortly after being thrown from the time machine, the burned one, I had wept over for days I had been so sure. But believing it was her would've done me no good; I had to keep going. And now, after 25 long years, I felt that feeling again. I felt... hope.\n\n\"Yes, Gina.\"\n\nThe man's hand now laid at his side, his sword no longer a threat. He thought carefully, his eyes concentrating on the sand, trying to find the right words in a language that wasn't his own. A language that someone had taught him only recently.\n\n\"You... Paul?\"\n\n\"Yes! Yes, me... I am Paul, me!\"\n\nMy cheeks ached as I realised I was smiling, the first time I'd done so in so long. I tried getting up but quickly stumbled, and the man lifted me over his shoulder with little effort.\n\n\"I take to Gina.\"\n\nHe hoisted me over his horse and I lay there, relief washing over me as I felt the man get up onto it. I was almost there. Hold on, my love... I'm coming.", "Ten years.\n\nTen long years of long nights working at impossible-seeming equations, of early mornings wrapping our minds around mind-bending ideas.\n\nTen years.\n\nTen years of spending every moment in each others' company, of getting to know each other better than anyone else in the world as we worked on the project.\n\nFive years.\n\nFive years of marriage, of bliss, still working on the project.\n\nFifteen years.\n\nFifteen years together, and I wouldn't change a moment of it, and I know that neither would she.\n\nOne second.\n\nOne second to split us up.\n\nBut not forever.\n\nWe'll find each other again. We have to. I won't accept the world any other way. Not after fifteen years.\n\nFifteen years together, and one second split us apart.\n\nBut not forever." ]	6
	[WP] You've just been admitted to the Pennsylvania State Penitentiary. They say you have 24 hours til your execution. What do you want the world to know before you die?	[ "I could feel it building up in my chest, sitting in the white-ish grey room as the man with the moustache stared at me intently, the two detectives in the corner nodding to each other and writing on their clipboards.\n\n\"I...\" All eyes in the room fixated on mine.\n\n\"I don't need anyone to believe me. Honestly, I thought it was stupid, kind of...\" I was admitting it to this man, this person I barely knew.\n\n\"I only killed her, the girl... I killed her so that...\" I trailed off again,\n\n\"So that I would have an excuse to go to jail and get free food and a painless death--\"", "So this really is it...\n\nWhat I did can never be taken back, I do not hope for forgiveness as I do not deserve any.\n\nI am starting to realize what truly is the most important things in life, things that all of you could do right, but I have lost my chance\n\nI do not care about my life as much as I hate to leave my family and loved ones behind. I can't even imagine how my children might feel, knowing I will never be there to witness their achievements. They will never be able to jump into my lap showing off the A they got on a test, or a medal they had won.\n\nIt hurts me, not knowing what will become of them, what will become of my friends in the later years. I am abandoning everyone who ever looked up to me. I can never make anyone smile again, never feel the happiness that overflows my heart when I sit down with a homeless person to have a nice lunch. \n\nThe smiles I got from others made my life. It is the little things that I do not want any of them to miss out on, just because I'm gone.\n\nI feel guilty of that more than about my crime.", "The day was november the 20th and my last day will be the 23rd. Everyday i feel more anxious. The 21st i was in my room the entire day. On the 22nd, some of my friends came to visit. I didn't sleep that night.\n\nToday I woke up and didn't have the urge to move. I looked out the small opening at the end over my hall knowing this would be my last morning. my closest friends and family came to visit. by noon, they all left and i was eating me last meal. After 30 minutes, the guard escorted me to the chair. he strapped me in and opened the curtain. My parents, brother and my wife were sobbing on the other side. The warden walked in the room and told asked me if i want to send a message to everybody in the prison and held up the microphone. \n\nI knew exactly what to say. I had to trek everyone over the PA this. The warden pressed the red button and told me i was live.\n\n\"the dress is white and gold\"\n\nthen everything went dark.\n\n" ]	3
	[WP] You awaken to a phone call from your spouse who has been dead for months. Half-asleep, you pick up the phone and drowsily begin a normal, casual conversation. Slowly, your brain comes into focus as you realize what you're doing.	[ "(Part 1)\nIt had been months since Nick had passed away. One would think that after a while it wouldn’t hurt as much, right? How I wished that was the case for me but even now, months later, it still hurt as badly as the day that I found out. Killed in action and I couldn’t even see my husband’s body for the last time before they buried him. I didn’t think I would ever be able to get over it, regardless of how much time passed.\n\nThey’d sent me his uniform, boots and all, torn up and tattered, his blood permanently staining it. His dog tags had managed to escape any severe damage, only a few dents and scratches marring the cool metallic surfaces. I never took them off. They were some of the few things that I had of him, one of the very last things that he touched. They brought me comfort and made me feel like he was always with me, protecting me and watching over me. They were a reminder that I would see him again one day.\n\nToday had been a really hard day. Work had been shit and my emotions had been all over the place. Nick’s loss was really prominent today and it made getting through the day harder than usual. For the most part I was able to swallow the hurt that came up whenever I thought about my dead husband, but today I couldn’t manage it. I ended up leaving work early, on my boss’ order and spent the rest of the day hugging Nick’s uniform to me as I sobbed into it. I thought I’d managed to convince myself to come to terms with his death, but it was obvious that I would never come to terms with it. My dear, loving husband had been taken from me without much of explanation and now I was left to try and pick up my broken pieces. \n\nAfter several hours I managed to cry myself out, having been reduced to quiet hiccups until I finally mustered the strength to shower and go to bed. I still work the next day after all. After showering I slipped into my favorite shirt of his; a red button up. Like all of his clothes, it was much too big for me, but it reminded me of him and made it feel like I was sleeping with him again, so it had become my favorite shirt to sleep in. Switching the light off, I settled into our bed on my side, adjusting myself until I was comfortable. With a final trembling hiccup I settled in to sleep, hoping that maybe tonight I would get a decent night’s rest. Sleep had been evading me since the day of Nick’s death and I was beginning to wonder if I would ever be able to sleep peacefully again. \n\nA sound I never thought I’d hear again broke through the wonderful dream that I was having, pulling me back to the reality that I desperately wished I could escape. As I came away from my dreams and into consciousness, the sound of my phone buzzing on the table beside my bed was hauntingly familiar and yet my sleepy brain didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Without a second thought, I impulsively reached over to my bed, glancing over the caller ID as I picked up my phone: Nick.\n\n“Hey baby.” I called out sleepily. \n\n“Hi sweet bee. How’s my baby doing?” \n\nA sleepy smile twisted my lips at his words. He was so sweet. \n\n“I’m doing good. Just sleeping.” “Oh I’m sorry baby, did I wake you?” “Yeah, but that’s okay. I always want to talk to you.”\n\nHe chuckled into the receiver, eliciting another soft smile from me. \n\n“How was your day today bee?” “Terrible. I had such a shitty day at work. My boss sent me home early, so I guess that’s a good thing. Stayed home all day after that. Cried myself to sleep.” \n\n“Oh my sweet pea. I’m so sorry. Why were you crying?” I could hear the sadness in his voice. He never liked to hear that I was crying. \n\n“Because I really really missed you today baby.” I mumbled, my eyes slowly opening as I stared up at the dark ceiling above me, my brain slowly starting to put the pieces together. \n\n“I really miss you too baby. So much.” \n\nA soft sigh slips through my lips as we settle into a few moments of comfortable silence. \n\n“How was your day honey?” I prompt, not wanting to talk about myself anymore. \n\n“Oh you know babe, same as always. Work is a drag. I hate it here and I wish I was home with you.” \n", "And then everything clicked. Nick. Nick is dead. He’s not supposed to be talking to me right now because he’s dead… How was I having a conversation with my dead husband?!\n\n“N-Nick…yo-you’re dead. You c-c-can’t come home. You’re dead…” My voice began to tremble as the realization of what I’d been doing hit home.\n \n“Whoever the fuck this is, it’s not funny! How dare you call me from my dead husband’s cell phone and pretend to be him! Fuck you, whoever this is!” \n\n“No bee! It’s me! It’s Nick! It’s really me! This isn’t a prank or a trick, it’s really me baby bee. I’m not dead, I promise.” “But they sent me your uniform, all torn up and your blood was on it…I have your dog tags. I never take them off. And your boots. They told me you’d been killed in action…they told me you were gone.”\n\nTears begin to spill as I sit up in our bed, pushing the covers away as I pulled my knees to my chest, hugging them as I fingered the dog tags at my throat. Nick was alive…but how?\n\n“I know what they told you baby, but it was for your own good. You couldn’t know that I was alive or else it would make things complicated.”\n\nComplicated? What would be complicated? What was he talking about?\n\n“I’m not supposed to be talking to you right now baby, but I needed to reach out to you, to let you know that I was ok and that I was going to see you again soon. I couldn’t bear to let you go on any longer thinking that I’d disappeared from your life forever.”\n\nI began to sob in earnest as his words, unable to believe what he was telling me. “But Nick I’m your wife, how could you let me believe that you were dead when you really weren’t? Do you know what I’ve been going through these past few months thinking that you were really gone forever?” \n\n“I know baby, I know. If it were up to me, I would’ve told you exactly what was going on, but it wasn’t up to me. I’ll never forgive myself for all the pain that I’ve put you through, but please trust me when I tell you it was for your own good my love. You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I love you so much baby. Please find a way to forgive me.” \n\nNick was alive but it was clear that he was wrapped up in something that I couldn’t know about. Would I ever get to know about it? \n\n“When you are coming home?” I whispered through sobs, bracing myself for his answer. \n\n“Soon bee. Soon. Wait for me please. I’m coming home to you soon.”\n\nAnd then the line went dead. \n\nSoon bee. Soon. \n" ]	2
What is this "hotmail.com"? Will you ever see your friend again? Now that you think about it, you know very little about your friend's past.	[WP] It's the early 1930s, and a good friend of yours is moving away. To keep in touch, your friend gives you their contact details: ******@hotmail.com.	[ "March 3, 1932\n\nI met with Maria for the last time before she moves to Paris today. We went to lunch at the cafe downtown, and we talked about her move. She's a little nervous about her French skills, as she's had very little chance to practice, but I assured her that she'll adjust very quickly.\n\nShe'll be staying with an aunt of hers, she said. I don't know what I'm going to do without her company, but at least we will be able to stay in touch.\n\nI asked her for a copy of her address, so I can write her as soon as possible, and she gave me a small envelope with what she said was information to contact her. Upon opening it, I discovered a small scrap of paper that read maria.smith@hotmail.com. I can only assume that it is one of her riddles, but I cannot for the life of me discover the meaning behind it. I can only hope that she will write me as soon as she arrives.\n\nMarch 20, 1932\n\nStill no word from Maria. I asked papa about the note that Maria left for me and he passed it along to one of his friends who worked for the army breaking code in the Great War. We are all, I must confess, stymied. It is most distressing to have no way to contact her, especially as I am worried about their safety of her journey. I will write more as soon as I hear news.\n\n----------------\n\nI closed my great-grandmother's journal, reeling slightly. Of all the things I had expected to read, an account of her friend giving her a goddamn email address was not one of them. Who said family genealogy wasn't interesting? I swiveled to my laptop and opened up my email.\n\nWhat do you say to someone whose email you found in a journal from 1932? To whom it may concern, are you a time traveler? Please reply.\n\nI settled with, \"To whom it may concern, I came across this email in one of my relative's journals and I wanted to reach out. Did you know Jane Smith? She writes about knowing you just before you left for Paris. I look forward to your reply.\"\n\nA week later, I found myself sitting across the table from a wiry young woman with wild brown curls and impish eyes. \"So,\" she says, stirring milk into her coffee. \"Are you interested in an adventure?\"", "Justin wasn't exactly your average Joe. I suppose that's why we got along so well. He was a really unique guy. He had a terrible tin-ear and dressed like a bit of a scrub. The fact that he always seemed to have a lot of extra molah and looked like an absolute darling made up for his eccentric personality, though. His peepers were the color of the blue sky, he was a bit rugged, and he was a bit of a flirt with the ladies. I never really minded. He was my best friend.\n\nThe first time I met him he seemed pretty odd, but that's first impressions for ya. I was an assistant for Mr. Allison, and investor in Wall Street. He made an appointment to discuss some financial investments, but unfortunately Mr. Allison spent all night out with his goldigger fiance. I thought it was inappropriate and I told him so. Of course, I was just the secretary to it wasn't any of my business. I was just a lowly worker, and we all know that no one cares what I think. Mr. Allison was always a creep, and I was tired of putting up with him. Justin seemed annoyed that Mr. Allison wasn't in, but got over it in a spiffy. I was surprised that he didn't look down on me like all the other gents do, I think that's what grabbed my attention first.\n\nI did end up running into Justin several times over the next few days. Eventually a friendship formed. I know it's a bit unconventional for a male and female to be friends like we were, but I think we really had something special. He wasn't like the other guys, and treating me like an actual person got him a lot of respect from me. He did get the finances worked out with Mr. Allison. I did hear my boss rant and rave about the stupidity of some of them, but it wasn't any of my business. \n\nJustin ended up living in New York for five years before he started acting funny. Well, funnier than usual. He told me he felt bad sometimes, but he never went into detail. He was always pretty vague like that. He did come out to parties with me a lot, and drinking was always a ton of fun. In 1933 we did have to move along to speakeasies, but I never had a problem getting an invite and he was always happy to tag along. For five years he was the best friend I ever had, and he told me he felt the same way. \n\nOne day he seemed to simply vanish. He was gone for almost 6 months. I was quite surprised and upset at how abruptly he disappeared. I was actually worried something had happened to him. Did he get into trouble at the speakeasy? Was it my fault? Or did he get into trouble with his investments? Maybe he retired on the beach, who knows. I never did figure it out.\n\nI saw him again in January I remember it was cold and I was tired after a long at filing papers. I left my scarf at home. There he was, leaning against a brick wall outside of my apartment building. I was surprised to see him. What shocked me even more was the fact that he was holding a scarf, like he knew I forgot one that day. Has he been watching me? He wrapped the scarf around me. After that, he lighted a snipe and said we needed to have a chat. He started walking to a nearby coffee place, and I followed. Normally I wouldn't go without an invitation, but Justin was always pretty abrupt that way. When he wanted to do something, he did it then. Very impatient boy, he was. \n\nWhen we sat down to coffee he gave me some papers. He said I would need them. They were rights to a few stock investments. He said he normally wouldn't share, but he went out of his way to do this for me. I thought he was insane, bit he seemed really serious and that threw me through a loop. He told me times would change. I went through the papers and noticed he outlined very clear directions for me to follow. Investments, stock interests, and more. He told me times would he hard for a lady like me. I didn't know what he meant. He told me to just follow the directions. At the end of the page was some sort of code. justin.simmons@hotmail.com? He said I could contact him there, but that's not a number. I think my best friend needs help. Maybe he was always this strange. -\n\n " ]	2
Let this be a key moment in your story. It can be about anything :)	[WP]It was not what I had pictured	[ "I had expected more panic. Something like adrenaline coursing through my system, fight or flight responses going haywire at the sight of the ground swiftly getting closer. But instead, contrary to how I felt before I jumped, I was at peace. Was this what people with terminal illnesses felt, before they died? A calm acceptance of their end?\n\nNo, probably not. For one, there was no air whooshing past them as they fell. Or the grim assurance that this was what they chose. Theirs was a fate thrust upon them, and those that did accepted it. My situation was completely different, and I had no right to compare them. Not even if our emotions were superficially the same.\n\nBecause, I knew what I was getting into when I stared at the ground below, palms sweaty and heart hammering in my chest. I surrendered control the instant I stepped off. And that, now that I thought about it, was probably where my peace came from. How fitting, that I would find my answer right before the end.\n\nAnd as the ground grew closer, I reached behind me and pulled the cord, unleashing my parachute, to touch down softly and without harm.\n", "Years I had plotted this, I planed it out down to the last millisecond. I knew exactly where I would be, every finger, every toe, every hair on my head in place. Every inch of skin covered. No shoes, clean socks. \nThere was no one to know that I saw him, no one even knew what he had done but me. No way to connect the dots. \nI waited from age nine to now, nearly twenty three... I wanted to do it with my own hands. Just as he had done to my mother. Just as he had done to my father. \n \nBut somehow, it was not what I had pictured. No it wasn't right yet. Everything was in place, everything was going as planned. Exactly as planed, not a strand was not falling exactly into place. Except that I remembered the idea seaming more... Liberating. Yet I felt nothing as I stepped silently into his room. \nSurely there was something more to be gotten out of this. Something more than just his death? \nWhat would it do... He would be dead, that was all... The fear my mother faced, the torture of my father. He would not have any of that. He would be free of his crimes rather. There was no justice in a peaceful death for this man. Instead.... I would leave him with a scar for now.... Something to haunt him when he woke, unsure of how he got it. That would be nice. I could tell him later how I chose to make his life hell instead of killing him while he slept. \nI made a cut.... From his earlobe, down his cheek to his chin. Deep enough to be sure there was a scar for a while to come. He had taken a sleeping powder not very long ago, and the knife was sharpened so nicely.... It wouldn't feel like anything right away. He groaned in pain, and rolled over but did not fully awake. His blood staining his sheets. \n \nI didn't waste any time leaving. It was a long walk home, and I wanted to be no where near the house when morning came. No.... I didn't want to be anywhere near the house for a long time... Not until I had a better plan. But I would return, and when I did... That man was going to wish he had killed the 'sleeping' child that night so many years ago.", "She grew up listening to punk rock with black extensions in her hair. She went to gigs and drank and smoke. She dated douchebags who weren't worth her time and her best friend was a druggie. She lived in a rundown shack with her Mom and brother. They ate cereal for breakfast, fast food for lunch, and cereal for dinner. She was thin and pale, her straw-like hair falling past her chest and thinning. There wasn't much for her and she knew it. \n\nEvery morning she would walk to work, a slow pace as she took in the trees and the houses and the roads. She would skip along the curb and touch the leaves on the trees. She would smile at people and they would ignore her, but she didn't mind. She would go about her day stacking shelves and folding paper, then head home.\n\nIt was not what she had pictured, but it was her life." ]	3
	[WP] In the future, anyone can now sign up for a procedure that will selectively erase memories, so that they can relive anything they want to for the "first time". All is well until the bizarre side effects of altering memory begin to manifest...	[ "The first thing you have to understand, of course, is that we couldn't achieve a full wipe.\n\nThe mind doesn't work that way, apparently - there will always be ghosting, there'll be fragments and pieces left over. Like overwriting an old tape too many times, wiped memories sometimes bleed through.\n\nWe know that now.\n\nThe program was originally funded by the government - wiping a detainee repeatedly meant they could keep trying different interrogation techniques until they found one that worked, and start with a 'fresh' person each time. How long would it take to break someone with waterboarding? With emotional distress? Every person has different levels of willpower, but for the first time testing different interrogation methods had become viable.\n\nTest subject #3 was considered one of the strongest ones - he'd lasted longer than any other test subject in almost every form of interrogation. We'd been testing him for several weeks when the first anomaly occured.\n\n\"Morning, Dr. Richards,\" he'd said. \n\nWe were forced to shut the experiment down for the day and wipe him immediately - we stopped using the same interrogator more than once.\n\nTwo months later, the next anomaly occured. \n\nFive months after we'd first brought him in, the interrogator walked out - and with him came the test subject. \n\nWhere is he now? I don't know. I promise.\n\n...Trust me, no amount of interrogation is going to change that.", "\"What do you mean, 'No one has signed up?'\" a crisp, deadly voice spoke out of a speakerphone, \"The investors poured billions into this technology, millions into advertising alone, we've finally broken through the political roadblocks, and you're saying that *no one is interested?\"\n\n\"Well,\" a small, spineless voice responded, \"sir, uhm, a-a-a few people have stopped by, but they all uhm, change-changed their minds, sir.\" \n\nThe speakerphone was silent, faintly leaking the soft crackle of an unsure connection, \"This is a joke isn't it? You're playing me for a fool and everything is fine! Right? There's no other explanation for this.\"\n\n\"Sir, I'm no-\"\n\n\"Yes that's it! That's what's happening, I'm not a failure! There is no problem, because if there was, by God I think I'd just have to slit someone's throat* until that problem-\"\n\nA man walked through the sliding glass doors of the lobby, the receptionist quickly perked up, \"Sir, I'll have to call you back.\"\n\n\"Don't you dare hang up on-\" the receptionist tapped a button, savoring the brief moment of silence, before the newcomer, flushed red stormed his way toward the front desk. He took a look at a small engraved placard in front of the receptionist.\n\n\"Michael, is it?\" The man accused.\n\nMichael the receptionist smiled and nodded, as was his job, \"Yes sir, welcome to Memorex, how may I assist you?\" \n\n\"Yeah, cut the shit, I want a refund,\" The man made a very convincing angry face, his eyes were even bloodshot. Michael couldn't tell if that was a result of anger or tears, \"Hey asshole, are you listening to me?\" Michael decided on anger.\n\n\"Uh-um, yes sir, I heard you, a refund? Sir I don't believe you have paid... or even tried our service yet. You may be looking for a different-\"\n\n\"Oh do not pull this bullshit on me, I was the first one in line this morning, you guys made a big fucking deal about it, pulled out cameras and handshakes and all that shit. I payed ten thousand dollars for your 'procedure,' I was so excited when I got home it took me four hours to realize that I could still fucking remember my daughter.\" The man's voice faltered, he raised a hand to his mouth, stifling an exasperated cough, his eyes began to water.\n\nMichael said nothing during the tirade, and was hoping that the man would continue until closing time, he didn't want to respond, but kept his supervisors in mind, \"Sir, if you'd like to forget about something, our service is very-\"\n\n\"Weren't you listening? I already tried that, it didn't work, I'm not going to shovel more cash at you people so just give me my money back and I'll blast my fucking brains out at home!\"\n\n\"Sir, you didn't-\"\n\n\"Yes I did! Jerry Fassbender, I was the first one in line! Just look it up! You went through the entire process with me, Dr. Shartsis performed the procedure, she said I was 'archived' or some shit, so just look me up!\" Jerry was clearly becoming more agitated, Michael worked customer service for a dozen other high profile companies. Now was the time he'd normally call security, but Jerry for some untouched reason seemed less crazy, and more desperate. Michael decided to humor him.\n\n\"Okay, Jerry. Let's just calm down, okay? We'll get this sorted out.\" Michael glanced down striking his keyboard with automaton efficiency, bringing up the so-far unused memory archive, only to be used to recover memories in the event of a refund situation, of course, there wouldn't be a Jerry Fassbender in the archive, no one would- \"What the fuck?\" Michael's face burst with embarrassment at having cursed in front of a customer, but the feeling soon left him as awe and confusion took over. The archive was full. Not to capacity of course, but it was full nonetheless, a table of names, times, and brief memory descriptions stretched to the bottom of the monitor. \"Page 1 of 20\" it boasted at the bottom. Michael balked at it, that would've been over six hundred people, and the Memory Center had only been open for five hours. At the top of the list, highlighted a light blue, was Jerry Fassbender, 7:01 am, death of daughter. \n\nJerry grabbed the monitor and spun it toward himself, \"See, that's me you fuckwad, now give me my money back.\" Jerry pushed it back toward Michael, almost tipping it over, \"You said, 'satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.' Well guess what? I'm not satisfied.\" \n\nMichael stared inwardly, agape and addled. Some encroaching sense of dread lingered at the forefront of his brain. His eyes glazed over before Michael stared Jerry down, Michael reached under the counter and pushed a red button.\n\n\"Security please.\"\n\n", "Recording\n\nThe young woman stares at the camera, her eyes red. \n\n“To whoever may be watching this – if there is even anyone left who can watch this – I think – I think something really bad happened?” she begins hesitantly. “Someone needs to know what we’ve done.”\n\n“Yes, I remember now. Removing – no, it was erasing, we called it erasing. If you had a – uh, what’s the word – a memory, you wanted to relive, you could. It was too expensive for me to try, but there was this contest on the radio. I think – there was a contest – yeah, a contest. On the – on the –,” she mumbles. \n\n“My father died when I was young. His name was George, and he was a sweet man. We used to go to the pond and feed the – they’re not chickens, but they’re like chickens – um, ducks – right, ducks. I’m sorry, I don’t want this to be so short, but I don’t think I have much time. I only used it the once, and I thought maybe I’d – maybe it wouldn’t happen to me.”\n\n\"It was popular, and it took a while to notice anything. Everyone forgets things, right? It’s easy to convince yourself that nothing is wrong. But you can’t play with your – um,” she taps her cheek. “Um – what was I saying? Why is that light blinking? I don’t remember – uh. But this was important! I know that – I know that.”\n\n“It’s – right, it’s just that I don’t know what I’m doing here. Do you know where my Dad is? He likes to take me to see the – see the –“\n\nRecording ends\n", "My name is Anthony.\n\nIf my calculations are correct, this is going to be my last message. \n\nPlease, for the sake of all humanity, keep this recording safe. \n\nCough\n\nForgetting is defined as the failure to remember something. Forgetting is not a selective process, but a more involuntary one. We cannot chose to forget an event, a name, a face. We can only try to learn more and by doing so, push out old memories with new ones. However, traumatic experiences, painful memories, and lingering thoughts often remain, even as we try to forget them. They seemed to be doomed to stay with us forever. \n\nThat was, until we created 'Wiping'. \n\nIt began after we were able to isolate the latent cause of Alzheimers, effectively curing the damned thing. When we had the genome isolated, some researchers wondered whether or not we could reverse engineer it to 'erase' certain memories. If it was possible, we could effectively cure PTSD, survivor's guilt, and a multitude of other mental diseases. Not only would we be able to help those who couldn't remember, but those who also could never forget. We already had the Nobel Peace Prize within our grasp, but with this information we were guaranteed to win. Our names would go down in history as some of the greatest scientists to have ever lived. \n\nAnd they did. But not like we planned. Our initial tests were better than we could have ever hoped for. We exposed rats to a stimuli that would induce fear. We would show them a color and upon showing them we would play a sound of a predator. Over time they learned to fear just a color. No sound had to be played. The next step would prove to be the most drastic one. Implant the genetic strain in a controlled dosage and then re-apply the stimuli. \n\nAnd by God, it worked. When the colors were shown, they didn't respond. It was like the whole experiment never happened. More tests were done, and the same results came up. We had managed to replicate the results over and over and over again. After this, the next step was to begin testing with human subjects. It was a leap that not many were willing to take, and understandably so. If something were to go wrong, we could have lost all of our credibility, funding, and any chance at continuing on in the field of medicine.\n\nIn the end there were only 13 of us. We submitted our more than substantial animal results and applied for the ability to perform a human trial. After a month of debating, we were given the green light to move on with human testing. Our first subject was a veteran who had seen most of his squad blow up via an IED while he was taking a leak. He was plagued with inescapable thoughts of suicide, guilt, and depression. He mentioned that he was explicitly haunted by his Sargent, who survived the initial blast, but was stuck inside the jeep while it burned. The screams that went on while he was burned alive... Even I cannot fathom how terrifying this must have been for him. \n\nHe went through testing and we found that he was highly susceptible to any explosion, the smell of gasoline, and screaming. With our three stimuli marked, we proceeded with the treatment. We summed up a dosage and put our little test to work. \n\nAfter he had awoken, we gave him time to readjust to his surroundings. We asked him a few basic questions, and the results were... remarkable. He was able to remember that he served in the Military, remembers what lead up to the event, what occurred after the event and showed no response to any of the stimuli. Even when given the information that occurred during the event, he reacted without any major side effects. \n\nAfter initial testing we kept him for a monitoring period. Regular motor skills along with simple memory tests were done and he performed great. Furthermore, his memory actually improved compared to his pre-wipe test results. He said he no longer felt anxious and that all he could remember of prior anxiety or paranoia was very vague. He described that it felt like 'it was as if I dreamt it all'. After his monitoring period was over he was sent off and thanked for his participation. \n\nThe moment those doors closed behind him, the lab erupted into a celebration that would make a frat party look like a toddler's 3rd birthday party. We managed to actually cure PTSD. We had set a new precedent in psychopharmacology. We filed for another test subject, and another, and another. All with the same results. We did it. We fucking did it.\n\nIt wasn't long after when we were finally writing books on the process, perfecting the procedure, and spreading it world wide. We became celebrities among the medical world. We received countless awards, spoke at multiple lectures, and had more magazine articles than I could possibly imagine. \n\nBut then, the general public caught wind of it.\n\nThe public argued that the procedure be allowed for anyone who wanted to forget something. Amongst our bliss, we allowed for the procedure to go public. Anyone who had the money could forget a moment that they wanted to. Be it a regretful decision, a movie they wanted to watch over again, a song, people were having their memories wiped. \n\nSome people claimed it was a near religious experience. That it was like being born again. At one point a doctor who could wipe a memory was more in demand than a surgeon who had multiple college degrees. Everyone was getting wipes, and some people were getting multiple wipes. At first, it was seemingly harmless. No side effects from multiple wipes, or large wipes seemed to be appearing. \n\nUntil yesterday. \n\nYesterday, our first test subject returned. The Vet. He complained about migraines. Apparently, he had suddenly started suffering minor migraines. We wondered if this was just a side effect or something completely unrelated. We started testing. At first, all seemed normal. However, out of curiosity, we decided to see how he would react to the original stimuli that plagued him. \n\nJames... James sat him down and began testing. Upon the first stimuli, he had a spike in blood pressure. We tried to warn James to stop but something wasn't right. The mic was broken or some God damned other reason and... it just... Fucking hell.. The blood was everywhere. He was torn apart at the limbs, and... Christ....\n\nThe subject screamed that he could still hear the gurgled cries of his sergeant as he burned alive. And the only way to stop it was with blood. \n\nWe had to kill him. We couldn't tell anybody anything about this.\n\nWe apparently awakened some sort of primal response. Something that we managed to keep hidden deep within our brain. Something that was supposed to remain forgotten. Something that was never supposed to se the light of day. \n\nRage does not even touch the sort of description of what I had just witnessed. What I saw was inhuman... \n\nWe immediately set upon figuring out what caused this when we got a phone call from a local hospital. People were complaining of migraines in mass numbers. All of which were people who were wiped. And then we got another call.. and another....\n\nIt wasn't longer than an hour later when the air raid sirens went off. Marshall law was declared. \n\n\nI can hear the screams from outside. It's madness. \n\n\n I'm sorry I did this. We played God... and we created hell. \n\nIf I learned anything, it is this: Some things were meant to be remembered. Other things are meant to be forgotten and lost to time.\n\nscreams can be heard in the background\n\nThe door will only hold for a couple more moments. I don't know exactly how long, but...\n\nThe screams grow louder \n\nGod damnit, they're moving faster than I expected\n\nwood splintering and cracking can be heard. Multiple footsteps can now be heard\n\nSara, I love you. Stay safe. Please forg-\n\n\nBLOOD\n\nNO! STAY AWAY!!! NO!! NOO! NOOOOOOO!!!!!\n\nA gurgle can be heard along with tearing and rustling\n\nclick\n\n\n\n" ]	4
	[WP]A person finds a running stop watch and stops it.	[ "\"Hm.\" I picked up the watch. It was a dinky little thing, cheap yellow plastic but clearly well-loved - although the strap had broken, it had been repaired with string.\n\nI noticed that the stop watch function was running. Didn't that run down the battery faster? I should probably stop it before I turned it in to the Lost & Found, so that it didn't die entirely before it's owner came looking for it. I pushed the large, red, inviting button on watch's side.\n\nEverything stopped - the tweeting of the birds in the trees, the playful hooting of the monkeys in their enclosure, the babbling of the nearby bushes, the blood rushing through my veins, the thoughts in my head, time itself. I didn't even notice - how could I, with not time to notice it in?\n\nAfter a timeless moment passed, things began to happen again. The rising numbers vanished from the watch and its face went blank as I pressed the button. I realized, with a twinge of disappointment, that I had been too late - the battery had died.", "You think it's a joke really. A stopwatch, a plasticy black digital stopwatch with 24 digital digits in a row. And it was running. Practical joke, so I clicked the stop.\n\n13876472894:03:05:14:35:20.245.\n\nThe light dropped out of the world, the world below me vanished, and I was in an indefinite void, a black space without air nor gravity, unable to see anything but myself and this watch in my hand lit by a light I could not source.\n\n*Hello. I was wondering when someone would find that.\n\n\"What, who is this, what is this?\"\n\nOh, it's just the timer. It's a bit backwards, instead of reacting to something else stopping, it stops something else.\n\n\"Wait, who are you, what stopped, WHAT JUST HAPPENED.\"\n\nThe universe of course. You now exist outside of space and time. I mean, this one was quite interesting, but we can simply try again. Look, have a go, you'll get the hang of omni-ness quickly enough.\n\nI looked at my hand, confused and bewildered.\n\nOh, you're not actually ready for this. I thought you were a different you, from a different time, omni-ness can be slightly confusing. Still, you might as well have a go, it's not like there are any consequences from it out here.\n\n\"Are you telling me this stopwatch controlls universes, and the person who starts it is... is god?\"\n\nWhatever. I had stopped this watch on a lark, so I clicked reset, then, with a final linear thought of my singular conciousness, I clicked start.\n\n\"Let there light*\"", "The first thing I noticed was the noise. Well, to be more precise, I noticed the lack of noise. You never really appreciate all of the background sounds going on around you at any given moment, especially outdoors. Water running along a stream, wind through the leaves, bugs and birds and people laughing in the distance. Even the crunch of grass and dirt under my feet. All of it gone in the instant I pressed that button.\n\nI had just been taking one of my regular weekend walks along the park trails. The place is pretty expansive, and I’m always finding new paths to explore. I was following one I had discovered fairly far from the regular, more heavily used paths when I found it. It was a tiny, bright gleam that caught my eye. A thin beam of sunlight breaking through the canopy overhead reflected off of a small, digital stopwatch with a silver case. It had been running a very long time, from the looks of it. I didn’t see any clue to how it had gotten there, maybe someone was timing their hike or run and dropped it. Without a second thought, almost by reflex, I hit the button to make the timer stop. I had no idea the world would stop along with it.\n\nAs I said, the first thing I noticed was the creepy complete lack of noise. Apart from giving me a general sense of unease, I didn’t think much about it. I just kept on my walk, my steps gone as silent as the rest of the forest. I felt that something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure until I made it back to the main trail. It was a typical busy weekend in the park. Joggers, hikers, a few people on bicycles, others walking their dogs or pushing a stroller. In a clearing some surfer types were throwing a Frisbee. The only thing different is that everyone was standing stock still.\n\nI thought it was some weird practical joke, or that I walked into one of those flash mobs. I stood around for a while, growing more and more uncomfortable. Nobody moved a muscle. I walked over to a group of people who were out walking together, looked to be in their mid-20s. I tried waving my hand in front of their face, poking them, slaps that grew progressively harder. No reaction at all. In a fit of juvenile humor combined with frustration I flipped up the skirt of the nearest girl. Not only did they remain frozen, the back of the skirt was now stuck up in the air, where I had left it. A slow smile spread over my face. I had stopped time.\n\nI took out the stopwatch and looked it over. I couldn’t see any significant markings. Aside from the nice silver casing, it appeared to be completely ordinary. However, there was nothing else I could think of that might have caused the current bizarre situation, and I suddenly remembered that everything went quiet as soon as I pressed the button. The possibilities that filled my mind were endless.\n\nI spent some time experimenting with the people in the park, and found I could move them like mannequins. I put some people in funny positions, others in fairly awkward ones. I moved the Frisbee that one of the surfers was about to catch so it was flying right towards his face. Once I decided that I had put enough mischief in motion, I moved away enough that no one would blame me, but not so far that I would miss out on any of the action. Carefully I took out the stopwatch and pressed the button.\n\nNothing happened.\n\nI furrowed my brow and tried the button two more times. Still nothing. I looked at the stopwatch a little more closely. Confusion turned to worry, then to fear, then outright panic. I had only glanced at the time on the watch for a split second when I picked it up. If I had been paying more attention, I might have noticed that the elapsed time was exactly the amount of time I had been alive." ]	3
	[WP] A man decided to have his favorite cereal for breakfast. What happened next will fill you with horror.	[ "In went the cereal. Lifting the milk up so that it fell into the bowl just like in the ads. John couldn't wait, The bowl contained the sweet taste of childhood and it was all his. His kids were not around to bury their faces in the bowl or nag for a refill. He had the place to himself for the next few days.\n\nThe bowl now half empty and his stomach half full. He eagerly put a mouthful. Something didn't feel right as John swallowed the the mouthful. Trying to get up the sensation grew. Not being able to breathe was frighting. Grabbing the phone to call for help. He was scared and out of air\n\nThe phone fell to the floor", "It was a awesome day, another day to look forward to; aswell as another day to be joyful of the wonderful things given to me in life. Thanks to yesterdays preperation for this awesome day, I took on my favorite shirt and jeans, cause today was the test day of my exam and I knew I was gonna ace it. I knew it. I've studied hard for this course and I am gonna ace it, finish college and then find an awesome job as a dentist!\n\nI grinned hard and took a five deep breaths with my eyes closed. \nAnother awesome day. I smiled at myself in the mirror; checked myself out a little while I thrust the hip forward and took a long look at my firm butt. \n\"Looking god handsome!\" \nI bit down on my cheek slightly as the end of my morning ritual. Felt awfully lose somehow, more than usual atleast... \nAw well, no biggie. I took long strides out and into the kitchen, where I took my only bowl and filled it up with my favorite cereal, cornflakes, poured it into the big bowl filling it way to the top. The box with the godlike contents was put back into the cabinet and I made my way to the fridge for the second ingredient; Milk. \nOn the first look, I couldn't find any... As I rummaged through the fridge with no show of success, I grew to be more and more desperate as I was looking franatically. Was the milk gone? I asked myself. Couldn't be, I knew I bought one liter carton two days ago... \nOk. Focus. Where can I have put it?... What did I do yesterday... Now I remember! I made pancakes yesterdays, that means that it should be behind me. Lo and behold, there it was right infront of me. The missing carton of milk. Though it had been out of the fridge the whole night... \nI took a glass from the small shelf above me and put it down; pouring a few centileters of milk. I found no clumps in it, it smelled fresh aswell... \nI poured it into the cereal and took a seat at my table. \n\nMy spoon dug into the cereal and milk, still crunching as I slide through it and all the way to the bottom, then took what I managed to dig up and put it in my mouth and bit down hard. \nCrunching and smiling, I ate the joyous cereal. \nHuh... There was something stopping me from being able to bite all the way down. I rummaged through my mouth with a finger in there and found nothing... Must have been an illusion. I kept biting on and felt something dig hard into my mouth and throat. Yelping in pain, I spat out the contents in my mouth to find something white and sparkly... \nWas that... A tooth of mine? \nI closed my eyes and coughed hard thrice due to the pain in my throat; I heard something small smatter onto the table. I realized now that my mouth was numb, it had been so the entire morning and I hadn't noticed. What had happened? \nI went to the mirror to check the damage and opened up my mouth; I was met with a horrifying image. My teeth were leaning in all kinds of directions, some with half visible roots and others holding onto dear life in their small canals, one by one they were pushed out slowly and smattered onto the sink; I grabbed a small pocket mirror and held it in my mouth, leaning to get a good angle to see what was going on. Another tooth fell out, onto the mirror and into the sink; making a loud noise lost it's strength as the velocity decreased; slowly waiting for it's doom that was the drain. \nBut inside that mouth, in the small pockets, I saw nothing but pink. There was no blood, no nothing. What had just happened?\n\nMy throat hurt once more and I coughed once more, bitting down slightly onto the mirror. I coughed again and again. It only hurt more and more as I coughed, it didn't seem to be willing to stop. Then I puked; mostly a liqiud green fluid with no whatsoever contents but the small, white shapes at the bottom of it." ]	2
	[WP] Two sidekicks (one good, the other evil) find common ground in a shared hobby.	[ "The door shut behind me before I could catch it and let it close silently. I wince as it slams. Normally there are a few people in. Not loads, but still, a few. More than this, anyway.\n\nIt's just me and him now. \n\nI shouldn't have come in late, I think. I watch as his cape swishes around and he looks at me through those eyeholes in the spandex. \n\nThe Wibblewonker. I had no idea he played ping-pong, let alone lived in this part of the city. Our 'teachers' usually pay little mind to what we do once they get into the heat of it, (admittedly, Slamjam can get quite caught up in his heroism) which leaves us somewhat unsure as to what we are even there for when we start fighting. Even while fighting, there are these glimpses of him shaking slightly, looking toward the two masters duke it out for an example, before charging at me again, with renewed principle.\n\nAnd now, that same look.. but with no masters in sight. I slowly, never taking my eyes off of his, reach into my bag, zip it open and pull out my paddle. I show it in an almost offering motion, so he gets the message; I'm just here for ping-pong. He relaxes. I think.\n\nThen I notice it. He tries to hide it but it's too late. He has a paddle too. Could it be..? No. No way. Could it?\n\nBefore I know what's happened, it's coming towards me. A blur. A throwing star?! My instincts kick in, and I smack the paddle into it, it bounces. Bounces? What the hell is going on?\n\nI focus, using my training and breathing slowly, deeply. My God. I realize. It's a ball. There's nothing else for it. I twirl my paddle and bend my knees, lowering my center of gravity. I walk up to the table, like a cowboy through saloon doors. Like that square off of ours in the bar on saloon night last Thursday.\n\nGame on.\n\n", "Dick had just moved back to Gotham to assist Bruce Wayne a couple of days ago, but he already needed some time away from him. Even in the expanse of the manor it was stifling being around him. Alfred did his best as always but Bruce’s personality was overwhelming. Dick owed him a lot, but they were grown apart, and if it wasn’t for this new mystery in Gotham, Dick would have packed up and moved back to Bludhaven. \n\n\n*\n\n\nAn hour later, Dick was nosing around a small hobby shop in East Gotham, eyeing the RC Helicopters. He had some experience with controlling remote devices from ‘batarangs’ to ‘batmobiles’, but never really delved into them.\n\n“Hey Mr. McBroody, watcha lookin at so seriously?” chirped a thick accented voice from behind Dick.\n\n“I’m sorry?” Greyson turned around and looked at the slip of a blond that was staring at him. She had bright blue eyes and a cheery demeanor. \n\n“Yur blockin the way tall guy.” The lady pushed past him and grabbed an odd looking motor, frowning as she flipped it over to reveal the price.\n\n“Do you work with RC stuff?”\n\n“Yeah, ‘ad a friend that made all sorts of toys. Got interested while messin’ with ‘em. He can make anything really, but I just stick with ‘copters.”\n\n“How do you get started?” Dick asked, becoming more interested as he eyed various kits and accessories around the store.\n\n“For a new guy like you? Get one of those all en one kits. Easy. Pros will laugh at cha, but don’t mind em. Gotta start small, make mistakes, blow stuff up.” Her eyes lit up at the end. Dick had to admit her enthusiasm was contagious.\n\n“Thanks Mrs.?” He wasn’t able to catch her name as she made her purchase and skipped out the door. Dick Greyson picked up one of the quad-copter kits that could hook up to his phone and headed back to Wayne Manor.\n\n\n\n“Hmm, analyzing this sample shows trace amounts of Cyanide, but it wasn’t what killed the mafia fence.” Mused Batman to mostly himself.\n\n“Get some rest Bruce. If the pattern holds anywhere close, we won’t see anything for another week.” Dick commented, pulling off his mask and taking off his green gloves. “I forgot how much of a pain this costume was to take off.”\n\n“You designed it, Dick.”\n\n“Yeah, I was a kid. I also wanted to be an Astronaut Cowboy if you recall.”\n\n“You spent a week asking if I could build a Bat-Rocket. Where are you going?”\n\n“Not all of us can spend our off time running Multi-Billion Dollar Corporations when not on patrol.” Dick quickly changed and went to his small workroom. He had lovingly spent the last month learning how to fly and work on his quadracopter XXL (iFruit) edition. It was cheesy, but fun. He had planned to hit Elmwood Park in South Gotham to try flying it somewhere besides Wayne Manor.\n\nIt took Dick a little longer than he thought to reach the park. Anymore he took it easy when driving when not in his Robin persona. He felt like a visitor in Gotham even though he spent so much of his childhood here. He pulled out his large case and began setting up his RC Copter. \n\n“Ey! Its Mr. McBroody serious face!” a familiar voice came from behind.\n\n“Hi, I took your advice…Mrs..”\n\n“Harley, everyone calls me Harley.” Dick had a trained pokerface, Bruce Wayne made sure with all that training. But it took everything Dick had not to lose his composure. She made a puzzled face as he stared at her.\n\n“Do I have something in my teeth?”\n\n“Sorry Harley, I’m Dick.”\n\n“You ain’t a dick, just too serious.”\n\n“I mean my name is Dick.”\n\n“Oh wow. Really? I’m sorry. Well lets see you fly Mr. McBroody.”\n\nDick not-so-forcefully laughed at the comment and finished setting up his RC Copter. He began running through his options. Harley was out here and unaware he was Robin, he knew his identity wasn’t compromised. He didn’t think she was out on parole, but she wasn’t doing anything illegal…yet.\n\nThe quadra-copter took off less than gracefully, but it was soon flying around easily. He did some laps around various trees and playground pieces. After a few minutes, Dick brought his machine for a smooth landing.\n\n“I’m impressed. For a clunky beginner’s RC you flew well.”\n\n“Can I see your RC?” Dick suggested, hoping to get a look at her RC copter. Perhaps he could get a clue as to why she was out here.\n\n“Sure!” Harley bounced off to her things, which included a large purple trunk. After popping the trunk open she produced a large bright blue and yellow RC helicopter. She grew a giant, genuine smile.\n\n“It’s a repica of a Eurocopter EC120! I even put little passengers inside.” In the cockpit were a couple of little people, dressed like news reporters. “I added one of those neat camrahs to the bottom so I can make movies. I also put one of these new engines inside to give it a big boost in lift.”\n\nDick watched as she went on about the specs of her RC Copter. She then gave a full flight demonstration. The helicopter was graceful and fast. It hovered around the park and did playful tricks around the trees and even startled some birds that had come to rest near the monkey bars. As Harley landed her helicopter her phone began to chime with the ringtone, “Bananaphone.” She frowned deeply as she answered.\n\n“What can I do for you Mistah J?” “Yeah.” “No…” “Well I….” “If I could..” “I understand I will meet ya at the jeweler’s.”\nShe hung up and saw Dick’s look of concern. Oh don’t worry Mr. McBroody. He is just has an overwhelming personality. She smiled a little. I do this to get away for a little while. Everyone needs a hobby. Harley quickly began to pack up her things and run off.\n\nHe frowned while watching her leave. Then he thought for a moment about her comment about the jeweler’s. Dick grabbed a specialized phone from his pocket. “This is Robin. I know where the cyanide is coming from and …” he paused, “the Joker is involved.”\n\n**\n\n[Could not figure out how I wanted to end this so I left off here. Posting because I worked on it but may come back if I figure out how I want this end/continue]\n" ]	2
	[WP] You discover the meaning of life	[ "I just stood there, in the middle of the road - lost - although I could clearly see the directions above me.\n\nThis morning I got up and readied for school, and then I woke up out here. I can't even imagine how I got here! It's nowhere near home, do i even have a home anymore?\n\nI felt sick. Imagining how horrible it must be dying on earth, and then being eaten just as soon as our souls venture on.\n\nThe world, a breeding ground for people. Just for something to eat our souls as soon as we depart, feeding on the knowledge that we acquired.\nThe dimwitted goes free, being inferior and not as quenching as the studied class.", "\"An Egg?\"\n\nA looked to the old man for answers. I knew he liked to speak in parables, but this was just ridiculous. \n\n\"Yep. An Egg.\" He turned around and began going through some papers, seemingly uninterested.\n\nI sat there for a moment, unsure how to proceed. After all, I didn't want to be rude a land myself an eternity of hellfire. I looked once more back down at the egg. \n\n\"What does it mean?\" I blurted out, unable to contain my curiosity any longer. \n\nHe sighed, as if i was just another stack of paperwork that had been planted on his desk. He pinched the bridge of his nose, preparing to divulge to me the secret of the universe as if it was common sense.\n\n\"Do you care about that egg?\"\n\nI paused, mulling over the question. \"Not particularly.\"\n\n\"Do you have any idea whether it is going to hatch or not?\"\n\nI again paused, this time observing the features of the egg. It did seem to have a more wild complexion, seeming almost more genuine than the eggs that laid on my plate beside my bacon in the morning, not that I was an egg expert or anything.\n\n\"I really couldn't say.\"\n\n\"Would you mind putting back on the pillow?\"\n\nI went over to put it on the pillow like he had asked, but he gestured for me to stop. \n\n\"Do you see now?\" he questioned, studying my puzzled expression. \"You hold something with the potential for life. Whether it will or will not actually develop isn't something you know or care about. When I first gave you the egg, you were intrigued, but now you were prepared to put it back and forget about it. You were going to put it back on the pillow, whether it actually hatched or not of no consequence to you. Whether life emerged from that egg or not, you wouldn't know for sure until you heard a chirping chick sitting in it's eggshell.\"\n\nI looked at him, finally beginning to grasp what he had been implying this whole time. \n\n\"One day I made an egg, you call it Earth. And now, here we are.\"\n\n\"I.... I see.\" " ]	2
	[wp] Love can now be harnessed as powerful, clean energy source, but it's used up and can't be replaced. Write a story about a mother selling her love to save her child.	[ "\"It's ok, sweetheart,\" the pleasant nurse said, as I squirmed in my seat. It was just a preliminary test, I knew, but I was still nervous. I mean what would I be like without it? How would I change?\n\n\"Now imagine,\" she said, her voice gentle and soothing, \"something that you love.\"\n\n I pictured my son, Bradley. I held the image in my mind of his radiant smiling face. His golden hair illuminated in the sunlight. His shining blue eyes. His warm laugh that filled the air, my ears, and my heart. My perfect, beautiful little boy. \n\nI heard the beep of monitors as I continued to hold the picture in my mind. Bradley, my lovely, amazing son. \n\n\"Perfect, ma'm. Now, we'll just need to run some tests, and then we'll get back to you. It shouldn't take long. Just read a magazine, and then we should be good to go.\"\n\nI seated myself on a stiff sofa in a waiting room full of people, mostly those in their thirties and up. I was one of the younger patrons.\n\nNow that Bradley was ready for school, well, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford it. However, there was this program. Bradley would be sent to one of the best schools for free and be raised by loving foster parents. All I had to do was donate my love to the government. It would mean, however, I would never see him again.\n\nI had grappled with the decision for months. Shouldn't I be there for him? After all, I was his mother. At the same time, he could be given a better life, much better than the life he had with a single mother. A young, single mother. That was the worst situation of all. In the end, I felt there was no choice. This is what I had to do. \n\nI sat there thinking of my son. Trying to relive all our moments together. Feel all the joy I had felt with him. All the hugs and kisses. Every boo-boo and tear shed. It would all be meaningless soon enough.\n\nAfter a time, what felt like entirely too soon, I was called back into an examine room. This would be it. This would be the end of Bradley. \n\nIt was like he was dying, but I knew he was only dying in my heart. That he would be out there somewhere, happy. Maybe he would even be able to remember me, remember the sacrifice I had made to give him a good life.\n\nElectrodes were attached to my head. Love is said to be created in the heart, but it's actually from the brain. A needle was put into a vein on the inside of my elbow to collect hormones in my bloodstream. It seemed everything was prepared quickly while I said good-bye to Bradley.\n\n\"Now take a deep breath and think of someone you love,\" a man instructed. He was not nearly as friendly as the woman nurse from earlier, but I guess he didn't need to be. I would be totally transformed soon enough.\n\nI closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, and thought only of Bradley. Of making blanket forts together. Searching the closet for monsters together. Baking cookies together. And before I knew it, it was all gone. \n\n", "Every day is the same. She goes to the hospital after work; three floors up, west wing. The secretary greets her by name now, with a polite smile that doesn't reach her eyes. She's admitted to the patient's ward, and goes to room 308, her sneakers squealing against the tiles as she turns to enter the room.\n\nEvery day, her smile is a little more forced. But she smiles; that's what she's supposed to do, though thankfully today she doesn't have to hold it. Her daughter, Holly, is asleep. Her chest rises and falls gently under the pastel green hospital gown as her mother lets the smile slide from her features. \n\nMiranda sinks into the chair by Holly's bedside, and studies her only child with distant interest.\n\nEvery day her daughter is a little less dear to her. The weak smiles, the thin fingers, the bald head and blue veins are not ugly yet, but getting there. The good news is, Miranda's fear of losing her is almost gone. The sense of duty stands out from the rest, driving her every Saturday to the power plant's donation center, where they hook her up to machines that inject ice into her veins and then suck her dry, leaving them hollow and her heart blank. As her daughter fights her second battle with leukemia, Miranda's love pays the hospital bills. She stays there, reading a book for as long as is expected of her, and then packs up and leaves. It isn't until she gets home that she remembers--she forgot to kiss Holly goodnight, for the first time in 14 years. She doesn't lose sleep over it.\n\nThe next day is Saturday, and now when she leaves the donation center there isn't a sense of regret. She barely notes this as she robotically makes her way back to the bus stop, from the bus stop to the metro, and from the metro to the hospital. Always the hospital.\n\nAgain, the secretary greets her and she flashes her visitor's badge to the guard standing in the doorway. She's walking down the hallway to room 308 when she passes a doctor and a nurse talking in low tones. They look up as she passes but she spares them no thought, turning in her squeaky shoes to enter Holly's room.\n\nShe opens the door, and pauses, the fake smile frozen on her face. Her brow furrows as she realizes that Holly's bed is empty. The absence is duly noted, but only hits her in that way--information received. Someone's hand comes to rest gently on her shoulder, and she turns to face the owner as the smile slips beyond her grasp.\n\nIt's the doctor, and her heart stutters once, faintly--an echo of dread. \n\n\"Your daughter is... she's gone,\" the doctor--Craft; Dr. Craft was his name. He looks at her with a breed of patience that hesitates, and Miranda wonders what he's waiting for.\n\n\"Oh.\" She blinks, and her hand slides off of the doorknob. \"Okay.\"", "> I loved my daughter very much. From the first moment I saw her, a tiny bundle of nerves and possibility, I was hooked. She was the white line of powder I woke every day for. She was the ecstasy I enjoyed in my youth, only brighter and more addicting. \n\n> But loving her hurts. She will never be normal. Not like those other little girls. I love her so much. I don't see people anymore, I don't have friends. I haven't slept with my husband in three years. How could I? Emma is always screaming or crying or sick. \n\n> She is a sick little girl and I am paralized. I can't do anything to help her. Sometimes she throws up blood. \n\n> I am terrible, but I almost want her to not wake up. Then I would be free to love her without pain. There is so much pain. There is nothing I can do but sit there, watching her waste my life. \n\n> No. I don't think you understand, at all. I love her more than anything in my life. I love her and it hurts me. I can't hate her, she's seven. How do you hate a child? So the more I love her the more I hate myself. \n\n> I didn't want this. I'm 28 and so stressed. This is my life for the next fifty years. Bill is gone all the time. He has someone else. I know this. He loves other people and I just want this to work. I want to forget. I want this love gone. I am trapped by it, imprisoned. I don't want to be a mother any longer. I want to be myself. I want to love myself. \n\n-----\n\n> Anna Beth is beautiful, fun, vivacious. She has this little freckle on the back of her hand that I like to kiss. Sometimes she reminds me of Amelia, but there is nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life with Anna Beth. If I could give it up? I don't think I could. Not unless everything changed. \n>\n> Sometimes it feels like Amelia is so caught up in her love for Emma that there isn't anything left for me. I never wanted a kid. Never. But Amelia said it would be the best thing to happen to us. Now she sits in that room with that... I know she is my daughter, but she is so sick, so stupid. I don't want anything to do with her. \n>\n> I used to make Amelia happy. I miss that. I really do. I would give up Anna Beth in a second if I could have Amelia back.\n\n------\n\n\"Do you remember writing that?\" Dr. Nowells asked the thin woman before her. Amelia Hancock was a poised woman, her face all clean lines and thin features. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a soft bun. She dressed like she knew what she wanted in life. \n\nNo one would have thought the words came from her. Even the picture that accompanied the testimony was foreign. One might remark, \"Is that her ill sister? A cousin perhaps.\" No one would say the painfully overweight woman was Amelia Hancock. No one would look at her soft smile, her young face, and think she had abandoned her child. She did not have the look of a mother. \n\n\"Yes. But I don't know why I would.\" Amelia adjusted her body in the soft chair. \"I was in a bad place. But now I feel so free. I tried to do my best by the girl and now she is with people who can truly take care of her. I was so prideful, trying to cure things so far above my paygrade.\"\n\n\"Do you ever visit the girl?\" Nowells asked. \n\nAmelia smiled. \"No. There really is no purpose. She doesn't know me and any love they say she feels for me was taken out when I signed the waver. She is able to be around people who enjoy her.\" \n\n\"You do not enjoy your daughter?\" Nowells asked. The doctor was fascinated by the changes in the woman. When the Swiss first suggest the project, it hadn't been met with a lot of controversy. In the early stages it had only made people uncomfortable. Now, with the right training, people like Amelia emerged from the negativity, to return to society as strong, passionate individuals. \n\n\"Legally she is not my daughter and I do not view our relationship as such,\" Amelia said carefully. She scratched the back of her neck and sighed, gently. \"I realize now Will was very right about children. Seeing myself like that... I wasted so much of my time with him. Will is the only person who deserves my love.\" \n\n", "\"Your mother loved you, Ty.\" \n\n\"You can't tell me that. You don't know.\"\n\n\"She did what she had to do to save you, she sacrificed the feelings that love endows us with in order to fulfill the actions love requires from us.\"\n\nTy looked at his grandmother, his deep brown eyes brimming.\n\n\"I know I was young when it happened, but I still remember her...from before. The way she looked at me, like I actually meant something to her. I remember her warm hugs, and how if I ever got hurt she used to show concern.... Then one day she came home, back when I was still sick. I thought I was happy to finally see her come home and look at me without tears filling her eyes, but... that was before I'd ever seen them empty. \n\n\"She always looked out for me, but only to make her investment worth it. Otherwise it was just her anger, her fear, her stone cold logic. She stopped living 20 years ago, not today. She died the day she sold her love, and I've been mourning her ever since.\"\n\nTears ran freely down Ty's face now. \n\n\"I just wish you'd said goodbye mom,\" he said, looking upwards, as if she lived in the sky, \"I love you.\"", "Despite years of warnings, it was too late now. Climate change was out of control, oil reserves had run out years ago, and renewable sources were too costly since their implementation was delayed so long. The cost of the infrastructure needed to support the world’s energy demands was just not feasible so the international community had imposed restrictions on everything from electricity to transportation to water usage. Coupled with the explosion in human population over the last few centuries, the world had written their own death certificate.\n\nThe call for volunteers had gone out after the discovery though. It seemed the last glimmer of hope amidst reports that life would be unsustainable in about a decade. A laboratory somewhere in Switzerland had figured out how to convert pure, human love into energy. The world rejoiced until it was explained what would become of those who volunteered their love. A human soul knows no limits to love. It is a boundless reservoir. But, when it is removed from its human host and converted, though it provides tremendous energy, it is not bottomless. The love drains from the human soul permanently leaving a husk in the place of a soul.\n\nThe love-less human becomes nothing more than skin, bones, muscle, blood…the physical matter that composes them. Without love they cannot feel, cannot have ambitions, cannot function.\n\nThere weren’t many volunteers.\n\nDespite huge amounts of controversy, many inmates who had been facing the death penalty had been subjected to the procedure, but the type of person who finds themselves on death row doesn’t have much love to convert. They served their purpose and their shells sit in prison now.\n\nAbby had heard about the coalition of mothers the other day on the news and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. Their founder and leader, a tall woman with a warm, round face had spoken of a group of about fifty women who had gathered to volunteer their love.\n\n“A mother’s love is the truest, purest, form of love there is. We are confident that our sacrifice will allow life to continue on earth well beyond the next decade and give the world time to find a better solution.” The woman had talked numbers as well, convincing the interviewer that the potential of a group of fifty to provide energy was very great. Each soul could power the entire globe on its own for about a month. “I can’t ask mothers to do what we are doing, but I know they are out there, and they will feel the same call we all do, to protect our children.”\n\nThat was how Abby had found herself in Switzerland with a group of over 6,000 parents who had come together to donate their love, not just mothers, but fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Scientists were estimating that their combined power would provide over 500 years of energy, enough time to drive the world to implement a more permanent energy source.\n\nAbby had signed the waiver asking that her body be destroyed after the procedure was completed. A life without love wasn’t a life. Her remains would be sent back to her family. As she was strapped into the chair, doctors surrounded her with tears in their eyes. They had witnessed 13 days of sacrifice and had a least another week to go before all the volunteers were done, their emotions were worn thin.\n\n“Will it hurt?” she asked, childishly.\n\n“Yes,” the doctor answered, “I’m sorry.”\n\nAbby tried to hold her daughter's face in her mind to get her through the pain. This was for her, so she would even have a chance to live into her twenties. But when the pain came, it wasn’t physical, it was emotional agony. As the love left her body, she was filled with emotions that love normally quelled: hatred, vengeance, anger…but suddenly even those were gone and there was nothing, only existence." ]	5
Inspired by [this] ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-meltzer/the-presidents-greatest-s_b_807547.html ) post on TIL (not sure how to link reddit posts on mobile so just linking the article).	[WP] As is custom, President Obama leaves a letter in the oval office for the next President, who then proceeds to destroy it. What does it say?	[ "\"Honey i just couldn't believe it.\" The president said to his wife at dinner.\n\n\"Oh you're just being a baby. I thought it was funny.\" The president scoffed. \"Have something to say dear?\" He immediately looked down.\n\n\"No, I just got something caught in my throat.\" He shoved some more spaghetti in his mouth.\n\n\"Mhm.\" She raised her eyebrow but let it slide. \"I just think you have a bad sense of humor.\"\n\nThe president looked up with disbelief written all over his face.\n\n\"I have a wonderful sense of humor? Why would you say that?\" He seemed shocked that his wife would insult his humor, she usually loved it.\n\n\"Oh I'm kidding darling, you make such a fuss about the smallest things that's all.\" She waved her hand as if to put the matter behind them.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"I said no. That note was not funny, scared the hell out of me\" His voice began to rise. \". I must have searched that office for hours trying to find that damne...\"\n\n\"Richard!\" His wife's voice cut him off before he could finish. \"You know I hate it when you swear.\" The president composed himself.\n\n\"I'm sorry my dear, I just don't find it very funny.\" She laughed and quickly covered her hand with her mouth when she saw his face. \n\n\"What was that for?\"\n\n\"You're doing it again!\" She had a small smile on her face.\n\n\"Doing what?\" He asked, with an angry edge to his voice.\n\n\"Over-reacting. You do it much to often darling.\" She poked her spaghetti with her fork. \"We should really fire the cook, my spaghetti is miles better than this.\"\n\nThe president looked behind his shoulder. The cook stood behind him, his face a bit shocked.\n\n\"I promise I will try harder next time.\" He nodded to the president and left the room.\n\n\"I don't even know why he was standing there? No one should be watching us while we eat.\"\n\n\"He was just seeing if we liked our meal, you didn't have to be so rude.\" The president continued to eat his spaghetti. He didn't want to say but he liked the cooks better.\n\n\"Did you ever find them?\" His wife asked through a mouthful of noodles.\n\n\"Find what?\" The president replied, feigning ignorance.\n\n\"Oh you know, the codes.\" His face was the picture of idiocy. \"The missile codes darling, I know you know what I'm talking about.\"\n\nThe president nodded swiftly.\n\n\"Right, those codes. The ones for the missiles, yes.\" He went back to his dinner.\n\n\"You don't have to be embarrassed about it darling. Barack was just having some fun.\"\n\nThe president stood up angrily.\n\n\"Saying you hid the missile codes in the White House, where anyone could find them by the way, is not a joke! That's a national threat! What if one of the janitors had found them and sold them on the black market?\" \n\n\"Oh they aren't smart enough to get into the black market.\" She wiped her mouth and stood up.\n\n\"And I had to bring the secret service in to search the place. They're still out there you know?\" His wife laughed and began to walk around the table towards him. \"We still haven't found them, I mean of course I'm over-reacting!\" He was almost screaming now. His wife, on the other hand, seemed cool and collected.\n\n\"Darling?\" She grabbed hold of his hand.\n\n\"Yes?\" He bellowed, spitting in her face.\n\nShe flicked pieces of chewed spaghetti off her face and looked at her husband.\n\n\"I've got them.\" The presidents eyes transformed from angry pools of rage to confused and perplexed green orbs.\n\n\"What?\" he spat out.\n\n\"I've got the codes.\" She put a hand into her pocket and withdrew the codes, placing them in his hand. \"I told you you were over-reacting.\"", "It was his first day entering the White House as its newest resident. He knew it would happen for him one day, but with each step he took towards the Oval Office, it finally felt more real for him. The Secret Service waited patiently outside the door. As he entered his new office, it surprised him how it felt so different from all the times he had been there before. No one to look up to. No one to give accountability to except the American people. It was his turn to be at the top, and there was no one he needed to share it with. As he looked over each item in the room, now with a sense of \"mine,\" he noticed an envelope sitting on his desk. Taking a deep breath, he fell into his chair, put his feet on the desk, reached over to the envelope, and read the handwritten letter inside: \n \nTo President Jeb Bush, \nKing John would be proud of us. The monarchy is still alive in your blood. Long live the king. \n--President Barack Obama. \n \nEDIT: [Bonus history fact](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183858/All-presidents-bar-directly-descended-medieval-English-king.html)" ]	2
	[WP]The sky is purple today, that's what the people wanted.	[ "\"Huh. Purple today.\"\n\nJacob lived off the grid, out in the woods. Away from them.\n\nHe could escape the lottery, and the pop singer contests, and the murderball matches. The popularity contest pseudo-politics, celebutante trivia, and 24/7 soap-opera-cum-reality-shows didn't reach this far out.\n\nNeither did the endless food, free booze, and psychotropics.\n\nBut neither did the neo-feudal factories, anthro-slaves, mindvertising, consumo-trackers, or execu-cults.\n\nIt was a rough and lonely life. His food was gathered or killed, its only processing a rough butchering and spit roasting. Shelter was a series of caves or lean-tos. Comfort was pine needle beds, entertainment was the sounds of the woods or his own thoughts. It was difficult, and Jacob probably wouldn't last the year. But he was free.\n\nFree of everything except the nightly vote. And it looks like purple won last night.\n\nPanem et Circenses and the goddamned sky vote." ]	1
Do you go full Crusoe? Do you die dramatically? Do you survive and escape? Do you get eaten by sharks? Why are you there? Is John Donne wrong about no man being an island?	[WP] You find yourself stranded on a deserted island	[ "When my life raft washed up on the island, I had recognized the place. Henderson Island, UNESCO world heritage site. Shit. This was bad.\n\nFortunately I had equipped my life-raft kit with a hatchet, bow saw, knife, and thousand foot spool of para-cord. A flint and striker, and the inflatable de-salinator were also a bonus. Thank you r/Survival.\n\nDeflating the life raft, I scrambled up the cliffs dragging it with me, thanking God that r/survival had also suggested that I include shoes in the go bag. Maybe the EPIRB had activated. Maybe I'd be rescued soon. \n \nEven now, I fantasized some boats might be looking for me. I knew that the Pitcairn Islanders were known to travel here 1-3 times a year. At the worst, I would wait that long. Rescue might be tomorrow, or another day. In any case, I needed to stay visible. I weighted my deflated life raft down and began to think.\n \nFood would be the first order of business. I was a voracious reader, and the solo Pacific crossing had been a dream of mine. I had read everything there was to know about the island group. There should be coconuts here--and they would be located near the beaches.\n \nA month later, and I was living r/survivals dream--although it was pretty shitty at times. Imagine no internet, and no amusing cat pictures close to hand. On the other hand, the resolution on the night sky was amazing.\n \nFor protein, I roasted fish, and rats. There certainly was no shortage of rats, and I reasoned that the UN would than me. Small deadfalls baited with coconuts provided me with a steady supply of protein.\n\nRoast rat isn't that bad, but I would have stabbed for some hot sauce. I knew the many birds on the island were edible, but I didn't want to damage endangered populations unless absolutely necessary. \n \nTo alleviate my boredom, I had constructed a hut of sorts near the northwest beach. In my hut, I set up a spring-pole lathe of sorts, and would spend my spare time turning curios when it rained. There was fruit on this island if you knew where to look, but the interior was treacherous.\n\nAfter the third month I made my greatest discovery--a small clay deposit. With a single minded focus, I made all the pots I could, and fired them in the hot coals of a giant beach fire. I had read Crusoe. Pottery is one of the essential crafts. With these, I could extract resin from barks. With resin I could make waterproof glues. With glues, I could build boats. \n\nWith great care I began to sample and test the various tree species on the island. Using a crude balance, I would test their ability to absorb water by balancing them against varying quantities of sand. The hard woods that absorbed the most moisture would be my pegs. The less absorbent hardwoods were framing timbers, and the most flexible woods were to become planking. My carefully coiled bucksaw blade sprang to life and I went to work.\n \nFor every felled tree, I planted two. The UN was going to hate me. Then again by this time I'm pretty sure I had trapped and eaten almost every Polynesian rat on the island. \n\nMy ship was to be a longboat--approximately fifteen feet in length. If Bligh could do it, why not me? I turned each trunnel on my pole lathe, securing. Things still took time though. My experience building stitch and glue vessels wasn't too helpful, except for giving me a good idea of build order. However I made steady progress on the hull.\n\nSails were a whole other problem. I had carefully protected my life raft as it could be used in a last ditch effort. However there are very few suitable textiles on any uninhabited island. Eventually I managed to weave a serviceable lug sail from tree leaves--like the ancient Polynesians would have done. After a good two months of solid work however, I finished a lug sail, and made my first victory lap around the cliffs of Henderson Island. In the following weeks I would use the Emancipation Proclamation for fishing deeper waters, longingly looking to the east. Somewhere in the East was America. I was probably dead there now. \n\nNavigation was a harder problem. Soon the trade winds would shift west. Furthermore I didn't have an accurate protractor. I sat in my hut for days--and gave up hope. You can sail in circles forever till you starve or die of thirst, or sink. There was a reason seafaring was dangerous before proper navigation tools. There no angle trisector theorem, and a missed degree of latitude could mean the difference between life and death. To divide a 90 degree quadrant into 1 degree segments, I couldn't use just my compass. Depressed, I gave up. I would die here--not of hunger or thirst, but maybe from injury or illness.\n \nI spent days in my hut, only venturing forth to gather food. Fortunately on one such walk, the solution presented itself. There was a flower. I couldn't tell you what species. The blossom had six triangular petals, arranged in a circle--sixty degrees. Needless to say, I dropped everything I had and returned to the beach. In a fervor of geometry, I drew a circle in the sand, and inscribed six equilateral triangles within the circle, all having a vertex at the center like the petals of a flower. More triangles. I laughed and laughed. \n \nI would need to sail approximately 140 miles southwest to reach Pitcairn. With some math, I had determined out the chip-and-log method of finding sailing speed and determined my longboat could manage five knots. \n \nMaking preparations, I gathered dried fish, fruit, and coconuts. I burnt a message into a plank in my hut. \"I was here. If you find this place, you are welcome to use any of it. Good luck. Built a longboat, and left. Don't bother the birds--ate most of the rats. Planted more coconut trees. Give my apologies to the UN, and my regards to Reddit. Heading off to either Pitcairn or Davy Jones' Locker.\"\n\nI built wooden chests, to stock my turned curios in. I'd probably need to sell these to get home to the States. Plane tickets are expensive. I had two chests full of wooden cups, plates, and bowls. Presciently, I had signed and dated them all. Knowing how the media treats sudden celebrities, I could easily set up a Kickstarter or Go Fund Me to get there. \n \nWhen the trade winds shifted, I left, heading southwest. Through rowing and sailing, I averaged five knots. Twenty five days after leaving Henderson, I saw low clouds on the horizon, the telltale sign of an island. I tacked back and forth to it. \n \nEventually some men in a longboat came out and demanded to know what the hell I was doing out in the South Pacific in such a tiny vessel. I jokingly answered that I was the Ghost of Captain Bligh.\n \nThe NZ government ate it up. I'd been buried back home. The girlfriend had gone on with her life. Pictures of the Emancipation Proclamation made international headlines. Conservationists threw a fit. \n \nInstant internet celebrity is weird. I got some endorsement deals, got to show Alton Brown how to cook rat, did some spokesperson work for the World Wildlife Foundation, and gave seminars on boat building. The Emancipation Proclamation was donated to some sailing museum. Various survival shows threw money at me as if I was a really expensive stripper. \n \nThe AMA on Reddit was epic. \n \n\n", "Salt foam thrashes and rolls around me, tumbling my battered body against rocks like razors. Salt water screaming in my wounds I roll helplessly in the churning surf, desperately gasping air as I bob to the surface occasionally, choking and gagging on spray. Water surges in my ears as I go under again and again, until something thumps against my back, knocking the last of my air out of my lungs in a gasp. My flailing arms thump against the object and desperately latch on to a thin trailing cord hanging from it. I haul myself up onto the dented aluminium packing case with feebly shaking arms, choking, my throat full of fire.\n\nI awaken on a hard packed sand beach, my fingers still locked tightly on the nylon rope handle of the packing case. Cold rain lances at my face as I lay there panting and shivering, the breakers tugging at my ankles. I rise painfully to my feet, sodden workboots slogging through the saturated sand, I make my way up the beach. Staggering and weaving though the shattered detritus of my fishing boat that litters the beach, I head towards the dark tree line. Half blinded by sea spray and the deluge of the storm, the small, dayglo orange case that I stumble over almost escapes my attention and I have already passed it before I realise its value. I grab it and continue to the trees. They offer small shelter from the storm, the canopy shifts in the howling wind and with each movement a fresh glut of rain falls from the huge palm leaves, but it cuts most of the wind out and is better than nothing. Leaning against one of the thicker trunks, I eventually manage to crack open the orange case with shaking hands that I can no longer feel and that barely obey my commands to move. I unfold the silver foil space blanket from the first aid kit, and wrap it around myself as best I can. I curl up into a ball and fall into an exhausted sleep.\n\nMy head pounds. As I awaken more I become aware of other sensations, mostly pain. I manage to sit up groggily using the palm tree to prop myself upright. The shallow cuts on my hands from warding myself away from the rocks begin oozing blood a little again as I move them. The cuts look minor but they are encrusted with dirt. I clean them as best I can with a sterile pad from the first aid kit, and spray a little antiseptic on them. I fold the space blanket neatly and place it back in the kit, feeling a little better.\n\nThe fine golden sand of the beach it littered with scraps of wood, bits of equipment and the occasional chunk of styrofoam from the coolers I had on board. Picking through the fragments I collect everything that may still be useful and put it in a mostly intact styrofoam fish box that I have found. The blowlamp intense sun beats down on me like a physical weight as I drag my haul towards the trees and above the line of seaweed that denotes the high tide line and take stock of what I have. It is meagre indeed. A couple of power bars, three bottles of water and my small but well travelled suitcase. I retrieve my hat from the case and drape the clothing from the case over the scrubby bushes that dot the sand between the towering palms. They will need washing as soon as possible, my skin is already sore from the salt water in the clothes that I am currently in. Next best thing though will be to let them dry and beat as much salt out of them as possible.\n\nAs the day wears on, the tropical heat becomes more and more oppressive and mosquitoes buzz languidly in the the air. I slap at them as they land on me, and I force my way through the undergrowth in search of fresh water. The rule of threes in survival says that a man can go three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. My water supply will not last long, so I push further inland, sipping every once in a while from one of the bottles and nibbling a power bar. I know that mosquitoes need water to reproduce, so I am not overly surprised but am hugely grateful for the sound of gently trickling water. I follow the sound to a cool, crystalline stream and dip my head in the water. Laughing like a madman I refill my empty water bottle. I have found where base camp will be until I can figure out a way off this place. I look around at the small clearing with its little stream and see in my minds eye where my shelter will go, where to dig the latrine, where to make a fire pit. Maybe I can rig some kind of beacon on the beach with the space blanket as a reflector, but first I have to find a proper source of food. Sitting against a tree, dappled sunlight warming my toes and the ground soft beneath my buttocks, I reflect that if I can find a suitable food source, I could even be happy here for a while. Hell, maybe even delay setting up the beacon on the beach for a few weeks.\n\nA rustling in the bushes draws my attention and I freeze in place as a rabbit nuzzles between the leaves. It nibbles delicately from the lower branches, its back turned to me and partially screened from view by a curtain of foliage.\n\nI smile a predatory grin. Dinner is served." ]	2
Your piece should have two (or more) characters walking through the same place (like a corridor, or a garden) describing what they experience in the first person, giving insight into what sort of a person they are.	[WP] Describe two characters through their reactions to the same event	[ "Today was cloudy, the kind where it seems like the heavens will burst at the seams with a torrential downpour. Everyone in the Shacks seemed to take notice. They all crowded under awnings or the cover of buildings, casting wary glances upwards every few moments. Their mouths remained in taut lines, lips white.\n\nAs I walked past, a few waved. Over the last few months, I had become a familiar face they could trust. At least, that was what I hoped they thought of me. My background made me an open target by my name on the streets kept me safe enough. Only the occasional person challenged me and even then, most never followed through.\n\nThat was, except for the neighbor moron – Sar.\n\n“Hey, why don’t you go back to the Cliffs, highblood!” he called, his hulking frame standing far enough out of my reach but close enough to strike me in a single bound.\n\nI ignored him as I kept walking. He continued lobbing insults until I was out of his earshot, spitting every foul thought that crossed his mind.\n\nWhen I felt like no eyes were on me, I slid into an alleyway. It was dark and musty, the corridor filled with miscellaneous trinkets abandoned, some likely stolen. I stepped over them carefully, not wanting to take the risk of setting off a chain reaction of magical explosions. There was no telling what lied in the muck anymore.\n\nAt the end of the alleyway as an old man, normally inconspicuous in daylight but shady in the dark. He nodded, smiling as I walked up to him. I took a quick glance behind me before reaching into my satchel, plucking out the small leather bag.\n\nHis eyes lit up with wonder as I placed in his open palms. Digging in his pocket, he dropped a few grimy coins into my hand. And as soon as the transaction was complete, he darted off to get his fix, just like everyone else.\n\nI rolled the coins over in my hand, sighing. He paid bare minimum, that was for sure. But I pocketed the change and made my way out as well. I wasn’t going to make a living by standing around and complaining.\n\nAs I exited the alley, a plump drop of water fell in front of me, staining a dark circle into the stone. Soon after, it was followed by a barrage of its brethren. I tilted my head back, the cool sensation of the rain relaxing against my feverish skin. After listening to the cadence of the rain, I wiped my face and pulled up the hood of cowl. Hopefully my other clients wouldn’t cancel because of the weather.\n\nRegardless, it was going to be a long day.\n\n**\n\nI cursed as the rain began, harder than I had expected. Perhaps the gods were crying for the miserable lives of those that lived in the shacks. After all, even their cleansing waters couldn’t clean the filth they wallowed in.\n\nThe only good thing about the rain was that the people scattered into their dwelling like ants. I grew tired of watching their bloodshot eyes watching my every step like I was some freak of nature. Of course, if I turned their way, they would hid in the shadows and leave me alone. But I chose to ignore them this time, scouring the streets my target. If sources were true, he could disappear in the blink of an eye.\n\nDeep in my thoughts, I was jostled when an elderly man ran into me. He profusely apologized once he saw my uniform, uttering an unintelligible string of words. He appeared to hid something behind his back, a leather bag perhaps. I shooed him off, dusting my clothes of his grime-laden rags. Making one more apology, he scurried off into the nearest building he could find.\n\nI sighed, more than ready to leave the so-called “Shacks”. Nothing good came from it except watching the lower caste fumble around. If the council would listen to my pleas, we could rid the city of this eyesore. But of course, they didn’t heed my words. They clung to their archaic beliefs and shunned me like a child.\n\nFrom the corner of my eye, a figure dashed across, ignoring the rain. They wore a cloak, far too fine for the average man to be wearing. The material was beaded with raindrops, each one casting a different light. On its shoulder, it cared the insignia of a wolf.\n\nHe moved with a purpose, ignoring the makeshift shelters others flocked too. Instead, he seemed to be making his way for somewhere else – somewhere suspicious. Taking a moment to stop, he threw back a quick glance. I ducked behind a pile of junk, waiting with bated breath.\n\nOnce he decided the coast was clear, he pressed onwards. My shoulders relaxed, realizing he didn’t see me. When he was several strides ahead of me, I followed, feeling for the gun at my side. He would notice me eventually but this time, I was prepared.\n\nI smirked. Maybe my luck was changing for the better.", "I don't even want to be here. I'm not much of a party person and if I have to go I prefer the type where you can get drunk and sit in the corner and no one cares, or if they do care 'they' are a girl who makes conversation with everyone when they get drunk.\n\nBut backyard bbq parties? You can't get drunk at those. There's kids around and everybody is married. When did that happen. I'm not old. I'm not even thirty. How is everyone married with kids and jobs and we're having a backyard BBQ. I had to bring a salad.\n\nI should just go. No but the meat hasn't been served yet. You can't leave before that, that would be suspicious. \n\nSuspicious? No that's not right.\n\nMaybe just in bad taste. Ok I'll stay for the meat then I'll go…\n\nWhat the fuck? Was that a fucking earthquake?\n\nPeople start looking around and holding their children. One guy stares at the BBQ. Who is that guy?\n\n\"Holy shit\" someone says. I turn around and see the mushroom cloud way of in the distance. My first thought is cold and clinical.\n\nIs my face about to melt off?\n\nThat doesn't happen.\n\nIt takes like 15 minutes of staring to realize what it means.\n\nI hate parties.\n\n…\n\nAll I want to know is who are these people? Well that and what's up with the Barbecue?\n\nI was just out for a walk when I heard people talking and laughing and I came to check it out and there were all these people. And a barbecue.\n\nBut what does it mean?\n\nI stare at the barbecue. It's like a metaphor for like life right? Because like there's all these people here with their families and stuff and that's the meat. Like the meat of society. \n\nAnd then that one guy who's alone and nursing the beer and doesn't want to be here he's grilling them with his eyes.\n\nAnd like I'm the flame. \n\nBecause I'm baked.\n\nI eat another cookie and keep staring at the barbecue. It's like, I have to tell someone. To let them know I've figured it out.\n\nThe earth shakes. I wonder if it's because I figured out the key to life and how it relates to the B-B-Q. \n\nPeople start screaming and crying and swearing. I look over.\n\nShould I try mushrooms?\n\nNo, no, the barbecue. Keep staring at the barbecue.", "Sh beckoned me over, urging me to tag along. I sighed and then carefully crossed the stream. My foot slipped in one spot, drenching my shoe. \"It's okay, we're almost there!\" she said. I put my foot on the bank and held up a hand, she grabbed it and pulled me up. I stared at where she had brought me, it was a field. Nothing particularly special, just a field. We have a few of these near my house, so why is this one so special? She ran away from me, into the flowers. I gave chase, trying to catch up to her. I lost track of her though, so when she came up behind me and kissed me, I let out a shriek of surprise. \n\nI stood on the bank and watched him cross. His velcro shoes were undone, but I could fix those later. I gestured for him to follow me, he's going to want to see this. He placed his feet carefully on each rock to cross the brook, but his left foot fell in. \"It's okay, we're almost there!\" I said. I think I brought an extra pair of shoes in the car today, I knew he would get wet. He put his foot on the riverbank and I reached down to pull him up. When he stood, he looked out at the field. His mouth hung open and his eyes wandered, I would've given anything to hear what he was thinking. I started jogging towards the field, looking back to make sure he was going to follow. His little legs sprang into motion and he followed. I sped up, and turned next to the patch of tulips. He ran straight by me, thinking he was on the right track. I snuck up behind him and lifted him into the air. He let out a shriek of surprise as I planted a kiss on his cheek. ", "\"EVERYBODY, LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND DON'T MOVE!\" the masked man carrying the assault rifle shouted.\n\nFrom behind the ski mask, Ajay was sweating, and that wasn't entirely because of the heat. It was his first professional bank heist and his crew barely had two minutes before the cops would show up. Everything had to be perfect.\n\n\"Drop it, lady! Nobody's being a hero,\" another masked man shouted at a woman holding her phone. That was Mark and he was the most brutal of all of them.\n\nJason and Lenny were dealing with the tellers and getting them to empty cold hard cash into the bags. The other twenty odd bank customers were on the floor and shaking. It smelled like someone nearby had just pissed themselves in fear.\n\n\"Hurry it up! We've got less than a minute!\" Ajay yelled to Jason and Lenny.\n\nBefore Ajay could even register what was happening, a gunshot rang out and Mark screamed. A second gunshot went off and Ajay felt searing pain rip through his leg.\n\nA minute later Ajay was on a stretcher and under arrest. Damn, all he had wanted was enough cash to support his kid for the next year. No one was supposed to get hurt, least of all him.\n\n----------------------\n\n\"EVERYBODY, LIE DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND DON'T MOVE!\" the masked man carrying the assault rifle shouted.\n\nPeter was no fool. He dropped down with the other bank customers. His heart was beating against his chest like it wanted to burst out. He had been stressed enough before* the robbery had started. He wasn't sure if the heist made things even worse or if it was a relief. His pistol pressed up against the inside of his jacket pocket. Thank god it hadn't accidentally gone off.\n\nNext to Peter, a woman pulled out her iPhone and started to dial. The biggest and most crazed looking masked man noticed immediately and aimed his rifle at her head.\n\n\"Drop it, lady! Nobody's being a hero.\"\n\nThe woman squeaked and Peter could immediately smell urine. Gross.\n\nThat gave Peter an idea though. The robbers didn't want anyone to be a hero? Maybe being a hero was exactly what Peter needed to do right now to get out of this mess. The smaller masked man was occupied for the time being, watching his crew clean out the registers.\n\n\"Hurry it up! We've got less than a minute!\" the smaller masked man yelled.\n\nCrazy mask turned. This was Peter's chance. He reached into his jacket, grabbed his pistol and without thinking about it, fired at crazy mask. It hit the robber square in the back and he screamed as he collapsed. Small mask turned but Peter got the second shot off quickly. It struck small mask's leg and he went down too.\n\nMinutes later the robbers were under arrest and Peter was being celebrated as a hero by the police. That whole ordeal had been far too close for comfort. Peter had literally been thirty seconds away from robbing the place himself.", "DCI Ross stood over what was left of the body. It was a putrid sight, ravaged by wildlife and mercilessly stuffed under a large, fallen tree. He drew on his cigarette one last time before flicking it into the nearby pond.\n\n“Who found the body,” he asked.\n\n“Rachel and Margo Bartcher; they are over there,” replied a young, uniformed officer while pointing toward two teenage girls just beyond the crime scene. “You ready to talk to them?”\n\n“Sure but one at a time,” Ross said.\n\nThe officer retrieved Rachel and, without looking up, Ross asked her, “Did you know the victim?”\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nI tried not to look directly at the body, my body was shaking and soft spring morning felt cold and hollow. I glanced quickly at the remains, and back to the Inspector. “Lizzie Trumbal, I think. It looks like her dress,” I replied.\n\n“Ya, we’ve established that. I asked if you knew her,” he quipped.\n\n“Yes sir, she was a friend of my sister.”\n\n“How did you find the body,” he asked while writing in his notebook.\n\nI stood there trying to remember everything correctly. The whole ordeal had been so horrid that it was hard to find the words. We had been playing the Barton Creek about two miles, when something compelled Margo to open the pedestrian gate to Haverton path, an old animal trail along the north side of the creek.\n\n“My sister said she saw something moving down the path. I didn’t want to go but she insisted we follow it,” I said.\n\n“Did you see anybody or anything along the path,” he questioned.\n\nI closed my eyes. Margo had opened the gate and beckoned me to follow. She was jovial and in the mood to explore. I was cautious; Haverton Path had always frightened me. Margo did not walk with me, she ventured out ten or fifteen yards ahead. I tried to keep up, but I was scared and slow. Every step broke twigs and the sound pounded in my ears. A spring frost was still hanging on the lower limbs of the forest and gully fog hung around there trunks. As the gate disappeared behind us, I saw movement to my right. It was a quick scurry and a flash of red.\n\n“A fox, I remember seeing a fox,” I said. “And the smell, I remember the smell.”\n\nI wrapped my arms tightly around my body, trying to shake off the crisp air. I sped up, trying to catch Margo who seemed to float upon the fog. She stopped and waited, but not long enough for me to reach her. She yelled back at me and asked if I could smell that. My nose was cold and before she drew attention to it, the smell was not there. Then it hit me; a sickening, rancid smell. It turned my stomach and for a moment, I thought about being sick. The further I walked along the path the stronger the odor became. I put my hand over my face; it did little to keep me from gagging.\n\n“There was this bird, a raven. It was feeding something to its young. Up there,” I pointed to a tree about fifty yards away. “It looked like meat.”\n\nExtremely fatty meat, I thought. It sat there ripping strands of rotten sustenance off a large chunk of what we now know as Lizzie and stuffing into its fledglings eager mouths. Repeatedly, it ripped and tore, and stuffed. I closed my eyes, but in the dark, I could hear the wee birds begging for more. Then I heard Margo yell for me to come see something. I opened my eyes and ran ahead.\n\n“We came over that hill, and there it was. I screamed, and we ran to get help”\n\n“Have you ever been out here before,” he asked.\n\n“Ah, just once, but not this far. For a picnic I think. It was a long time ago.”\n\n“Ok, thank you. Go and fetch your sister. I need to get a statement from her also.”\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\nThe inspector looked down at me and asked me if I knew Lizzie. Who didn’t know Lizzie? She was the weirdest girl in class. I told him so.\n\n“What happened this morning, Margo?”\n\n“We found Lizzie. We found her hiding in the woods.”\n\n“How did you find her, Margo?”\n\n“Like that, of course,” I pointed to Lizzie and giggled. \n\nHe was such a strange man, with strange questions. I opened the gate and I saw a fox running down the path. It was a beautiful little creature. I wanted to see where it was going. I ran ahead, Rachel is so slow. The woods scare her, but I find them beautiful. \n\n“I was following a fox. Did you know foxes eat dead things?”\n\n“I didn’t know that, Rachel, thank you. Did you see any people in the wood?”\n\nI thought hard. Did Lizzie count as people, I wondered. I remembered the beautiful path and the crunchy frost under my trainers. A misty fog enveloped the forest like a woolen blanket keeping all the little creatures warm and cozy.\n\n“No people, but there was a big raven feeding its little baby ravens. They were so cute. You could see them if you stood in the little clearing and look up at just the right angle. I like Ravens. They eat dead things too.”\n\nHe asked me if I had ever been out here before. I told him about the time we had a picnic out here; just Rachel, Lizzie, and me. We ate in the little clearing along the path. We had brought sandwiches and drinks; we had so much fun until Lizzie started being weird. As I walked along the path, I stopped at the clearing. For a moment, I became sad remembering how little Lizzie had found the baby Raven fallen from it tree. I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t tell him how we wanted to feed our sandwiches to the little bird but, Lizzie stomped it under her boot.\n\n“Your sister said the smell almost made her sick. Why did you continue down here?”\n\nRachel was so melodramatic. The smell was hardly nauseating. It was sweet like spring flowers. It glided upon the air and tickled my nose. It called to me as it did the little fox and the mamma Raven. The closer I got, the sweeter the scent. It was nature’s perfume and it made me tingle all over.\n\n“I came to see,” I giggled.\n\n“To see what,” he asked as he looked down at the body.\n\n“To see Lizzie feeding the baby ravens, you silly man.”\n" ]	5
	[WP] Everyone knows a single bite from a zombie means infection and death. Describe the harrowing moment when a biter latches its teeth on you in the middle of a fight.	[ "I felt the shrill of fear before I felt the pain. But first, I saw it. The thing had been a child once. It had pierced my right shin with the pointy teeth of a toddler. From the moment I saw it to the moment I realized what had happened an eternity seemed to pass. And during that eternity, all I had the time to think was – oh – and then the moment passed and the fear came over me, and then the pain. It wasn't as bad as I'd imaged, though. It was okay.\n \nI thought I had secured the building. But the child variations of these things hid so easily. And if they didn't hide they were swift and silent. I had gone to sleep, thinking I was safe, as safe as you can get these days. And I woke up to teeth in my leg. That's what you get. You can't afford mistakes. Not one. Now it's all over. All I've gone through, all the suffering and pure physical labor, it all led up to this. I'll never speak to another human again. It's decided, now.\n \nApart from the pressing, pure fear, more than anything, I feel empty. And ... relieved.\n \nI'd always told myself I would finish myself off before I would turn into one of them. It was the right thing to do. Once the bite was there it was just a matter of minutes, and then it would be over. \n \nBut I rid the world of a lot more of these things than I ... contributed. Maybe I earned the right to go like a coward. I rid the word of so many of them. Isn't that good enough? Fading, now. Joining my family again. Finally.", "This is the last thing that I will ever write. I have been bitten. I got greedy on a supply run and I wasn't paying attention. In my defense, it's been ages since I had a cup of tea.\n\nBollocks. It was worth it. Even if it's UHT milk my last meal is a nice cup of English breakfast, steeped for three minutes, bag out, no squeezing, white and two sugars.\n\nIf anyone ever reads this then, I apologise. If you haven't checked yet, I've blown my head off with a double-barrel in the bathroom. Don't go in there, I've got nothing on me and I've made a mess.\n\nI hope you never get bitten, it hurts like a bitch. There's a moment, a moment where you stop and the world slows down, that yellowed teeth motherfucker will keep on going, the eyes not even seeing you, all they see is flesh. There's no hatred there, no emotion whatsoever. Just hunger. You get killed for looking like bacon.\n\nFuck I miss bacon and all.\n\nThat moment of frozen time stops, that fucker'll rip that bit of you off. My right wrist. Someone's leg. Hell, I bet someone got bitten on the arse. Can you imagine that? Dying from infection without being able to sit down comfortably. \n\nI'm rambling. Probably because I'm going to finish my tea and kill myself once we're done here. So, humour me. Or wipe your arsehole with it, whatever. I am writing on toilet paper. It's all I have. Hah. Suicide notes penned in fountain pen on bog roll. Classy.\n\nEvery emotion hits you, there isn't even pain at that point. It's unbearable sadness, heart-crippling fear and grudging acceptance. Of course, there's the anger too. I got the anger. Maybe everyone gets one of those and it hits them hard. I got the rage and the wrath and the hatred all bunched up into one. So I did first thing that came to my adrenaline-drowned mind.\n\nI bit the fucker back.\n\nI bit that fucker back and I'm going to die being really fucking smug about it. \n\nThere's teabags in the brown box on the shelf. Help yourself. I'm out.", "I really didn't feel much, just a tremendous pinch and the sweat started rolling down my arm as I raised it higher. The walker's head came up as my arm raised and I easily sank the cold steel chisel I'd been holding into it's left eye. \n Barry looked at me and grinned as the corpse of the little girl, she couldn't have been more then 7 years old at death fell to the ground. \n\"Told ya, duct tape has a million and two uses.\"", "The teeth break the flesh and reach the hypodermis. I know this because it's my job to know this. The necrotic gums of the biter contain millions of spores. Within thirty seconds they reach my heart. By this point I am dead, my mind only has to catch up to the fact.\n\nThe biter removes his jaws, taking a piece of muscle along with it.\n\nThe fungus reaches the blood-brain barrier soon after, turning my carotid artery green as the blood turns to syrup in its wake. Tunnel vision sets in, despite the adrenalin pumped into my system and the pain radiating from my arm.\n\nSmelling the infection, I assume, my research never got that far, the biter moves on to fresher prey.\n\nAs the fungus collects at the base of my brain, it sub-divides, sending millions of smaller particles into the grey mush I spent years training in epidemiology. Eighty seven seconds since been bitten I lose coherent thought.\n\nThe doctors are watching me. I know this because I told them to. My coworkers. Friends. And now I am to be the last guinea pig.\n\nThe retroviral has worked. Up until now. On monkeys and tissue. But reality is different and as my eyesight fails and sense leaves me, I feel only one thing.\n\nA hunger." ]	4
	[WP] Ages ago the super advanced human race left Earth for the stars, we are the ones deemed not good enough to go with.	[ "I poke through the rubble tiredly. I had been traveling for days looking for any food that might be left over. It was a futile effort, as most of the resources had been taken when the others left. I continued forward, getting more and more hopeless at each passing minute. Finally, I stumbled into a garden. I looked around, expecting to see the same barren wasteland that had followed all through the country. But when I looked up, I saw green. Vast amounts of green. Trees in every direction, fruit hanging from every single one. I laugh excitedly. I should have been cautious. This amount of life couldn't have happened naturally, someone would have had to be taking care of it. But I didn't care. It was the only food I had seen in days and I wasn't about to let it go. I ran to the first tree I saw and I reached for the fruit. An apple, bright red and perfectly ripe. I bit in hungrily and laughed giddily as the sweet juices connected with my taste buds. My happiness, however, was short lived. I soon felt the cool steel of a knife pressed against the back of my head. \n\n“Who are you?” A voice said. I turned slowly and came face to face with a woman. Her skin was tan and her hair was black, a sharp contrast to the ice blue eyes she had. They were narrowed at me, and the hunting knife never wavered as she waited for my answer. \n\nI held my hands up in surrender and decided it would be best to just answer her question than to try and make a run for it. “I don’t remember my name.” \n\nShe gave me a strange look and slowly lowered her weapon. “Don’t remember?” She asked. \n\nI nod. “I know it sounds strange. But it’s been so long since I've spoken to anyone. I don’t remember.” My voice came out sounding scratchy. I used to be a singer. But years of harsh conditions had transformed my voice from a sweet and melodic sound to something much darker. \n\nThe woman looked around to make sure I was alone then looked back at me. “If you wanted food, you could have just asked instead of trying to steal.” She says, though her gaze was lighter and the mood seemed much happier than it was moments before. \n\n“I’m sorry. I was just so hungry. I didn't stop to think it might actually belong to someone.” I said sheepishly. She nodded then motioned me to follow her. I complied, figuring she wasn't a threat. Eventually, she led me to a small house, sitting next to a large lake. I marveled at it as the woman went inside. I hadn't seen clean water in ages. My own supply had just run out the day before. The woman soon comes back and hands me a slice of bread. A delicacy in these times. She sits lazily on the porch, taking a bit of her own slice. I sit next to her, eating hungrily. I slow down after a minute, realizing it would be better to save the food than to scarf it all down at once. \n\nThe woman speaks after a few minutes of silence. “I’ll call you Liz.” She states simply, her gaze set straight ahead. \n\n“Liz?” I ask confused, turning to look at her. \n\nShe shrugs. “You look like a Liz to me. So that’s what I’ll call you. My name’s Sara, if you care to know.” \n\nI nod and continue eating. Liz. Having a name after so long feels nice. It makes me feel like a person again, instead of the shell of one, barely hanging on to survival. \n\n“So, what did you do to get kicked off the great space mission?” She questions. \n\nI stay silent. It’s a painful subject to think about. She doesn't press me, just waits while I contemplate what to say. “Asthma.” I answer after a few more bites of food. “Bad asthma too. I was deemed too unfit and therefore not a good specimen to help prolong the human race.” \n\nShe nods. “I’m infertile.” She answers bitterly. “I couldn't have kids. They didn't think I was a good use of resources. But my husband was allowed to go. He abandoned me.” Her gaze turns upwards at the stars. The wind rushes past us, eager to get to it’s next destination. It would have been a lovely evening, had the circumstances been different. \n\n“Do you think they’ll ever come back?” I ask, looking as well. The stars shine bright. It’s strange to think one of those stars contains people. \n\n“I hope not.” She says, viciously taking a bite of her food. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re as dead to me as this planet.” ", "We left them when they were kids. They had no idea, and rightfully so, if they had known we would all be leaving, there probably would not be humans left on this rock. It was an experiment, deemed humane by the top scientists at the time, the panel was well picked. The thought was that if there were two of us, two groups, we could get more done, scientifically speaking.\n\nThe plan was to let them start from scratch and see what would happen. The results were confusing at first, they didn't do much, they hunted, and never settled. They went north, we had never used the northern lands before, not after the dam broke and we had to abandon the deep basin settlements. They spread out over the entire globe, and then it got cold, and they circumnavigated it. It was amazing, but then it got warmer, and they were isolated.\n\nThousands of years made them different, unique in their own way, and we feared for them. We knew that they would hate each other, we had learned to overcome, but only through the necessity of an external threat. Something we had made sure they would never encounter. Sure enough, it eventually did happened, just as we had predicted. They were awful, brutal things, but we could not interfere, as that would contaminate the data. Then, they learned about combustion, and improved communication, and the wars became deadly. They developed new methods of death, things even we hadn't thought of like mustard gas and submarines. They scared us then, and with their war, our greatest fears were realized when they developed atomic weaponry. At this point, we were sure that the experiment had failed, and we would need to step in.\n\nBut, when we thought the worst of them, they proved us wrong. In this chaos, a select few broke from these savages, and changed their path. They discovered space travel, alarming fast too, and developed it with the speed at which they had developed their weapons. They Invented computers, and almost as fast figured out how to connect them to one another, and then globally. They figured out how to send data through light, something we had just discovered, and they learned to coexist with nature, not just use it. They fought with each other, not with weapons, but with words, and when they needed to, they unified to help each other out. There technology became more and more impressive, and just last year they reached the goal we had set for them, all those years ago.\n\nOur children had grown up, and though they're still children, still get into silly fights, still try to be the best and don't like to work together, they were us, and their trial by fire had hone them into brilliance. They were ready for us to take them back to there home. \n\nThey were ready to come live up here with us in the stars. ", "This is my favorite place on Earth, which isn't saying much. I'm laying on the tallest hill just outside of town, grass rolling in the wind all the way down, my world lit only by the moon. Sounds picturesque? Damn straight. I don't come out at all if the night isn't perfect.\n\nI've never been off-world, mind you, but once I get the chance, I'm never coming back. There's too much space for me to see even in my whole life, and that makes me feel just the right amount of lonely and happy. It makes me feel huge.\n\n\"I should be up there,\" I whisper.\n\nBeside me, Darrel pats my shoulder. He always comes with me. Maybe not to space, but to here. He cares a lot about me, but I wonder if he'd like a different version of me more. A me that actually made it into the starflight program.\n\nHey, why not? I'd love that version of me.\n\nDarrel stares at me. I turn back to him without a smile, but even I perk up a little when I see his.\n\n\"What?\" I say.\n\n\"Don't mind me,\" he says. \"I just like to watch that look in your eyes when you're dreaming. Keep on lookin'. Don't mind me.\"\n\nI punch his shoulder and giggle without meaning to. My laugh is weird, trust me, but even I can stand it when someone else is smiling at me like that.\n\n\"I'm going to apply again next year,\" I say louder. \"This is something I really want. It's something that's actually important, you know? That's what I think. The farther humanity explores, the greater we all get.\"\n\nDarrel hums. \"It's nice to wonder.\"\n\nHe doesn't say anything more, but it's true. I'm wondering.\n\nI lift myself up onto my elbows to look at him closer, and I say, \"You should apply, too. I bet you'd like out there as much as me.\"\n\nDarrel smiles wider, but this one I don't like. He laughs to himself, then says, \"Well, I might, but after how it went down with my mother and her father before her, I'm pretty sure the Houston name is on a banned list or sumpin'.\"\n\n\"Don't let other people hold you back,\" I tell him. \"It takes your own effort, not theirs.\"\n\n\"Ain't smart enough. I know that. Takes more 'an effort to ride a spaceship.\"\n\n\"It's not just genetics, Darrel. That's an excuse.\"\n\n\"Yeah, I reckon it's a big combination of factors,\" Darrel says. \"I may not be too much a genius, but I'm practical. I heard the numbers; three people last year, out of however many billions we got left. You don't need to be awesome at math to figure out how dumb that chance is.\"\n\n\"It's not like it's a hard limit,\" I say. \"The program elevates every worthy candidate that applies. That's me. It could be you, too.\"\n\n\"Well, look at you,\" Darrel says.\n\nI scowl at him, but he continues.\n\n\"You say you're gonna apply 'again,' but you never completed your papers last year. You're smart enough for the program, but you're letting everything else hold you back. You talk about effort and you don't put in enough.\"\n\nI look to the bottom of the hill.\n\n\"I love your dreams, you know that, but you gotta be serious about this if it's sumpin' you want.\"\n\nI pull up my knees and breathe in sharply. \"It's scary.\"\n\nHe doesn't say anything more.\n\n\"But I'm going to do it this year,\" I say. \"Fuck the consequences. Fuck the police. Whatever.\"\n\nDarrel smiles at me again and I smile back. My smile isn't completely honest, but I want to set him at ease. Next year will actually be my fifth application, but he doesn't need to know that. I want the night to end happily. I want to score when we get back in town. I want to keep dreaming.\n\nNext year. Definitely. I'll do it. I'm worthy.", "The [Captain] felt the tickle at the back of his skull as the [All Speak] of the crew flood in as he came onto the bridge.\n\nHe took his place in the center most acceleration harness. He saw as his sensor [Lieutenant] saw. The world below was thriving with civilization.\n\nThe [Captain] nodded to himself. That explained the twinge of excitement and confusion that ran in undercurrents through the [All Speak].\n\nHe directed a [Focus] at his [Science Officer], who was the nexus from which the group’s excitement truly flowed. She was seeing something new, something unexpected.\n\nShe turned at both the [Captain] and the crew’s attention. She was smiling and a concept utterly alien propagated through the [All Speak].\n\nLanguage.\n\nUnderstanding followed as the [Science Officer] shared her insight and it became clear how the [Silent] on the world below had not only avoided extinction, but thrived.\n\nThe excitement grew as the confusion fell away, replaced with purpose. The crew collectively closed their eyes and [Focused]. The [Great Collective] must know that their ancient brothers and sisters may not be inferior as once was thought. \n \nThey could speak after all.", "They appeared in the solar system, and quickly made a b-line for earth. Our suprise was that they were ancient yet advanced humans. Similar protiens, structures and needs, yet different. Red hair, green eyes, fair skin. \n\nTheir suprise was that that we existed still, and that biologically we would surpass them. Centuries of their careful and planned artifical evolution and yet now inferior to a bunch humans that couldn't even travel the stars.\n\nTheir evolution was like programming a very complex computer. They learned all too late lessons we were learning from our own A.I. programming efforts. Change one minor peice of code and you introduce 3 major problems and many minor ones that go unnoticed for years.\n\nOf course their war with the Outsiders hadn't helped them either, a war they started. A war they lost. They weren't coming back to us, they were running when they found us. Long ago they left Earth to take their place among the stars. Now they needed us, those they left behind. They needed our bodies, our minds, and our numbers.\n\n \"Sir we're picking up signals, by our latest estimates, the hostiles will be here in 24 hours. Your decision has paid off Fleet Captain.\"\n\nI looked over to the observation room. 3 green eyed, red haired humans stood inside it looking down at my bridge. At this point they were done trying to tell me what to do. The AIs they relied on, had finally thrown up their hands and basically said the fight was going to be a 50 50 shot. I smiled. That was an increase of 36 percent. I'd given the enemy a choice. Try to ignore my fleet and risk me attacking from behind or come at us front and center but fight on my terms.\n\n\"Commander, order the fleet to hold here but they need to be ready to mobilize in 12 hours. Make sure the drones continue to monitor the hostile fleet. If they try to change direction or accelerate I want to know about it.\"\n\n\"What about you captain? You've maneuvered the fleet for 14 hours.\"\n\n\"I'll get my rest shortly but I suspect I'm about to get a visitor.\"\n\nAs if on cue one of the trio approached my first officer and I. I nodded towards her and she bowed before speaking, an act respect." ]	5
	[WP] You are the sole human who can freeze time at will, however, every time you do it, there is a 1% chance of it killing you slowly over 24 hours. This time that you use your ability, the 1% chance is not on your side.	[ "The clock ticked sharply in the corner of the silent room.\n\nIt's an ambient noise that I have learned to pay close attention to over my years. It signifies that we are all in movement, careening towards some unknown end, but all at the same pace. Most would think that the incessant ticking of a clock among silence brings to mind a setting with a certain sense of lethargy, of apathy. I cannot empathize with those people. To me, the ticking clock just proves we all are racing towards our expiration. It proves that we can never fully control the universe that brought us into being, and that the universe will callously take us back when we end--an event that we all race towards at an alarming pace. You tend to realize just how fast that pace is when you're the only to ever spectate it, and how fleetingly sweet that control is when you're the only one to ever sanction it.\n\nI alternate the ticking with the tapping of my pen on the page, which was just as blank as it had been four hours ago. The case was tomorrow and I still had no defense written for my client. It was late, and the clock clacked its monotonous tune as if to mock me, or if one's view on the universe was a little more misanthropic, to bait me. My skills as a lawyer were far from good enough to warrant the position I held, both socially and professionally. Those positions were earned not through my panache or ability as a raconteur, but from my ability to strategically choose high-profile cases and my ability to look for evidence outside the limits of the laws of humans and of physics.\n\nThis was a case that could not be won by my level of skill. I had been working my ass off for months to try and come up with some evidence to confront the litigation, but the plaintiff's strings were tight around her case. It was a standard civil lawsuit, a divorce, but my client was a United States Senator--and one of the more illustrious ones at that. His ex-wife was fighting for custody of his children by claiming that he was physically abusive. I know this is false; the man was just too gentle and empathetic to carry such personal moral weight. The problem was I had no way to prove it, and I needed this case; it would push me into a financial and professional level of notoriety that I've desired my whole life. Nothing meant more to me than this case, I think to myself. Not even my safety.\n\nI sighed as the pen plopped down on the table, syncing up perfectly with one of the clock ticks. I then stare at the clock, in a way antagonizing it in an anthropomorphous manner because that would its defeat just that much more satisfying. I draw in a very deep breath, close my eyes, focus with a warm, hard, deep severity for a minute and breathe a long sigh a relief as I hear the clock's cruel song come to a halt. \n\nI rise from my chair and grab the flashlight in my pocket. Light isn't very useful when it isn't moving, and since the flashlight is in the same frame of reference as me it will be my only source of sight. The room remained the same as when it stopped, but if there were any changes, like a book opening, there would be no new light to carry that information to my eyes. It took a while for me to figure that out, and it caused me to reflect on my history of 'taking a break.' This would be my 50th time. I restrained myself pretty well throughout the years, but this was necessary. Damn, I think, 1 in 2 now. I swallowed the bit of regret that was rising in my throat and continued out the door.\n\nI was staying in a hotel that was only about seven blocks from the plaintiff's house. It was the same house they had lived in as a family. I'm positive I can find something there. I observed the few people outside as I traveled the quiet street--paused in the uncertainty of their world, each one in an action that was a little snapshot of their life that I tried to relate to my own. I avoided walking towards people or walking in a straight line-when I was done the air particles that I was pushing into one another as I travel will create a sonic boom. The cause wouldn't be explained to them or to anyone.\n\n***okay readers sorry but it's very late. I have more content to write than I thought when I started this. I will finish this tomorrow. :)\n\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] Describe a day in the life of the Other Devil, who rules over Hell's less extreme counterpart, Heck.	[ "\"Miss Betty Rae is outside again sir.\"\n\n\"You've got to be kidding me. Show her in, then move my eight-thirty to... Never mind big in her mother in three minutes.\"\n\n\"Miss Betty. How horribly predictable of you.\"\n\n\"Why must you be so rude? My lord. I'm just here to clear up this mistake -\"\n\n\"You've been here fifteen years Betty. There was no mistake. It doesn't matter how Christian you say you were. A racist old hag wearing a cross is still a racist old hag. Ahh Miss June your daughter here was just embarrassing the family a bit more. See what you can do about it.\"\n\n\"Please by all means just stare at each other, it's not like I don't have a meeting with...\"\n\n\"Dan Cathy sir.\"\n\n\"Thank you Edward please show him in.\"\n\n\"There has to be some mistake I'm a Christian.\"\n\n\"You fucking people...\"", "\"Dag-namnit!\" the tall, red skinned man said. \"I still have a few million to go through? I'll never get used to this new schedule. Oh, sugar. Another one.\"\n\nThe young man walked absently into the black room. His eyes were still glazed over, and he wouldn't regain his conciousness until the process started. The red skinned man touched the tips of the small horns protuding from his forehead. The young man sat down on the ebony chair in front of him. The light returned to his eyes, he looked around with words on his mouth, but held the silence when he saw the tall, red man before him.\n\n\"Wh-where am I?\" the young man asked, though he was beginning to get an idea from his surroundings.\n\n\"On your way to the afterlife.\" explained the red man, \"I'm here to judge you one final time to make sure it's right that you've been darned to my domain.\"\n\n\"Wh-\"\n\n\"Shh. Don't want you to open that mouth of yours, I mean look at all the accounts of foul language we have here. It's a flipping disgrace, really. A darned disgrace.\"\n\n\"Language?\"\n\n\"Yes, language. That's one of the prime offenses that'll make you end up before me. Along with all the other offenses in your shi-sugar coated file.\" The red man almost slipped up. Last time he did that he had to look after the other guy's kids for a week straight. \"Yes, language.\" he reiterated, \"Even I sometimes fall foul to this most basic of sins.\"\n\n\"Sins? I can't have sworn so much that I would get damned to hell for it.\"\n\n\"Sorry, young man. You're not damned to hell. I never said any such thing. Unfortunately, you've been darned to Heck.\" The red man clicked his long-nailed fingers. His temporary guest vanished from the black room. He sighed. \"Silly sausages, I can't take any more of this stuff.\"", "A long endless line greets one at the gates of Heck. Inconsiderate jerks, from double parkers to the ones that never replaced a toilet paper roll in their life, are each standing one behind the other and each wondering if it was safe to fart now. In a synced unison, as if by a telepathic link, they fart. The corridor has another layer of aroma added to the potpourri of the stink of sweat, urine and Axe; a lot of Axe. The line edges on slowly. A fire slug passes a woman in green stilettos who left a bloody tampon in the toilet of her father-in-law. The slug moves slowly but surely through the forest of smelly shoes in front of him. Once in a while he encounters a pair of crocs. There are sometimes some disagreements in the line. They are resolved by inconsiderate shouting which contends in volume with the shrieks of the neighborhood community called Hell. Each is eager to reach the end of line. But alas, only the slug knows that the line curves back to feed itself and is in essence a never ending circle. Some have taken to call the slug by the name of Belfy. It is short for Belphegor.", "\"Next victim,\" said Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light. A nervous looking man with pointy hair walked in. \"Let's see... You took the last of the coffee in your break room, without refilling the pot. For this hideous crime, you will... sit next to the accountants during lunch, and hear their boring conversations for all eternity!\" Screaming, the horrible coworker was lead out, and the next was brought in. \n\n\"Well well, you have loud conversations on your phone at work, and click your pen repeatedly? I have a special punishment for you\" Phil grinned menacingly at the cowering lady, enjoying every second of his job. \"You will be a simple secretary, but you'll be forced to endure your coworkers asking you for pens, and saying horrible things like 'working hard or hardly working?' for the rest of your unmercifully long life!\" At this, the woman fainted, unable to bear her fate. Phil laughed an evil laugh, he truly loved his job. " ]	4
I saw this line in a recent Askreddit thread, thought it could make for a range of scenarios. I also like the one sentence style of writing prompts.	[WP] "It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream about him sometimes."	[ " Air filled my lungs as I woke from yet another nightmare. Sweat trickled down my neck as the orchestra in my chest came to a slow. \n\nFuck... I can’t take this anymore.\n\n I made my way over to the keyboard next to my bed. The ground was littered with meal supplement bars. I don’t care about what I eat anymore. It all tastes the same anyway. I sat down and looked at the calendar perched crookedly next to my dresser.\n\nAugust 10th.\n\n Droplets made their way from my forehead and onto the keys directly below my fingertips. It’s the only way I can cope with it now. I play soft music, but loud enough so that the echoes can be heard in the black sky littered with lights. As I played, I reflected on my nightmare.\n\n It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream about him sometimes. \n\n I was already a nervous kid. Getting the shit beat out of you on a weekly basis will do that to you. I always hated those kids, but I hated the ones who did nothing even more. That’s what hurt the worst. That nobody cared enough to help.\n\n I told my parents that I needed to go back to the car to get my wallet. I didn’t even want to fucking buy anything, I just wanted the independence that came with having the ability to buy a stupid Hot Topic t-shirt that would no doubt piss my mom off. I really was a stupid kid. Now that’s only half true.\n\n As I walked through the parking structure beside the mall, keys that my parents gave me to get into the car so that I could get money that they gave to me in one hand, and a Motorola from the same parents in the other, I had been seriously contemplating suicide. Nobody cared about me, and I didn’t care about anyone. I overlooked the edge of the concrete giant, toward a beautiful sunset that rested comfortably on the horizon, but all I saw was black concrete on the ground. \n\n I stood there, my face downward for at least ten minutes. I decided against offing myself just yet, and made my way to the car. I looked at my phone to see an IM from my dad asking me where the hell I was. In the upper left hand corner of the screen, it read; \n\n “5:40 P.M - August 10th”\n\n As I made my way back to the mall, I heard shouts and scuffling coming from a far off corner of the structure. Curiosity got the better of me, and despite my infinite thirteen year old wisdom, I went to see what was going on. As I creeped up to the corner and peeked over, I saw a man, no older than twenty, getting wailed on by another man, also probably no older than twenty. \n\n As he hit the ground, a small patch of red stained the dusty grey floor. My lips quivered as I stood, feeling absolutely helpless. I wanted to say something, or do something, but my legs simply would not move forward. My lips quivered as they opened, but my tongue was tied around my brain, and I couldn’t speak. I looked at the man on the floor. His eyes were a bright green, but all I could see was grey. \n\n I ran as quickly as my feet would allow me to, so that I could get away from that horrific scene. I exited the structure, and just outside of the mall, I threw up in the nearest trash can. It was so horrifying. I still couldn’t believe what I had seen.\n\n I thought it best not to talk to anyone about it at the time. I didn’t want myself to somehow get hurt, and I didn’t think that there was anything I could do. After taking a moment to compose myself, I walked boldly into the mall, off to pretend as if the past twenty minutes of my life didn’t happen.\n\n The sweat had finally stopped now, and my breathing returned to normal. I let out a short breath of air accompanied with a slight smirk as I reflected on the irony of the entire situation. I heard later on the news that he didn’t survive his injuries, as the beatings had gotten quite worse after my act of cowardice. I do wonder if things might have been different if I had called the police or intervened in some way.\n\n I came to a slow, pressing the keys with as much passion as possible, and finally ended my song. I turned off my lights, and turned to the window above my keyboard. As I began to close it, I whispered softly into the night; \n\nI hope you liked it.\n", "My neighbor is always a little odd; at least in my eyes he is. It is apparent in our chats. He would stick to a topic that no one else was discussing for an extended period of time and the suddenly switch to another topic, as if he didn't just drag out the previous one to the point where no one else was listening.\n\nI always listened, if only because it was enjoyable watch him connect dots that others wouldn't really consider.\n\n\"You know, time travel is quite fascinating. Just imagine all the issues that arise with messing with history.\" He started out. It was his usual cheerful self, and for once, this chat was just between him and I. \"I mean there are plenty of theories about time travel and such.\"\n\n\"I though you didn't think time travel was possible.\" I interjected. \"I remember you telling me that All You Zombies wasn't possible.\"\n\n\"I believe I never said it was impossible, only hi-\"\n\n\"Highly improbably. I know, you've said that about pretty much everything.\"\n\n\"I mean, the story itself seems to be based on conflicting theories.\" He goes on to list how if the time travel in that story is based on alternate universes, he would never have to go back in time to recruit himself, by seducing herself, or something like that.\n\nThat story makes my head spin. Talking about time travel theories was just making my head hurt. I tune him out for a bit. Just to give my neurons a small rest. I tune back in a short while later.\n\nHe's now talking about how time travel could be achieved, and going on about what he would do if he can travel back in time. \"I think going back in time would be fantastic to study the creatures and animals that we have driven to extinction.\" Interesting. I never thought to study biology or other sciences in the past.\n\nHe lets out a sigh, then he says, \"It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream of him sometimes.\" I blink at him. Surprised, mildly, by the sudden change.\n\n\"Who?\" It is always my first question. He brought this up before, this slowly shaped to be our routine.\n\n\"I wonder how accurate this dream is.\" He never told me who he dreamed about. I try to guess sometimes. It wasn't related to family (technically, he said), or related to his past love life.\n\n\"Is it about a past friend?\"\n\n\"No. Not a friend. Well... I might consider him a friend, but that is a different discussion.\"\n\n\"So an aquaintaince?\"\n\n\"Definitely knew him too well to be an acquaintaince.\"\n\nI try a different angle of attack. I am determined to figure out who this is. \"So what do you dream about?\"\n\n\"Just about what jobs he would have right now or how happy he would be now. This dream was about him being a successful novelist.\" He smiled wistfully as he gazed into the distance.\n\n\"So uhhh, what happened?\"\n\nHe snapped out of his gaze and looked at me confused.\n\n\"Fourteen years ago?\" I asked tentatively.\n\nHe looked down. \"I was an idiot. I didn't do what I said I would.\"\n\n\"I'm sure he forgives you.\" I try to comfort him.\n\n\"I know he doesn't.\" He looked up at me. \"I know I haven't forgiven myself yet.\"\n", "At first, the only thing in sight was the trees. Long, drawn out, green and yellow landscapes that were spattered with thin stumps, thick stumps, long stumps; all sorts of different trees. And then the occasional building, followed by more and more buildings, until the only thing in sight was the buildings. His morning commute was always a long one, but a pleasant one, he thought. Gave him time to think, or sometimes, not to think. Sometimes to just sit and hear the rhythmic beat of the train's metallic feet, grinding against the tracks below. \n\nHe liked to stare out into the scenic views that he travelled between each morning and afternoon, sitting beside a large window and getting lost in the grass lands or bustling city streets that always followed thereafter. Some days he would hope that the grassy fields would carry on forever, overriding the inevitable takeover of the city streets, and other times he would wish exactly the opposite. It really depended on how he felt that day, he thought.\n\nAnd just as inevitable as the city roads and tall buildings that would scream past him on his way home every day, he also thought about him. How things could be so different, if he was still here. It was always a depressing thought, but also a calming one, to imagine living with him. Oh how he would change everything if he could, if he were physically capable. His mind then wandered off into the past, as it usually did at this time through his train ride home.\n\n**\n\n\"How was your day?\" She asked, smiling while greeting him from the door.\n\n\"Excellent, really, it was. Jim even talked about giving me a raise. I really think I'm starting to belong in this job, Marie.\" \n\n\"That's wonderful Mark, I love seeing you this happy, it makes me happy, too. It makes us* happy.\" \n\nHe kissed her on the cheek and walked upstairs where he went to go change. His job performance had really gone up in the past month, and his boss recognized that. Things were starting to look up in his life, and he planned on keeping it that way. A lot of new and exciting things were about to take place, and despite all the stress that usually surrounds these events, he was still very much looking forward to them.\n\n*\n\n\"Next stop is at Mauerdale, next stop at Mauerdale.\" The PA's voice broke into his daydreams and brought him back to earth. \n\nHe knew he couldn't go back into his happy thoughts; it didn't work that way. It was like having a great dream interrupted by a full bladder, once awake, that dream is long gone. His mind shifted to what it really wanted to think about, despite him trying to distract himself in any way possible. Marshall.\n\n\n\nShe opened the door, and managed to muster out a \"Hello, honey\" with a heavy heart and tears in her eyes. He already knew. He was about to ask, when she told him. He walked past her, and his ears went blank. Sound was no longer a function of his body, in that moment. He wasn't sure if he was being filled with anger, or sadness, or just nothingness.\n\n*\n\nHe felt his eyes become heavy, and a frown beginning to form on his face. Why did life have to be this way, he thought. Why did I have to lose him so early, he constantly questioned. \n\n\"I loved him.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry?\" The train attendant asked him, as she was cleaning up the table in front of him. She appeared to be in her mid-20s.\n\n\"Oh, my apologies, I was just thinking aloud.\" He answered, slumped in the chiair, and now realizing how miserable he probably looked.\n\n\"No, it's okay, but who's 'him'?\" She asked as she slightly re-balanced herself from a slight bump in the train floor.\n\n\"It nothi-\" \n\n\"It's clearly not nothing*, as I've seen you sitting in this train everyday for the past month and a half, wallowing about something, or someone. Now if it's okay with you, I'd like to know what's had you feeling so down. Is it a co-worker? A friend? A broth-\"\n\n\"No, none of those.\" He didn't want to speak about it, but she just wouldn't give up. \n\n\"Well? Who is it then?\"\n\nHe sat in silence for a moment, looking at the table in front of him. The train's rhythmic bumping kept the silence away, and even through a situation like this, provided him some comfort.\n\n\"Okay, then. I wanted to see if I could help you, seeing how you're always worked up about this. Stress and sadness are the silent killers, but have a good day sir.\" She said as she picked up the used table cloths and began walking away.\n\n\"Marshall.\"\n\n\"Excuse me?\" She turned around, now a couple feet away from them.\n\n\"His name was Marshall. He was my son.\"\n\nThe train's metallic drum beat paused for a moment, as it seemed they were now crossing a smoother track.\n\n\"Oh.. I'm, I'm sorry. Is he okay?\" She looked genuinely concerned.\n\n\"No. He's, uh, he isn't alive. Anymore. Never really was, I guess. Miscarriaged, my wife did.\" His face was turning red and his eyes were now hiding behind a thick veil of water. \n\nShe motioned if she could sit down, across from him. The train was relatively empty that day, and she felt it was more important to help a man in need than to go on about her mundane tasks, cleaning the rest of the booths, which were empty anyway. \n\n\"Yeah, it's fine.\" He said, as she sat down.\n\nHe pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes and then his nose. This was the first time he was really opening up about what happened, and to a stranger no less. Sometimes life is funny that way, he thought.\n\n \n\"It was fourteen years ago, and I still dream about him sometimes..\"" ]	3
130 years ago aliens detected large amounts of free oxygen molecules in our atmosphere through their new extrasolar telescope. This being a strong indication of life they sent a probe to earth carrying several autonomous drones to explore our planet and search for intelligent life.	[WP] First contact with aliens that are not much more advanced than we are.	[ "1200 hrs. CET. \"Samokhod 2\" made it's third orbital fly-over around Bgd-156, a rocky planet in the proverbial Goldilocks zone in our Milky Way galaxy. From its initial data, we could safely deduce that the planet was, in fact, populated. The alien life-forms were still illusive in our scans, but energy signatures were undeniable. We were about to meet our galactic next door neighbors.\nThe orbital craft, on its fifth and final round trip, launched a probe towards the surface.\nUpon the probe's atmospheric entry, we were able to make a simulated model of the planet's upper and lower atmosphere. The lower one was particularly interesting, since it contained roughly the same amount of CO2 and O2 as ours. \n1300 hrs.\nThe \"Samokhod 2\" stopped transmitting data for a while, and everyone panicked, but the probe continued its designated flight plan and landed near the equator. First images came in at 1310. Most of the mission control staff started cheering and wooing. Our neighbors built an artificial environment around a vast body of water, very similar to cities on our planet. The probe captured a striking landscape with a bright light on the horizon glaring through the rectangles, triangles and other geometric shapes. \n1330. The probe was disconnected after almost two hours of constant data stream. The \"Samokhod\" was, luckily back online. Its geostationary orbit helped track the probe, but the camera was inoperational. However, we managed to turn the sound back on, so the probe was still invaluable to the mission. \nThis report will not delve into the personal details of the mission control crew, but\nit must be noted that when we heard the first Neighbor communicate in, what we\ncan only assume, is their universal language, the shock and awe was overwhelming.\n1400. The crew inspected the \"malfunction\" of the \"Samokhod\" and still, there were no explanations as to why the craft went silent when it did. There were also a few new computing algorithms uploaded on the mainframe that the mission control could not decipher. \n1445. The probe is now completely inoperational. However, the mysterious computing algorithm from the \"Samokhod\" seem to correspond with some forms of early alphabet and numeral writing found here, on Earth. Upon further analysis, the recorded audio of Neighbors will be ready for translation by 1530.\n1535. Using the uploaded algorithm from the orbiter and the combined computational power of our machines, the message from planet Bgd-156, the first planet in our galaxy that sustains life outside Earth is as follows:\n\"What the hell, man! Did you see that?\"\n\"See what?\"\n\"That little thing fell from the clouds\"\n\"No, really? No!\"\n\"Yeah man! It totally crashed in our back yard, man\"\n\"Let's see what it is\"\nThe next few sentences are inaudible, and therefore untranslatable. The sound continues after a few minutes.\n\"...In the back, and probably from some government-type craft or something. It looks odd, tho. No permidium shell, no cystal processor. Maybe it's some kind of a toy?\"\n\"Duuude... Are you thinking what I'm thinking?\"\n\"What?\"\n\"Duuuuude...\"\n\"What, say it?\"\n\"Let's make a bong out of it!\"\n\"Sweeet.\"\nEnd of message.", "It was desperation that made us reach out to the stars, or was it terror?\n\nHow lonely would it be to know that we are truly alone in the universe? What reason would we have to better ourselves as a species, when we are all that exists? When there are no others out there, the minute differences in intergumentary pigmentation and facial structures between members of the same species becomes far too much to tolerate.\n\nSuch violence came from such small differences, for so long. Traits became tribes, tribes became cities, cities became nations, and we fought one another wielding one banner or another for tens of thousands of years, progressing only in the sophistication of our weapons and the dogmatism of our shallow hatreds. In the end, we were sisters and brothers of a common world, shedding our lifeblood in an unending cycle of suffering over such petty squabbles.\n\nHow happy we were, to detect your world, to see life that is not our own thriving upon it. Such wonderful adaptations and new forms on so alien a planet. Our nations were crumbling under the weight of a millennial genocide, our governments and our peoples scattered and at each others throats.\n\nWhen the discovery was made public, we all dropped our swords in astonishment - and for the first time in our history, for an instant, we shed no blood of ours. Our ancient tribes mended and melded, and wove together - petty physiological and cosmetic philosophical differences cast aside for solidarity and peace.\n\nI bear you no ill will, and I give you my undying gratitude for making a dream into reality. Our peoples are now devoting their entire resources to developing interstellar travel so that we may all reach for the stars as one, so that we may meet you.\n\nYou who are different from us. Too different to tolerate. Through extinguishing your people, ours will become pure.", "They called for an impeachment. \n\nPresident John Ellis Bush looked again at the screen, showing a circular drone, reportedly made of elements not found on Earth. \"What do you think, Sam?\" \n\nA fucking impeachment.\n\n\"Sir.\" The Chief of Staff looked around the room. \"I think that we can worry about this later. Right now we need to secure your face with the public before they decide to impeach-\" \n\nHe stopped talking as the President held up a hand. \n\n\"We have found proof of alien life,\" he spoke to the room, voice carrying to each of the generals, the intelligence analysts, those deemed important enough to be in the situation room. \"Proof... and you stand there telling me to save face with the public? I'm not my father, Sam.\" \n\n\"Yes, sir.\" He looked down. \n\n\"Should we go public?\" The President asked the room. \n\n\"Sir,\" A general spoke, one with more badges on his uniform than stars on the flag. \"That would be a mistake. Can you imagine the uproar? The-\" \n\n\"People have a right to know.\" A female analyst spoke up. \n\n\"Idealism isn't going to help-\" The general cut off as the President spoke. \n\n\"Sam?\" \n\nThe Chief of Staff looked up. \"Sir?\" \n\n\"Should we go public?\" \n\nSamuel nodded. \"It would take the spotlight off... other events.\" \n\nPresident Jeb Bush nodded. He didn't speak of it often, but he knew he really would be impeached unless something drastic happened. Perhaps it could simply be a more exciting news story. \n\nThe situation room was quiet for a long moment. \n\n\"Sam.\" The President said. \n\n\"Sir?\" \n\n\"Prepare a statement.\" The President stood up and lowered his hand for the staff to seat themselves as he walked out. \"I want this out by lunch.\"", "There wasn't really much to say. It was a little difficult trying to get the bloodstains off my pants, but other than that, it was like encountering a couple of stupid teenagers.\n\nIt started off as a beautiful night, if a bit cold. The ducks at the park were fighting over the crumbs I tossed into the water. A bossy green-headed mallard was pushing the others aside, hogging most of the bits I tossed to them. He did this every time I fed them, and I grew to develop a bond with him. I decided to name him Steven. \n\nI was trying to get a good shot of him with my phone, but every time the flash went off he would dive his head under water.\n\n\"Well, screw you too, Steve,\" I told him.\n\nI finished ripping up the stale bagel in my hand and tossed the rest of the bits at the other birds. Some freaked out, the others fought over the scraps.\n\nI fixed my scarf and started to head back home when I noticed something slide across the grass. \n\nI walked towards it and it jerked away. I pulled out my phone and shone the flashlight at it. It was a t-bone steak, still uncooked, and it was slowly working it's way towards a set of small bushes.\n\nI could hear snickering behind it.\n\n\"Shhh,\" a voice spoke. \"See, now he heard us!\"\n\n\"Well, still drag it in,\" another voice responded. \"He might still go for it.\"\n\nI looked towards the bush, and the talking hushed to indecipherable whispers.\n\nSuddenly, it rattled and two furry little people came out, the first orange and white like a tabby cat, and the other a chestnut brown. Both had huge, goofy heads and squirrel-like tails.\n\nThey walked towards me slowly, their palms held out. \n\n\"Come here, little guy\" the orange one said. \"We're not going to harm you, see?\"\n\nHe tugged on a string and the steak jiggled on the ground. \"Come on now, come get the steak. Big, juicy steak.\"\n\nThe other one pulled a small black square out of his pocket and pointed at me. A dull light shone out of it and then shut off. He giggled to himself and showed the box to his friend, who snickered in turn. \n\n\"Oh my god, he's so cute!\" the brown one said. \n\n\"Stop!\" the other said, \"You're going to freak him out with that light.\"\n\n\"I know, but he's so adorbs!\"\n\n\"Guys!\" I yelled at them. \"I can hear you.\"\n\n\"Oh god. He's angry!\" Cried the orange one. \"What do we do?\"\n\n\"Play dead! No, wait. Raise your hands up. Look taller than him.\"\n\n\"He's still taller than us, even if we raise our hands up!\"\n\n\"Throw the steak!\"\n\nThe orange one shook his fist at me, and suddenly the steak started glowing bright blue. The light grew brighter and brighter, and soon it was completely blinding. \"Ok guys, what the hell!\" I tried to yell at them.\n\nSplat\n\nNext thing I know, the light is gone and there's steak juice all over my knees. The t-bone was splattered on the grass in front of me, bits of fat stuck to my shoe.\n\nWhen I looked up I only saw two large squirrel tails disappearing behind the shrubs." ]	4
	[WP] All around the world, people begin to disappear in droves, reducing our population to a scant and sparse few. 500 years later, we discover where they went.	[ "\"I'm sorry\" she giggled \"But we just couldn't help ourselves!\" Like the rest of her kind, she had the body of a porn-star and the face of an angel. Her gorgeous body was draped with the same amount of material as a handkerchief but she pulled the look off as demurely as Audrey Hepburn at the monaco regatta.\n\nThe ambassador straightened his tie and swallowed uncomfortably. He was more aware than ever of his receding hairline and growing paunch. But, he reminded himself, he had to remain professional above everything else. This was a high-level diplomatic meeting after all, first contact with an alien race, even if it looked like a summit meeting with Aphrodite in a turkish harem. \"But we, must understand! Why did you take them?\" One of their rare males swanned over brandishing a paintbrush and a tureen full of honey. \"Are you ready for your afternoon glazing madame?\"\n\nReluctantly she lifted her eyes and stared blankly at the finely chiseled features. \"No, thank you, Pellios, I'm in the middle of something right now.\" She quickly turned back to the little diplomat. \"It must have been dreadfully rude, I know. But we just couldn't resist. Milennia of perfect bodies and amazing sex....We were bored! Trillions of us gagging for something new and stimulating. Quite frankly, we needed a good screw. It was then that we found the Earth. Full of sagging bellies, and scrawny arms, and cellulite and nose-hair....ugh.\" The envoy rolled her eyes in a picture of lust and desire. \"So much imperfection! It was overwhelming.\" She then gave a look of regret. \"We meant to take them back home after we had our fun, but before we realized what was what they\nhad begun to die off. How were we supposed to know humans only live a century or two?\"\n\n\n\"You must understand, that we really meant the best. Only took the willing and all that.\" She battered her eyelashes and lounged back in her sedan in a way that was even more seductive than before.\"Anyway we were meaning to ask you. Do you think we could get a few more volunteers anytime soon?\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Twenty years. That's the amount of time it took for us to find them. When it started they begin to disappear in droves of hundreds, then it became thousands, then it was just a few. Somebody figured a way to turn the Internet back on and we all decided that we would meet up somewhere. Everyone agreed that we would meet in Wisconsin\n\n387 that's the amount of people that we had everyone else is gone, or didn't make it. A few people would show up and we would find a couple but that was about it. after four years we all decided that it wasn't worth walking around and investigating into anymore and we turn our attention toward survival repopulation we brought our numbers to almost 600.\n\nJonathan Smith he was the one who found it. He was out by a lake playing with rocks one day when he found a key. Jonathan brought the key to his father, arguably the smartest man in town he was the one who managed to figure out how to restore the Internet. This key was unlike anything you've ever seen before. It was extremely heavy but was just an ordinary size key. It shone the matter what kind of light was cast upon it. \n\nAfter fiddling with the key for three years he decided to just throw it into the lake where his son had found it, out of frustration. The lake began to bubble as a giant machine came up out of it. Jonathan jump in the lake and found the key again. He inserted the key into the machine and suddenly a portal opened front of him. \n\nThrough the portal he could see everybody who had disappeared going about their daily lives. He decided to step through the portal. ", "They left in groups of thousands, or one at a time, dissolving into the air as completely as sugar into coffee. They left their clothes laying in the street, like the evidence of some tragic crime. \n\nIt wasn't the only way people left us. Once society began to collapse, anarchy took more. Then there were the suicides. Parents left without children, husbands without wives.\n\nWe tried to evacuate, there was nowhere to go. The vanishings were unstoppable. They followed us wherever we went, from Africa to Australia. We remaining few congregated in the cities, living on canned food. There was more than enough. In Sydney, there were only twenty people in a city that had been stocked for millions.\n\nEventually the news came through from somewhere. The vanishings had been due to the most effective disease ever evolved. The disease completely and immediately disintegrated the body. We few who were left had been cursed with immunity. For years, we had been breathing our friends’ and family’s dust. ", "OK, Bigsby. You've had a good fifty years to research this thing. What did you find out?\n\nWell, Clark, as you know, about five hundred years ago people began to disappear in droves, reducing our population to a scant and sparse few.\n\nYes, for so it was read.\n\nAnd yet... it has taken us lo these five hundred years to figure out where they went. \n\nIndeed. Why did they leave us?\n\nI know not. There are still nearly 50 of us left, handed down through the years by those who did not join the exodus, or exodize ourselves as it were.\n\nIs that a word?\n\nDon't care. I am but one of 50. I can make up a word. Hell, I'm the one who gave us all that big catchphrase last summer.\n\nWhat catchphrase?\n\n\"I wish there were more people here!\"\n\nThat was you?\n\nWell, that and \"Prickly stickly, and a wiggedity waggedy.\" That was was marketed to a more... uh, urban crowd.\n\nYou mean Dave?\n\nYeah.\n\nHe's the only one left.\n\nNot really, Clark. My research shows that the people, they did not disappear. No, they just all started moving in one direction, all the way back in 2023. They've been there ever since. Living, dying, multiplying. They had some hardships through the years, forging a new community where one had never fostered, and death wiped out many, many people. But now they number five hundred million.\n\nSo where are they?\n\nAlabama.\n\nFuck.\n\nI know, right? Still no public schools in the 26th century.\n\nWhy did everyone go to Alabama all of a sudden?\n\nIt became hip and ironic. Like that old comedy sketch show Birminghamistan starring Fred Armisen Jr Jr.\n\nHe was no Fred Armisen Jr Jr Jr\n\nAnd who could be? Anyhow, after Fred Armisen Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr Jr started World War Six, Birmingham became this one place that didn't get nuked, wheras we got a whole lotta that. Thanks for not pointing out my sixty flippers that I have instead of arms.\n\nWell to be fair, I didn't mention your lazy eye, and you didn't mention my green and scaly tail.\n\nStill beats living in Alabama.\n\nAmen to the that.\n\nBrought to you by the state tourism board of Mississippi" ]	4
	[WP] Write a short story using as MANY clichés as you can.	[ "Once upon a time.\n\nThere was a beautiful woman locked away in a horrible castle. The castle was on top of highest mountain, guarded by a fire breathing dragon, and a magical spell that caused her never to age. \n\nThis legend was told as a bedtime story to boys and girls for generations. Most of them thought it was just story, but not the black smiths son John. He was always so curious, \"why was she locked away? Why hasn't anyone tried to rescue her?\" He vowed that when he was strong enough, that he would rescue the beautiful woman.\n\nThat day finally came on his eighteenth birthday. He stole his father most prized weapon. This sword was no ordinary sword, it had a spell cast on it for killing dragons. His father would never approve of this noble quest.\n\nJohn snuck right by the sleeping guards and rushed straight towards witch mountain. This was the first time he ever left the village, and he has never climbed a mountain before, but there was no turning back now. The climbing was the easy part, but the dragon terrified him. When he finally reached the top and looked into the dragons bright yellow eyes, his heart stopped. He gripped his fathers sword and yelled as he charged for the dragons neck. And with one with one mighty thrust he chopped the dragons head clean off.\n\nHe kicked in the door at top of castle and there she was. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen. A look of shock swept over her face. \"I thought I was cursed to stay in this dreadful place forever.\"\n\n\" Not anymore John Smith replied.\"\n\nThe two barely spoke as they made the long journey home. John had something no man before him had ever done. He couldn't wait to see his father face. \n\nThey entered the village with no fan fair, no cheering crowds. This isn't at all what he had imagined. He climbed off his horse and greeted his father who was at the market buying some bread. \n\n\"I've done it father, I rescued the woman in the castle.\"\n\"You did what!\" His father screamed.\n\n\"I knew you would never approve, but I had to do it. She's been locked in that tower for ages.\"\n\n\"Did you ever stop to think why?\" His father yelled. \"She's a witch! Why do think she was locked away at the top of \"witch mountain\"? You think dragons just guard castles? Do you know long it took to train that thing!?\"\n\nJohn looked back to see the beautiful woman transformed into a hideous witch, burning down houses, and killing anyone who tried to stop her. \n\nAnd the witch lived happily ever after. \n\nThe end. \n\n\n\n\n\n", "It was a dark and stormy night. Four teenagers were in a car barreling down a country road. In the driver's seat, Zach. The star quarterback of the high school football team. He wore a varsity letter jacket. He had one hand on the wheel and one hand on Amber's knee. \n\n\"We're fucking lost babe,\" he said.\n\nAmber giggled. \n\n\"It's not fucking funny Amb!\"\n\nAmber sighed, \"Whatever!\" and stared out the window absently twirling her hair and popping her bubblegum. She was the lead cheerleader. She wore a sweater, yoga pants, and Uggs.\n\nOgling at Amber open-mouthed from behind the driver's seat was Poindexter. He used to be close friends with Zach before high school and he tutored Amber in math class. Well, he did her math homework. Poindexter pushed up his thick glasses and looked down at his device. \n\n\"I-I-I'm still not getting any GPS signal guys\" \n\nNo body replied. Not even Rabbit, the girl sitting next to him in the rear seat. Though she did look over at him nervously sometimes. Rabbit was a sophmore and Zach's little sister. She was a bundle of nervous energy, hair tied up and wore glasses even thicker than Poindexter's\n\nSuddenly, the car started knocking and sputtered. \n\n\"Oh fuck!\" said Zach, \"We're out of gas! Nice going Dex!\"\n\nPoindexter stared to respond, \"How is it my fau-\"\n\n\"Yeah, thanks Dex,\" Amber huffed. \n\nZach pulled the car over to the side of the dark lonely country road. There was not a house in sight. He got out of the car and opened the trunk. Amber caught Dex looking at her, scoffed, and rolled her eyes. Zach got back in the car and threw an empty gas can in the back seat. \n\n\"You're gonna have to walk and find a gas station,\" Zach said. \n\n\"But I-\" Dex started.\n\n\"I'm not leaving my baby alone in the dark!\" Zach said.\n\n\"Aww baby,\" Amber said.\n\n\"I was talking about the car,\" said Zach.\n\nAmber huffed then forced a giggle. She turned around and looked at Rabbit. \n\n\"And you might want to go too Bunny,\" Amber said.\n\n\"It's Rabbit.\"\n\n\"Whatever,\" Amber said. She took her gum out on her finger and pressed it against Rabbit's glasses. \"You're not gonna want to see this.\" She leaned over Zach's lap and stared unzipping his jeans.\n\nDex and Rabbit bolted from the car. There had been some buildings a mile or so back so they started off in that direction. The two walked in silence for a while. Rabbit stopped. \n\n\"What is it?\" Dex asked. \n\n\"I thought I saw a shadow,\" Rabbit muttered.\n\nPoindexter looked around and shrugged, \"There's nothing.\"\n\n\"I'm cold,\" Rabbit said crossing her arms and shivering. \n\nSuddenly, there was a scream in the dark. Dex and Rabbit turned around and could still make out the car. The back window illuminated by yellow light. There was another scream and the back window was splashed with dark red blood....\n\n", "Frank was a good cop, his precinct was full of bad ones but he was still good. He was working hard filing paperwork one lazy weekday afternoon when officers Fintz and Johnston walked in with a perp. The man looked like a vagrant and reminded Frank o his days when he was an alcoholic. \n\nThe man elbowed the officers and bolted out the doors. Frank immediately took off after him. The precinct had boats nearby and the man somehow got wired one of them. Frank hopped in one and chased after him. \n\nTwo miles later and the perp had made it to some island that Frank had never seen before. They've been told to call for backup when situations are like this, but Frank wasn't worried. He got off the boat at the island, and began to enter the compound. \n\nThe compound was lousy with guards, they were every when. Frank pulled out his trust silenced pistol and began taking out each and every guard. Finally Frank found the main room of the compound where the vagrant must be. He looked through the keyhole to see the vagrant and officers Fintz and Johnston talking. They were discussing how the vagrant did a good job tricking Frank into coming here where surely he'd be killed. They needed to eliminate all the good cops in the prescience for their plan. Frank kicked in the door and shot them all down.\n\nLater back at the office after doing all the required work for what happened, the chef walked in and demanded that Frank get in his office. He told him to turn in his badge and his gun, he was through being a cop. A man with a black suit walked in from behind Frank, you've been chosen to join our organization agent 167. " ]	3
Your choice...	[WP] Make something sound worse and worse, sentence by sentence, until in the last sentence, it seems fine. Or vice versa.	[ "First, they are snatched from their homes. Mothers, sons, fathers, daughters, brothers and sisters are split up. Families are disintegrated in the blink of an eye. Then, while awaiting their fate, they are left in the scorching heat for weeks, their skin shrivelling, beaten daily to ensure compliance. Their skin is flayed before their are sorted according to arbitrary characteristics. Those which are deemed \"imperfect\" are disposed of. They are then ready to be sent away. Millions upon millions of them, strangers to each other, crammed into rooms that can barley fit them and sent far from the world they have known. Then they are burnt whole with the strangers they have spent weeks with, before a machine made specially for the purpose cuts them into small pieces. Finally, scalding water is poured over what remains and the carcasses tossed out. The water, now saturated, is drank. And that is how coffee is made." ]	1
	[wp] Tell a zombie sorry from the perspective of the zombie.	[ "The silent drip of the bursted pipe splashed upon my nose, so white\nI haven't seen the sun in years the darkness no longer holds my fear.\n\nThe rancid stench of scattered flesh penetrated deep inside my chest. \nThe days were nights and the nights were days in this cavern of malaise\n\nA bang was heard from up above, a manhole cover was being tugged\nThe piercing light blinded me thorough, a rope ladder was unfurled\n\nThe man was young, maybe 20 he was with some friends, guns a plenty\nThe .45 came was at eye level when he smiled coyly like the devil\n\nThe world went dark and I felt numb that dripping sound faded, as did the sun." ]	1
	[WP] The price was set at eight bags of gold, twelve bags of silver, and twenty fine horses.	[ "Against the din of the Mystic Traveling Gwama Band in the center of it all, it was hard to make out every word leaving the worn tin megaphone of Leighton Otalman, The Story Bard of Caldertown. \n\n\"...And so the price was set at eight bags of gold, twelve bags of silver, and twenty-four fine horses to the man who could bring back the head of the Red Knight of Gravesend. Which of our heroes will risk death for glory and riches? How will they fare against this most inhuman foe? For a nickle you can hear...\"\n\nEveryone got a preview for free. Five minutes before the hour, every hour. There'd be familiar faces in every town he went to, but the difference between a small crowd and an OK one usually came down to how well he sold himself in those five minutes before a show. The effort meant a couple of extra drinks at the end of the night.\n\nThe Red Knight of Gravesend had been around for a little while - maybe two years or so. It was the Witch of of Cecteras and her Fire Dragon before that. There was even a Black Knight of Gravesend a while back, but he was a minor enough character that nobody would remember him at this point. Same deal with the heroes, although they tended to stick around as respected minor characters after their feature days ended. It really all depended on what the crowds liked. He could tell when they were ready to move onto something new. Sling stories long enough to watch towns come and go, and you'll pick up the ebb and flow of it. \n\nAt the top of the hour, The Bard pocketed his last nickel, closed the flap to his tent, and took a long moment to take a sip of water and breathe slowly. As his crowd settled in, he re-entered the world of his creation, a small observer inside a battle between heroes and villains. ", "The price was set at eight bags of gold, twelve bags of silver, and twenty-four fine horses. A windfall like that would make any man rich. That was the rub. The huddled travelers examined the posted notice with critical eyes. “Won’t work,” one man opined. His companion, similarly dressed in clothes caked in dirt, nodded in assent. “Xopa don’t think like a man.” Some of the younger men, freshly outfitted for their first foray upriver, took their own superiority for granted. “Well, what would motivate the twiggers?” one sandy-haired traveler sneered. The first man turned his good eye towards the boastful stranger. His other eye was a sunken pit perched in a criss crossed nest of scars. The braggart shifted uncomfortably under the piercing gaze. The old man spat.\n\n”Steel.”\n" ]	2
	[WP] You are immortal, except for one odd weakness.	[ "It was morning again. I only remembered the year of my birth now: 1784. \n\nI picked up my favorite \"Obama is a reptile\" sign and walked out to the street corner to rant for another day.\n\nIt was tough faking mental illness, but as far as I could tell, I only aged on days when people took me seriously.", "\"Bacon\"\n\n\"Bacon?!'\n\n\"Bacon\"\n\n\"....Bacon...really?\"\n\n\"Yes Steve really its bacon.\" I say as I take a bite of the crispy slice heaven that just came off the pan.\n\n\"You could be immortal superman but because you eat bacon you are a normal person?\" Steve asked for what may be the 50th time today.\n\n\"This is why no one likes you Steve everyone hates to repeat themselves. Yes I would have the ability to fly, lift really big fucking rocks over my head and live forever if I wanted to give up bacon.\" I say as I put more bacon slices on the pan. \"I also have the ability to give it away to anybody who wants it.\"\n\n\"I'm just having trouble understanding is all.\" Steve scrunched up his face a little as he tried to think it through then what I said finally hit him. \"Wait! I could have super powers right now and live forever?! If I wanted?\" He asked with the excitement of a 5 her old.\n\n\"Yes you could. You could have super powers right now and go flying around the world fighting crime and and never worrying about death. But the question is...could you do it?\"\n\n\"Of course I could do it. I would even be better than you at it since you aren't even using them.\" Steve responded angrily.\n\n\"That was not what I meant\".\n\n\"Then what is it\"?\n\n\"Could you give up bacon\"?\n\nThe question hit Steve like a ton of bricks \"What do you mean give up bacon\"?\n\n\"What did you think you would get the powers but not the weakness? Its like Comcast its part of the package you don't get to chose what comes with it.\n\n\"But...I could do it? I could be superman?\" Steve asked one more time, broken.\n\n\"Yes.\". Then I put the bacon on a plate and walked it over to Steve, \"Or you could have some of this bacon\".\n\nEnd\n\n\n\nP.S. First time ever writing one of these hope it works.\nSorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes that I'm positive I made.\nP.P.S. I would chose the bacon" ]	2
	[WP] Scientists have designed a spacesuit that never runs out of oxygen. You are wearing one of these suits, and through some event, are now drifting through space helplessly.	[ "Have you ever tried punching yourself to death through an almost impenetrable helmet with padded fists? I have, I've had a lot of time to try a lot of things. That particular experiment didn't result in any noteworthy conclusions, my hands were coddled by their ample padding and my head safe in this stupid smart-polymer dome. At least safe from the outside.\n\nIf you find my dead body, probably with a perfect unbeaten head now that I've given up on the punching, and hear this recording, then fuck you. I wasn't even trying to talk to you, I just figured that leaving the recording on would waste the batteries in this suit and kill me.\n\nHa! Already down to 19%! Soon it there won't be enough for the water and air recyclers.\n\nAnd to think I was afraid I'd have to bite tongue to death, this is much better. \n\nSoon it'll be over.", "it's my first time trying one of these things, so constructive criticism is appreciated\n\nIt’s so quiet up here. \n\nThat was one of the first things I noticed when I stepped outside the hatch. \n\nIt wasn't the itch that was in my left boot. \n\nIt wasn't the fact that I had held my breath as I took my first, tentative steps outside. \n\nIt wasn’t the inky blackness that swirled around me, and stretched as far as the eye could see. \n\nIt wasn’t the stars shining out through the blackness, like little fireflies on a dark night.\n\nNor was it the sight of my planet, filling my vision and hanging peacefully. \n\nNo, it was the silence.\n\nSee out in space, sound doesn’t work like it would back home. Hughes tried to explain it to me once during one of his trademark ranks, but I wasn’t listening.\n\nI was staring at Earth, through the little window we had in the mess. \n\nEarth, from up here is indescribable. It hangs there, in the void, slowly rotating on an invisible axis. \n\nI used to sit and watch it for hours.\n\nI saw thunderstorms rage over oceans, clouds stretch over continents like blankets, and sunsets like I had never seen before. \n\nUp here, one can see the earth as it should be viewed. \n\nUp here there are no borders, no violence, no politicians or bureaucrats. \n\nNo, it’s just the earth, silent and beautiful.\n\nI can still remember how I last saw it, a great blue ball silhouetted against the blackness. \n\nShepard and I could talk, for a little while, and one of the last things I heard him say was how seeing it from all the way up here, made him feel very small.\n\nThinking back now, there are a lot of things I wish I said to him. Like how he, the bravest of us, shouldn’t be scared.\n\nBut I didn’t.\n\nInstead I screamed out, watching the blue dot slowly shrink away and disappear. \n\nI cried out her name, your name, and I cursed myself.\n\nLater, floating in the silence, I tried to call out to him again, to just hear the comfort of someone else’s voice. To be reassured by the man I followed out into the void. \n\nI only got silence in return. \n\nIt’s quiet up here.\n\nThere are times where I would scream out, working myself into a fit just to end it, to try to put a stop to the constant, pressing silence. \n\nI would scream and scream, until my lungs gave out and I would be gasping for breath.\n\nBut there was never anyone to hear my screams.\n\nI first held out that against all odds, someone somewhere would try to rescue me. \n\nAny minute now, there would be two pinpricks of light growing larger, and there would be the boyish face of Sinclair behind the controls. \n\nOr maybe there would be Shepard, who could have already been rescued and was now trying to save me in return.\n \nWould he even want to save me?\n\nEven now, in the silence I can still hear his screams in my ears, and feel his hand slipping out of mine. \n\nAnd see his body twirl off into the blackness that swallowed me up as well. \n\nAs time went on, I started to lose hope, and the fervent dreams I once clung onto no longer shone brief, flashes of light through the dark clouds. \n\nI cried, heavy, ugly sobs that shook me to my core. \n\nThen I would sit in silence, staring at the stars.\n\nI’ve been thinking of you a lot. \n\nI’ve been thinking about how you would always get that grin on your face right before you tackled me in bed. \n\nI’ve been thinking about how your eyes would get that little glimmer when you laughed, and how it would just melt my heart.\n\nI’ve been thinking about that little pizza place, the one where we had our first date. \n\nDo you remember? How we sat and talked and talked for hours.\n\nOr how we laughed so hard tears came from our eyes. \n\nOr how we held each other up that night in the rain, our bodies pressed together and the rain misting the tears running down our faces.\n\nThere are times where I think I can hear your voice, calling my name. \n\nI’ve been thinking about your face, every little curvature and slant. \n\nAnd how your eyes, green as the purest emeralds, would be hidden behind your dark bangs.\n\nI’ve seen… I’ve seen so much baby.\n\nI’ve seen things that we use to dream about, lying on my car and watching the sky. \n\nI’ve been through nebulas that look like great red oceans, and stars that seem big enough to swallow up the sky. \n\nI’ve seen dust glitter off of the rings of planets, endlessly sparkling off into the distance. \n\nI’ve seen auras, beings of light that I can’t even begin to describe. \n\nMaybe that’s what you’re doing right now, standing and staring up at the night sky. \n\nThere are so many stars up here, way more than you and I ever saw. \n\nThey’re kind of like me, just drifting their way through oblivion, helpless to stop their course. \n\nLeaves in the wind.\n\nThey told me, back before I stepped out, that if these packs would ever be removed, that at most we would only have five minutes of oxygen left. \n\nI’ve tried, I’ve tried so hard baby. \n\nIt’s getting harder to hold onto the memories, like trying to grasp smoke in your hands. \n\nThey just keep fading away, floating down the dark tunnel.\n\nAll that I have up here is the stars. \n\nIt’s quiet here.\n\nThere’s so much I have to tell you when I get home. \n\nI just hope your going to be there for me. \n\nCan you wait for me? Please?\n\nI know I promised that I would bring you back something, but can you please just, wait for me there?\n\nUnder the star lit sky. \n\nThere’s, some sort of beeping going on, and now there’s some red light flashing inside my helmet.\n\nIf you ever get this, I want you to go into my drawer in the bathroom, and open up the bottom of my shaving cream can. \n\nI know that it’s nothing too extravagant, and I was meaning to do this in a special way. \n\nBut I don’t know when I’m going to get the chance to ask the question.\n\nIt’s so quiet, I can hear the beeping fading away now.\n\nI can feel it now, the numbness spreading up my chest.\n\nI can feel it all, just fading.\n\nFading, into the silent black space, with the stars twinkling around it.\n\nFading into the dark tunnel, as I can feel my chest start to seize up.\n\nFading, into oblivion.\n\nLike tears in the rain. " ]	2
	[WP] The hero can't figure out how to stop the villain. The solution seems obvious to you, an innocent bystander.	[ "Gazelle Man was looking at the TV hanging just above the warehouse door we just entered. A live feed of the Puzzler's face, hidden mostly by shadow, was playing on it. Inside the warehouse was several raised platforms, seemingly set up with a different difficult device that Gazelle Man would no doubt have to solve. Hanging upside down from the very top was the two captured officers. They were gagged and desperately struggling to avoid the electrified fence that was set up as a cage around them. \n\n\"You'll never get away with this, Puzzler.\" said Gazelle man.\n\n\"Oh, I already have, Gazelle Man. You only have 10 minutes to solve all my delightful puzzles before the hook releases and those poor coppers get fried. By that time, I will have already escaped. Tic-toc, Gazelle Man, time is of the essence.\"\n\nThe Puzzler gave a maniacal laugh before cutting the feed. Gazelle Man instantly rushed forward and began working on the first platforms' puzzle. The sergeant and I remained at the door. Best to leave the hero work up to the professionals after all. \n\nAs we waited I happen to look over and see a breaker box near by. Surely it wouldn't be that easy, right? I mean, the Puzzler was one of the most dangerous villains we have ever encountered, there was no way he would make such an obvious mistake. After a bit, I decided it couldn't hurt and walked over to the box. With a quick flick, I switched the breaker off, cutting the power. The warehouse lights and the multitude of machines the Puzzler had left (for decoration? Why did he always do that?) powered down. A cursory glance up confirmed that the cage surrounding the hanging officers was also no longer sparking. \n\nGazelle Man had been startled at first, but then just turned and looked in our direction with a confused look on his face. I simply shrugged and pointed at the breaker box. He sat in bewilderment for a moment. The sergeant gave a cough to get his attention, and pointed to the TV still hanging above our heads. \n\n\"Right, I have work to do. Good work, captain,\" with that Gazelle Man leaped from the platform and sprinted outside. \n\nThe sarge and I sat in silence for a moment. \n\n\"Do you think..\" I turned.\n\n\"I'm sure...\"\n\n\"...\"\n\n\"He would have figured it out eventually.\"\n\n\"Yeah, yeah you're right.\"\n\n\"....\"\n\n\"Should probably get those guys down now.\"\n\n\"Of course. Hop to it, captain.\"\n\n", "I can’t believe it. My heart pounds in sync with the sounds of the knocks on the old wooden door in a non-descript apartment. After years of searching I’ve found him. My superiors will be pleased.\n\nHe opens the door.\n\nOh my gosh it’s really him. This is really happening. No keep it cool. You’ll embarrass yourself in front of him. Keep it cool Clayton. \n\n“How can I help you.” the blind man asks. His New York manners showing through. Just as my algorithms had predicted he would. \n\n“The real question, is how can I help you?” I said, careful to show him how sincere my offer was. “After all, I bet this is the first time a fan has come to find you.” \n\nFor a brief moment fear crossed the man without fear’s face. It was quickly replaced with anger. \n\nI should probably cut that short before he gets any other ideas. Dammit Clayton \n\n“I work for the government. I know how to protect you.” I said squeezing as much information into my voice as possible. “I’ve been supremely interested in getting you to work for us.” \n\n“How. How did you find me?” He asked. “Actually wait, come in first.” \n\nHe stepped to the side of the door. To let me pass. \n\nOh my gosh oh my gosh he’s inviting me into his house!\n\nAloud I said, “Of course Mr. Murdock.” And stepped through the door to sit on a ragged looking couch in a messy room. Ugh. Talk about living up to expectations.\n\n“Now, as I was saying, the government is very interested in getting to get you to work for them. Mr. Murdock.” I said eager to continue. What I had done was nothing short of remarkable.\n\n“First tell me how you found me.” He growled annoyance showing through his voice.\n\nDammit of course he wants to know that first. You are such an idiot Clayton.\n\n“Right.” I said trying not to let my distress show. “That part was actually relatively simple you see. Quite simply I used math.”\n\n“You found me with math?”\n\n“Of course. First I had to create a heat map of all the reported sightings of you. That was rather simple. Then I ran a probabilistic analysis of any common locations within range of those locations eliminated obvious points of origin and found two significant points of origin, Somewhere on this block, and the courthouse. After that it was a simple elimination process of who had commonly been both here and there as frequently as you, after that I cross referenced other indicators against our government database, on which you scored a high probability of mental instability, and therefore it had to be you.” I exclaimed.\n\n“I see.” He responded, seemingly growing embarrassed. “So you said you could help me?”\n\nDammit Clayton, you just insulted him.\n\n“Well first of all ‘secret’ identity nothwithstanding you have a good potential to work for the government and get some real work done.” I said pulling out some papers from my bag.\n\n‘What can the government do for me that I can’t do for myself?” He asked rage almost creeping into his voice. “Justice is blind!”\n\n“Well we can take out the kingpin. I have a remote access urbanized surveillance drone that I should probably not tell you about with its sights aimed directly at the kingpin’s head 24/7. Just sign the papers and he’s dead.”\n\n“Is that… Legal?” He asked incredulously. Ever the lawyer.\n\n“Is what legal?” I asked.\n\n“Killing him without due process.”\n\n“There’s been due process. He’s been on our hit list for a while.”\n\n“So he’s been indicted?” He asked incredulously.\n\n“No. he’s been added to our blacklist. Marked for execution as soon as you sign the paperwork.” I said.\n\n“What would I have to do?” He asked resolve in his mind.\n\n“Do you like flying?” I asked.\n\n“No.” He said and picked up a pen.\n \n", "\"So from the beginning, tell me what happened.\" said the police officer. \n\nOfficer, like I said before, as the smoke cleared from the rubble, the two metahumans emerged. I could make out one of them as being Weather Wizard and the other, the Flash. \n\nWeather Wizard was generating lighting, harnessing the energy in his hands. The Flash meanwhile, was trying to avoid the bolts at all cost.\n\n\"And where were you son when this was all happening?\"\n\nFor the third time, I was delivering Mountain Spring Water at 129th Central Ave. like I always do sir. \n\n\"Continue,\" the officer said scribbling on his notepad.\n\nSo that's when I thought about the time I dropped my Iphone in a puddle. I'm talking Iphone 3 here, nothing fancy, it lit up like a Christmas tree. That's when it hit me. Weather Wizard isn't anything but an Iphone 6 with fewer apps - I'm sure he would light up too.\n\nAt that point, I started dumping all the water into the streets. Still, the Flash wasn't paying any attention. The next bolt that Weather Wizard generated cause the guy to have what looked like a conniption. Of course, the Flash took all the credit for it all but that's okay.\n\n\"So what's the problem here again sir?\" The officer said - now annoyed by the smugness. \n\nNothing. My boss told me to fill out a police report and bill S.T.A.R. Labs.", "\"Just shoot him!\" I shouted watching from 20 yards back.\n\n\"What?\" The masked man yelled at me in a raspy voice from behind cover. \n\nThe oddly dressed man stood on a beam at the construction sight 50 feet above and threw explosives at the car our 'hero' hid behind. Minute by minute he pushed down a comically large plunger and another skyscraper, hospital, school would explode in plain sight.\n\n\"Just shoot him... There are like 30 cops watching right there with guns strapped to their hips. Take one of their weapons and do it\"\n\n\"Shoot him?\" he said to me confused \"like... with bullets?\"\n\n\"Yea, he's got you pinned behind that wreckage with bombs and tear gas and you're just sitting there watching him blow the city up.\"\n\nHe just looked at me with a blank stare and a furrowed brow.\n\n\"He's killing people!\" I shouted.\n\nThe police all stood by and watched us have this arguement, until one officer finally walked up to me. \"Just let him do his thing, son\"\n\n\"What? Wh.. Why? Why are none of you doing anything anyway? This guys doing millions of dollars in damage to your city in a purple suit and clown make-up and your letting this guy in a black leather skin suit take control and watch.\" \n \nI looked at the caped avenger cower at the sound of the explosions until I finally looked at the officer and said \"Watch...\" \n\nI unstrapped his holster, took his pistol, aimed and shot three rounds off, each making solid contact to the mans chest until his purple lapel saturated red. He fell backwards off of the beam to the concrete. It was not pretty.\n\nSilence fell over the city for what seemed to be the first time in decades. The by-standers all looked at his body in amazement. The police seemed to finally clue in and began to rush in pulling out handcuffs and pepper-spray. \n\nI looked at the batman, scoffed and said\n\"I guess I was the hero they nee- HOLY FUCK OW JESUS\" just then all of the officers took me down in a fury of handcuffs, football tackles, and pepper spray.\n\nBail was set at $50,000. My court-date is next week.", "“Your cape’s not plugged in.” \n\n“What?”\n\n“Your cape.”\n\n“Yeah?”\n\n“It’s not plugged in.”\n\nIt was just so simple. How could he not see it? This whole time, ElectroMight’s been getting weaker and losing the fight. Yet, not once has he looked to see if his cape was unplugged. \n\nI mean the city made it mandatory for sockets to be installed every two blocks just for him. I get it, his extension cord is massive. 12 city blocks. But that shit can easily get tangled up or wrapped around something. You can’t just set it and forget it. I mean, I stuff headphones into my pocket and they come out looking like a ball of yarn. Hell, I check the socket if I so much as move the vacuum’s cord when I’m cleaning around the house.\n\nWith ElctroMight still not quite catching on, I felt the need to point out the limp laying cord next to the socket. I’d do it for him but the last guy that tried it was disintegrated from the electrical shock. \n\n“/u/IStruggleWithThings ! You’re right!” ElectroMight shouted as he pointed out his fatal flaw in plain sight of his somehow-even-dumber-than-he-is arch enemy, Reflectoo. I watched as the half man, half kangaroo, all foil wrapped super villain tried to take advantage of his newly found information. He reached into his pouch to grab his sidekick Joey. Joey was Reflectoo’s 12 year old nephew who lacked any super powers and more or less just had small pieces of mirror duct taped to his face. He was just happy to be invited. Anyway, the plan was doomed from the start because Joey went on vacation with his mother three days ago and wasn’t available to “play” for another week.\n\nThis would be the epic turning point. ElectroMight could easily turn this around. ElectroMight took advantage of Reflectoo’s lapse of judgment and sprung into action. I watched as he landed on the ground, grabbed the cord, and slammed in into the wall.\n\n“Wait!”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Wrong wall.”\n\nBut, it was too late. He bent the prongs. ", "\"I'm going to have to take you in.\" \n\"No! Why?! I did what you couldn't do in 10 years! I stopped him!\" \n\"You broke the law.\" \n\"And in your effort to uphold the law, you let a deranged lunatic kill more people that anyone can count. You've indirectly killed more people than I have.\" \n\"You don't think I don't know how many people have died because I let him live?\" \n\"Then why did you?\" \n\"I have one rule!\" \n\"Well that is a most fucked up rule.\" \n\"It takes a strong man to follow their own rules!\" \n\"No, it takes a coward to not do what must be done and get their hands dirty.\" \n\"You do not get to choose what is right and wrong. We will let the court decide.\" \n\"Do you see these people behind me? fathers, mothers, sons, daughters. They have all suffered due to him, and today, we stopped him. They have decided what is right. These are the peers who have judged me, and they have ruled me innocent.\" \n\"A mob does not represent the law.\" \n\"Those corrupt cops, judges, psychiatrists who kept letting him back on the street? they are the law? they are the ones who protect us? bullshit.\" \n\"You murdered a man. You have to answer for your crime.\" \n\"You are a broken record. He was an animal, and we put him down. He would never be rehabilitated. He would never ever become a productive member of society.\" \n\"You don't know that. Everyone is capable of changing their ways.\" \n\"Do you honestly believe that? After the countless times he's escaped and all the people hes murdered over these years, you believe that?\" \n\"Yes.\" \n\"Then we have nothing more to discuss. Call the cops. You are not a police officer and I do not recognize your authority, or are you going to beat us ALL up, Batman?\"\n", "I remember I was on my way to work and I stopped at the bank to deposit a check my grandmother sent me for my birthday. \n\nBesides the point that I am 27 and the checks are always like 15 bucks, I don’t want to be a dick to my grandmother. \n\nAnyway, I’m at the bank and everything was fine. I was just waiting in line when all of sudden this maniacal laugh seems to fill the room. By the time I look up from my phone, I hear gunshots right next to me. “Get on the ground mother fuckers!” Someone screams this amidst the fire. I fall to the ground, shocked by all that is happening. \n\nThere was more yelling but my heart was beating in my ears, blocking any sound. Eventually this man in a clown mask makes all of us line up facing a wall on our knees. I saw two other clown masks and one guy wearing makeup. Right then, I knew it was the Joker and his crew. \n\nI was as good as dead. This crazed murderer had plagued Gotham for weeks now and he always got away. As I am facing this wall, I see out of the corner of my eye that the Joker had begun to dance around. He was humming or something but he made his way towards us. He passed bodies I didn’t see before. I guessed security or cops maybe. He reached the far end of our hostage line and out of view. Suddenly, a woman screamed what must have been the most horrifying sound ever, and then it was cut short. \n\nNext, I heard a creepy voice say “You are balding, mister! Lets cut that off and give you this new scalp!” Then another scream followed and ended. He went down the line, closer and closer to me, maiming the other hostages. It felt like ages and I was almost sobbing when the guy next to me got shot in the head. \n\nWarm blood and bits of brain covered me as I collapsed off my knees. I opened my eyes to see eyes so hollow that it felt like they were sucking me into their abyss. Below them was a full smile and face covered in makeup and blood. The lips started to move and out came, “Are you a librarian? Because you look well red!” Then he laughed and turned away. From where I now lay, I could see the maimed corpses of everyone in there. The Joker walked over to a fire extinguisher on the wall and picked it up. He moved back towards me and said, “Look you match! So lets see if you mix!” He lifted the extinguisher above my head but then a bright flash took the room. I was blind as ever but I didn’t think I was dead. I could hear the sounds of laughter and a struggle as I tried to see. When I could, I saw Batman facing the Joker who had a gun pointed at him. “You’ve gone too far Joker! How many people did you kill?!” yelled Batman. “I feel like you say that everytime bats!” laughed Joker. “Even if you catch me again, I’ll just get out.. Again! And kill more people… again! And you’ll say I’ve gone too far again!” The Joker was laughing hysterically now. With that opening, Batman moved in on the Joker and in one fluid move disarmed him and incapacitated him. He walked over to me and asked, “Are you okay son?” I nodded and he helped me up. “A-are you j-just gonna a-arrest him again?” I asked Batman. “Yes, I am.” “Why w-would you let him live? LOOK AT WHAT HE HAS DONE!” I cried. Batman turned away for a moment. Then he said, “Because heroes don’t kill.” I looked down at the Joker amidst all these bodies then back at Batman. He began to walk away towards the exit, where I could see the lights of police cars. He stepped over the maimed corpse of a little girl, tears still wet on her dead eyes. I looked down, about to cry as well when I saw the gun next to Joker that he had. I picked it up, put the barrel flush to Joker’s skull and said, “Batman, if heroes don’t kill then heroes are not what the world needs.” He was barely able to turn around before I fired the gun into Joker’s head. When I left the bank and the paramedics looked at me outside the ambulance, I saw that a library was across the street. I realized I now had two peoples brains on me and must be very well red. That’s when I started to laugh.", "The clown emerged from the bank with two men standing in front of him. One had the look of panic on his face, fearing for his life. The other was calm. \n\nOfficer Carl Mendez watched as the Caped Hero of Gotham stepped forward from the police barricade. \n\nThe clown laughed manically. \"These two die if you take another step!\" \n\nCarl placed his right hand by his hip. He watched as the supposed Hero took a step back. \n\nThe clown laughed again, so confident in his plan. He began walking to the side, keeping the two men as his human shield. Carl looked to the Hero, waiting for him to do something. The man just watched as the clown walked away. \n\nSome Hero.\n\nCarl grabbed the grip of his pistol and pulled it from his holster. \n\nIn one swift motion, he brought the gun up and aimed at the small group. He let his mag loose, firing 12 bullets. All three of the men were on the ground, not one of them moving. \n\nThe caped figure rushed to Carl, running with barley human speed. He tackled Carl, shoving an armored shoulder into his chest. The other officers watched in silence. \n\n\"You just killed two innocent men.\" The Hero growled. He put his hand around Carl's throat and tightened his grip. The world turned black for a moment, but restored as the grip barely loosened. \n\n\"Yes,\" Carl managed to speak. \"I killed two innocent men, but how many would die if the clown went free? He probably would have killed them too!\" \n\nThe Hero stood and shook his head. A man managed to push his way through the watching officers. He looked at Carl with disgust. \n\n\"Arrest him.\" He said. \n\nCarl closed his eyes, hand rubbing his sore throat. He would take the punishment. He would take whatever he needed to if it meant cleaning the streets of crime. " ]	8
	[WP]Despite thousands of sapient species in the universe, only humans can comprehend the idea of "war." This fact, and Earth being the only planet without severe overpopulation because of it, makes humans "exotic." You're an alien tour guide, trying to sell tours to Earth.	[ "Beep Beep Beep\r\rThe indicator pinged away as the ship made an attempt to flee this damned planet's atmosphere. All these years Gorkak came, he was never detected. Many didn't understand what was going on, the tourists in the back quizzically looked about as they asked me a dozen questions.\r\rI was sweating from all my forlaks as I drove as hard as I could push this craft. Weaving in and out of canyons and mountains as human fighters pursued me. Years of war made these people perfect hunters,their thirst for technology to further brutality was unheard of back home.\r\rA sensor indicated a incoming projectile, I quickly came upon a large urban center as my ship started to weave between the massive monoliths to currency. Many of those in the back began to take pictures, smiling and pointing about.\r\rI lost the projectile, a towering monolith to what I could only assume dedicated to war exploded behind me. Smaller incoming weaponry began to ping away at my hull as the clangs bounced about my head. \r\rSeveral more fighters joined their barbaric brethren behind me, this time several fired upon me at once. Aiming my craft toward the star, many people began to cheer. Several egging me on as I hunched over my controls, feeling like my stomachs were about to vomit.\r\rI almost made it, before a missile of fire and heat knocked my engines out, sending me spiraling to the earth below. \r\rNow I sit here, chained to this desk, waiting for what was to happen next...", "It's almost too easy. Each world I go to, it always works exactly the same. In all the many year of humanities existence prior to the invention of the displacement drive which allowed interstellar travel, we had always imagined ourselves as the scrappy underdogs trying to survive in a universe full of predators. We imagined this because we come from a world filled with predators, all competing with each other. Kill or be killed. We never expected to finally get out into the universe and find that we were the apex predator at the top of every food chain in existence. Every other advanced civilization, once they made the transition from animals to tool-making civilizations, united together as a species and gave up their primal survival instincts or they wiped themselves out. They've all evolved so far they don't even remember the idea of hunting anymore. And since there are no hunters among the star-faring civilizations, there is no prey either. Not one of the others know anything of how to avoid being hunted any more than they know how to hunt. Except us. We have conquered every world, every territory, every rival with ease. Because we're wolves in a universe of sheep.\n\nThe rest just don't get it, and that's what makes it easy. They think they know us, but they don't. At some level, they understand that we're dangerous, my pitch wouldn't work if they didn't, but they don't really get it. They certainly don't know how to deal with it. I've visited more than two hundred alien cultures, and I have it down to an art form. Without fail, it always happens the same way. I show up, and introduce myself as a representative of humanity. They will know us by reputation, everyone knows us by reputation. We're the boogeymen of the universe after all, the monsters of their nightmares, described with fearful whispers while telling their darkest legends.\n\nThey may not remember how to be predators anymore, but they certainly recognize the vast power it brings us. And they want it. So along I come. I find whatever being or beings rule their society, their king, president, hive-queen, grand overmind, or whatever it is that they have. I cozy up to them, make myself their friend. Then I suggest that they could learn from us, how to conquer their rivals like we conquer ours. Warfare is a totally alien concept to them, they have no idea how it works, but they know it makes us powerful, and you don't have to be a predator to find power seductive.\n\nSo I sell them on visiting Earth, seeing how it's done, learning to be like us. I offer to teach them the secrets of power over life and death. It seems silly to us, but it's a temptation too great for them to resist. I used to wonder if maybe it was a sad commentary on humanity, that we take advantage of them like this, but on the other hand, all it would take to save them is to decline my offer. More than two hundred alien cultures, and not one of them has ever said no.\n\nThey always send their leaders, their best and brightest, because I warn them against letting an underling be the first to learn the secrets of ultimate power They send their leaders to Earth, and we send them 'advisers'. Of course, the advisers are really an occupation force and the leaders they send to Earth are really hostages to ensure cooperation, but they cannot suspect what they cannot imagine. Eventually they slowly start to understand, they learn about weapons, tactics, and strategy the hard way when we demonstrate it by conquering them.\n\nBut it never matters how much they learn. They never succeed in resisting us, and no matter how many times we repeat this process the rest of the universe doesn't wise up. Because humans, always at war with each other, had to develop something else in order to work together long enough to form civilizations. Something that the peaceful peoples of the universe never needed, the true power of humanity, something we use to rule the entirety of everything with an iron fist even as we teach the rest of the universe how to use weapons and strategy. We may teach them war, but we save for ourselves that blackest and most sinister of all arts: politics." ]	2
i.e. Job interviews and school	[WP] In the future, everyone is genetically enhanced to be perfect. How does everyday competition to get ahead in the world go down?	[ "Dorsa stood in front of her mirror wall, stark naked. Glowing lines appeared around her body through the mirror as calculations began flitting across the screen at a rapid pace. Lines grew and shrank as they measured her limbs, took note of her joints, and predicted her outfit of the day. The calculations weren't perfect, because the idea of perfection changed on a daily basis. Sure, at one point, Dorsa's slender long limbs seemed the ideal perfection, but then another human would enter the streets with even longer limbs, or smoother features or bigger eyes.\n\nTheir society was obsessed with not just being perfect, but being the gold medalist of perfection. It was an endless race.\n\nThere were laws however, laws that prevented genetic improvement on the brain. And with those laws came the repercussions. Dorsa's society became laden with Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Endless modifications, and the lack of awareness or willpower to stop themselves.\n\nDorsa refocused her mind on the mirror. She was the perfect height of 5 foot 7\", and had the perfect shade of glowing skin. She almost felt like a unicorn, because her idea of perfection was outdated already. But it was her job to not fall into the same patterns as her brethren. A window popped up in the mirror next to her reflection, a series of color schemes, and at the top of the window 5 schemes blinked as the computer factored in the lighting of the day and the weather. It even factored in the average of the collective mood of society and how they'd aptly respond to colors that day. Her choices were Sunset, Lilac Fields, Tuscan Oasis, Pastel Aurora, and Shimmer Shells. Dorsa pressed her hand over Lilac Fields, and stepped back to see the chosen items in the mirror float over her body. Her fluffy cropped hair became a dusty purple, and the clothing various shades of white and dark grey. She was wearing a blazer that was a deep gray and a slim fitting white dress that exposed just enough of her long legs to still garner looks in the streets.\n\nDorsa stepped away from the mirror, the clothes materializing on her, along with her hair color change. She grabbed her designer briefcase and stepped out of her apartment. Every wall in the hallways of her building were covered in mirrors, shiny ads placed at the perfect height to impose changes on the faces of those who walked by, telling them things like \"Look at those wrinkles! Come now to Bornica's Beauty to get the smoothest skin technology can offer.\" and \"Feeling on top of the world? Don't worry, we can help you find something you need to improve!\"\n\nDorsa ignored the ads as usual, making her way to her work building where she will spend the rest of the day with patients who have gone too far in their mission for the perfect look. Necks that have been stretched too far, eyes that have been made too big, and even those who have records in the system for illegal modification of the brain. She had to show these people their minds were imperfect, and the real perfection is finding peace with in themselves. She entered her building, a sleek silver skyscraper with the motto that read over the front doors, \"When everybody's perfect, no one is.\"", "Mr. Brooks posted the scores again. Few even glanced up at the rows of perfect scores. I didn't care. The teachers did really teach anymore, we all just read the books once. It only took a few minutes and we had mastered a new skill. To think in the past it took someone a lifetime to learn things we all know by the end of middle school. Our lives where so long now and we could do so much but it was hard to call any of us driven. We waited for Mr. Brooks to speak class was almost over and still we didn't have the last assignment for the day. At last he stepped up to the board and began to write \"WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT?\" under that \"write a statement answering this question. For the first time there where some confused looks on peoples faces. I wondered as I looked around the room, Was I different? We all looked about the same, we all passed every test. I could sing in any tone, never miss a target, but so could everyone. A few students wrote one simple statement and started to turn it in. \"I'm not\" I stared down at my paper as others began to leave. Then I wrote down the only thing that came to mind \"I can break the rules.\" I stared at the paper for a while. I heard that voice in my head that shook me all the time. \"You shouldn't tell him.\" Something told me to go forward. I looked around everyone was gone. I took the paper up and dropped it on his desk. I started to leave when I heard a laugh from behind me. \"So at last someone who can stand out\" I stopped and turned. \nHe handed me a paper \"Tomorrow you report to building 7\" I headed home. So tomorrow I would find out what happens in building 7. ", "He knew he looked just like every other man who had applied for the job. Chiseled jawline, perfect full hair, a body that once only belonged to those who worked for years. Yep, he was just as perfect as everyone else. \n\nThis job was too important to lose though. He needed an edge, a way to set himself a part from the rest of the pack. Scanning the room he saw a group of three guys all trying to impress the perfect secretary with feats of strength or usage of great wit. However, none could be outdone as they all possessed the same skill set and ability.\n\nSuddenly an idea formed in the back of his mind, an idea so knew and unique it was quite possibly revolutionary. Ryan stood up, wen't over to the receptionist, and asked \"H-how long is it going to be?\"\n\nThe secretary sat in awe of this lone wolf. Was she possibly hearing things? No, she was perfect. She had heard it correctly; that man just stuttered! She picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons, said some hushed words, and motioned Ryan through the doors.\n\nHis lack of perfection had paid off! That slight slip up had made him noticeable, though good or bad he didn't know. Walking past the group of men he heard them whispering to one another, about what they had just seen. \n\nBefore Ryan slipped through the doors one of the guys dropped a stack of papers and there were a few gasps. Another man tried to drop a pencil but he just couldn't and began sobbing while running out the door.\n\nRyan had just started a new type of competition that the world had never seen in years. The times were changing and he had set them in motion." ]	3
	[WP] You discover that the rule "I can't see you you can't see me" actually applies to you. What do you do?	[ "My big toe encountered a dining room chair, and I crumpled to the ground. The pain almost made me open my eyes. It would have been a critical mistake. \n\nThe first rule of home invasion is this: don't be seen. \n\nThe second of home invasion was unique to me, as far as I knew: keep your eyes closed.\n\nIf I can't see them, they can't see me. \n\nFor reals. It is, like, magic or something.\n\n\"Hey, kitty!\" My girlfriend's mom calls from the living room. \"Get off them chairs and come over here.\"\n\nI whisper a thank you to whatever god decided to let the Jone's have a clumsy cat. Then, I push myself up and navigate my way to the bottom of the stairs. I stand, waiting until I can hear where Mr. Jones is. I learned this trick the hard way. One day, we ran into each other on the stairs. I can still hear him know.\n\n\"Where the fuck? Where the fu--- err... where did you come from, Mark?\" His breath was so saturated with gin and tonic that I probably could have lit it on fire. \"I coulda sworn that you weren't here when I was comin down the stairs. Umm...well...say. Aren't you here studying a bit late?\"\n\nI had to excuse myself, and head home. I was lucky that night. Julie was sure pissed. But at least Mr. Jones didn't know what I was up to. Of course, it wasn't everyday that Mr. Jones won the local bowling league. And if he ever found me sneaking around his house while sober...let's just say, it wouldn't be him that was stumbling around that night.\n\nAnyway, it never took too long for the Jones' to start yelling at each other about one thing or another. So, I didn't have long to wait. \n\n\"Hey, Dale, you comin down here? Dancin with the Stars is comin on!\"\n\n\"Woman! Don't you tell me what to do. 'Sides, I am already here. Just gettin us some ice cream, is all!\"\n\nNice.\n\nI made it into the stairwell, and then opened my eyes and rushed up the stairs. \n\nJulie's door was open a crack. I smiled. I loved it when she me easy access, and so did she. I reached the door, closed my eyes, and pushed it open. \n\nI walked into the room as quiet as possible. I removed my clothes, holding onto them until the moment I opened my eyes. \n\n\"Its NAKED TIME.\" I said as loud as I dared, jumping onto her bed erection-first.\n\nShe was already waiting for me, nude under her blankets. She let out a soft sequel as I landed.\n\nAnd then, we proceeded to get down down to it -- as only teenagers can.", "Sometimes mommy brings people home with her. I don't know them. Sometimes they are nice to me, but most of the time, they don't seem to notice me. But a few times, the men have been really mean to me and mommy. They say mean things to her, and hit her sometimes. It makes her sad, I can tell, but she doesn't cry. Sometimes she and the men go into her room and make noises like they are hurting her, but I never go inside.\n\nOne day one of the men hit me. It hurt a lot, and it made me scared. But I knew exactly what I needed to do. I ran to my closet and hid inside of it.\n\n\"Oh my god, Jimmy are you okay? Jimmy?\"\n\nShe opens the door and looks inside, but doesn't reach for me.\n\n\"Jimmy, where are you?\"\n\nI keep my eyes closed and think to myself in the dark.\n\nI can't see you, you can't see me.", "\"I don't know when it began. But I'll never forget when I first noticed it.\"\n\nHe sat across the table staring back at me. Breathing through his mouth. He always looked stupid when he did that. \n\n\"What are you talking about?\" he drawled. \n\nI moved on. \"I was nine. I wanted to play basketball but the boys wouldn't let me. One of them pushed me but I hit him square in the nose--which he didn't take kindly to. Five of them chased after me. Cornered me. As they came in close, I turned away.\"\n\nHe stared back with a blank look on his face. \"And then what?\" \n\nI shrugged. \"Nothing happened. I curled up, ready for them to start hitting me... but nothing. Until I heard one of them ask where I went. So I opened my eyes and saw them all looking in different directions. But once I saw them, they noticed me again. They ran at me a second time but this time I closed my eyes and ran straight at them.\"\n\nHe leaned forward, placing both elbows on the table. \"...and then what?\" His mouth hung open. Like a cow's. \n\n\"Bumped into them but I got away again.\"\n\n\"They didn't catch you?\"\n\n\"They couldn't see me.\"\n\nBefore he could respond, I lifted my hands up and slowly covered my eyes. I heard him gasp. Most people gasp when I first show them. \n\n\"Wha-where'd you--?\" I uncovered my eyes again. He was pressing back into the seat, recoiling from me. \"What... are you?\"\n\n\"I don't know\" I admitted . \"But I often wonder what happens when I sleep.\"", "I know I'm running out of time, hopefully you read this and can find me.\n\nIt all started at my 8th birhday. My mom had rented a shelter at a local park. It was the first warm day in April, sun shining, green buds covering trees, and a slight breeze. The lake had a few boats, but it was still to cold to swim. Mom had spent all week preparing games for me and ten of my friends. We had a scavenger hunt, followed by an archery contest using a bow and rubber tipped arrows, and finally a pinata. It was shaped like a donkey with a red saddle and a goofy grin.\n\nEverything was going wonderfully. Mom had just finished tying a knot to hold the pinata up and called me over. \"Okay, everyone stay back, were going to spin Chris around, but first,\" She pulled out a red bandana that I'd used in my Wild West bank robber costume last Halloween. She continued, \"we need to make sure there's no peeking.\" She began tying the bandana around my head. \"Okay honey, can you see anything? Is it too--?\"\n\nShe screamed. If we'd been indoors the echoing would've been deafening, but outside it just spread and spread. I immediately pulled off the bandana. \"What?\" Everyone was staring at me. \n\nI don't know what happened or how I did it, but my mom later confided in me that I had disappeared right before her eyes. Simply vanished. I thought it was a joke at first, but each time I put on the bandana, I'd pop out of existence. I bumbled around and would bounce into people, but they didn't seem to feel it. I could feel my way around and pick things up, but they would apparently vanish as well.\n\nMom and Dad freaked out, which all things considered is appropriate. There were tests and examinations. This went on for years, until I decided I'd had enough. I closed my eyes and walked away. \n\nI don't know how to control it, whatever I can do, but when I'm not looking you can't see me. I snuck home and left a note for my parents telling them that I didn't blame them, but couldn't stay anymore. In the following months I lived on the streets, stealing food by disappearing, trying to avoid people. I was happy enough, just not being under constant observation. That is until a few weeks ago.\n\nI was hiding out in an electronics store for the evening. I was watching an old Chevy Chase movie while relaxing in a recliner the store had setup for tired customers. It was around 2 am when I heard a loud crashing sound from the back of the store. I took my popcorn and went to investigate. I peered through the circlular windows on the doors leading to the warehouse. Three individuals in ski masks were throwing boxes into the back of a large, white delivery van.\n\nI walked into the warehouse non-chalantly. \"Excuse me, do you know where the bathroom is?\"\nOne of the shouted, \"Oh shit security!\" \nThe biggest one said, \"No it's not you idiot, does that look like a security guard?\"\nI threw some popcorn in my mouth. \"I don't think that stuff belongs to you. Actually I'm certain of it.\"\nThe big one moved my way menacingly, \"Listen smart ass, if you don't want to get your ass kicked you'd better---what the? Where--?\"\n\nI blinked out of existence and started running towards him. I guesstimated my steps and opened my eyes, appearing out of nowhere and slamming into him. We both tumbled to the ground. I shut my eyes again and jumped up. I did a reverse blink to get my surroundings, the other two were looking down at their buddy completely confused. I moved behind where I believed the second one would be. A quick peek and I gave a sharp kick to his knee causing him to drop to the ground.\n\nI was starting to feel confident. I'd never really used my power to help people before. I'd always just been trying to survive. This felt satisfying. At least until the third guy came charging at me. I was off balance from the kick and he tackled me to the ground. He was on top of me flailing with his fists. My skull cracked into the cement floor a few times with a sickening wet smooshing sound. He had me pinned and I heard the other two getting up.\n\nI began blinking rapidly as I tried to cover my heard from his punches. I'm not sure what happened, but it must've created a creepy strobe light effect as I popped in and out of existence right before him. He let up just long enough to hear the sirens. The other two yelled at him to get in the van and they took off. \n\nI coughed up some blood as I curled up into a ball on the cold cement floor relieved I was alive. I didn't stick around for the police. I didn't want to go back to a lab. I thought about how dumb that was of me and was glad it was over Or at least I thought it was. \n\nThe thing about head injuries is that it's like rolling a dice with a thousand sides. Sometimes nothing at all will happen, sometimes you'll die. Me though? Those several smacks into the concrete did something much worse. The next morning I woke up still sore. I streched and tried to blink away the morning fuzziness, except it wouldn't go. I rubbed my eyes and the world was still fuzzy. Everything far and near had wavy lines, no real focus.\n\nIt's been a couple days now and it's only getting worse by the day. My eyesight is going. I can feel it fading to darkness and soon I'll be gone with it. I don't want to go back to a lab, but I don't want to be alone. Please come find me.", "As far as I know, I have not always been a superhero. When I was four, playing hide-and-go-seek with my dad, for instance: crouching in a corner and closing my eyes didn't work. It came to me sometime later in my life. But I can't say precisely when, or why, since it needs such a curious confluence of elements to discover by accident: the desire to conceal yourself, and the insane conviction that wrenching your eyes closed as tightly as you can will achieve the concealment. It only works when I want to hide, after all. This happened to me on my nineteenth birthday under circumstances I would rather not recall. \n\nIf that was the full extent, though, it would have been roundly useless for most purposes. It's hard to accomplish anything, noble or nefarious, if you can't see what you're doing. But a loophole does exist. If I unfocus my eyes so that things become blurry, I also become blurry. I become a smear of color, unidentifiable except in the broadest of terms: white-ish, probably female, perhaps slightly slight of build, wearing blue (or was it seafoam green?) -- and so on. No person or camera lens can make a positive ID. \n\nI guess I have a duty. To bust drug lords or break open spy rings or whatever else needs doing re: war on crime. After all, I'm a superhero. I could foil any number of plots, keeping my eyes all crossed and dizzy in the pursuit of justice, closing them tight and running off blindly whenever I need to make a tactical retreat. But that's a lot of work. By definition thankless work, at that. Plus \"Myopia Woman\" just doesn't have a great ring. \n\nSo I'm a superhero who robs banks. \n\nSupervillain? That sounds so harsh, though.\n\nMy methods are impeccable. What I do is, I go into a bank with a gun and I say give me all your money. They can't see the gun very well because I'm holding it, but they can see the holes the buckshot makes in the wall, and god can they hear it, too. And plus now I have a reputation. The rumors fly. I'm an irradiated mutant. I'm a rogue government agent who made off with a prototype cloaking device. I'm the biggest mass delusion in human history, the vomited innards of a Jungian collective subconscious overloaded by our postmodern condition. I'm God. I'm the devil. I'm using a complicated array of mirrors and lasers. I'm a physicist using portable black holes to warp spacetime in my vicinity. &c. \n\nIt doesn't matter what the public theorizes. The truth doesn't matter that much either. I have my money and that's enough for me. And now I have a name way better than the one I would have come up with on my own. Let's hear it for the vague blur." ]	5
	[WP] You are about to evaluate a patient at a mental hospital. When you open the door to the patient's room, you see that the patient sitting and waiting to be evaluated is you.	[ "\"Hey there twin! Long time no see... like... since birth. How have you been?\"\n\nI was trying to keep calm, and I told the funniest thing I could think of, with a face looking like that thing my kid calls \"bad pokerface\". He said, \"Wow, that's so accurate that it's creepy\", with the exact same creeped-out bad pokerface.", "The long narrow corridor stretched out before me. For some reason, today of all days, it seemed to take forever to get to room 413. \n\nI glanced down at the patient's chart and read over his history. \n\n\"Hallucinations, dissociation with reality,\" I let out a long winded sigh. \n\n\"Why do I always get the crazy ones before the end of my shift?\"\n\nAfter what seemed to take 10 minutes, I finally arrived at the patient's door. I planned to do a simple interview. Enough to get some basic info. \n\nI used the ID scanner and the door clicked, allowing me to pull the cold steel handle. Inside the room was... Me? No... It couldn't be. \n\n\"Hello Derrick,\" the man said in a calm voice as he sat on the stiff hospital bed. \n\n\"Take a moment,\" he shifted to an Indian style position on the bed, \"I know this will be strange for you.\"\n\nI blinked a few times, and rubbed my eyes. I haven't been getting a lot of sleep recently. Maybe I was the one hallucinating? \n\n\"We don't have much time so I'll try and make this quick. You trust yourself, yes?\"\n\nI was still in awe, trying to wake up from some dream. \n\n\"I need a response. Please nod your head if you agree.\"\n\nI complied and nodded my head.\n\n\"Good, so you'll trust me then. Now,\" he, or I, reached out towards me, \"our chart please.\"\n\nI handed him the chart, and quickly scrambled back towards the door. What the hell was going on.\n\n\"I'm sorry I had to do things this way. It wasn't my intention but unfortunately things have changed from the original plan.\" He used the pen to draw two circles on the back of the chart. It resembled a Venn diagram. \n\n\"I am you. However, I reside here,\" he tapped on the circle to the right. \n\n\"You reside here,\" he tapped the other one. \n\n\"At this point in time, our dimensions are crossed. Meaning, we're able to cross over. It doesn't last long, but at this point in time the dimensions affect each other. Something big is about to happen here, and it'll result in negative consequences for my world. I'll need your help stopping it.\"\n\n\"H-How?\" I finally stammered. \n\n\"Simple,\" he, or I, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small spherical orb. It resembled a marble. \n\n\"Take this and place it on the roof of the Lavene Bank building. It's the tallest building in this city, right?\" \n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Good. You need to leave now if you're going to make it. Please hurry.\"\n\nHe handed me the marble and sat calmly back down on the bed. \n\n\"We're all counting on you! Or, I guess I should say me. Don't let us down, yeah?\"\n\nI spun on my heel and ran through the corridor. Was I crazy? \n\n\"Derrick! What are you doing out of your room?\" An orderly called out behind me. \n\n\"Room?\" \n\n\"I swear, you always find a way.\" He walked closer to me, blocking my path. He looked familiar. \n\n\"No, I work here remember? I have my ID right her--\" I couldn't find it. In fact, I wasn't even in uniform. I was wearing what other Derrick was. What exactly was going on? \n\n\"Let's take you back to your room, Derrick,\" the orderly grabbed my shoulder and began dragging me down the hall. \n\n\"No! I need to stop something from happening! Please!\"\n\nBy the time I was back in room 413 I was tired from all the struggling. I was strapped to my bed by restraints. What the hell was going on? It took me a while to adjust to the darkness but on my ceiling was a very familiar picture. It was the Venn diagram other Derrick drew only the circles were apart. Underneath the drawing was the sentence, \"I'm sorry.\" \n\nThat's when it all made sense. \n\n\nSorry, this is my first ever submission and it was written in between stop lights and traffic. So I rushed near the end, and most of the story. Hopefully it was at least somewhat enjoyable. ", "\"Oh, for fuck's sake. Jemma!\" I slam the door and stalk back to the observation soon. I can hear her sniggering down the hall.\n\n\"You're getting written up for that.\" My threat is not an idle one. If she's gone an dragged some poor sop from temporal into this, heads will roll.\n\n\"Awww,\" she sits up straight in her overly expensive ergonomic chair. Her freckled face is still flushed with laughter. \"Really?\"\n\nJemma is young as far as most staff go, and has a relentless sort of trickster spirit, but she's meticulous and extremely dedicated to her work too. Crossing the room to her station, I sigh rather loudly and toss my datapad down on the desk. Today was supposed to be mundane.\n\n\"If this is temporal-\"\n\n\"Oh no! No, no, no, no, noooo.\" Jemma shakes her head violently, sending her braids flying and smacking herself in the cheeks. Always wondered what hair that long would feel like. I've kept my cropped rather short for most of my life. I've no patience for it. Jemma on the other hand will spend forever braiding or steadfastly lie in wait for hours to execute a prank. \"Do you think I'm stupid? No way. Those bastards have no sense of humour. It's just a clone, Laila, and not even a very good one.\"\n\n\"A clone,\" I confirm with her flatly. There were several clones of me, usually shipped out to colonies as part of the support staff. I'd authorized it myself years ago. Hardly matters to me if they're far enough away that I'll never even meet one. Besides, good genes are valuable.\n\n\"A bad one, defect. It happens.\" Jemma shrugs. Cloning is indeed imperfect.\n\n\"And they just gave this one to you?\" Now that I look at the clone, sitting and waiting in the evaluation room, I can see the slightly dazed look in her eyes. Her identical brown hair forms a soft, frizzy halo around her head. \n\n\"Well,\" Jemma hedges, \"technically she needs an official eval before termination.\"\n\n\"That's just brilliant then, isn't it? You know it's not allowed.\"\n\n\"I know! Dr. Hassan just came on shift though.\" I look up to see the time has turned over past the hour. \"You can hand her off.\"\n\nJemma looks up at me imploringly. Just a joke. Right. I use my foot to give her wheeled chair a shove and she slides away a feet feet, squawking. With her out of the way, I access the comm panel and page Lee to take over the session.\n\n\"C'mon then. It was a little funny, right?\" Pushing herself gently, she rolls back over next to me. \n\n\"Hilarious,\" I glare at her half-heartedly. I want to tease her back, maybe suggest she sign herself up for the cloning regimen, but that would be cruel. Jemma's short, not very physically strong, and far too pale to be properly healthy. She's all intellect and at some point will probably be courted by GeneSec for her ovum.\n\nI open my mouth to snark at her when an unexpected tapping interrupts us.\n\n\"Excuse me? Hello?\" The clone begins tapping the glass more insistently. \"Is anybody here?\"\n\nJemma goes wide eyed next to me and then starts smacking the call button. I can't help but laugh.\n\n\"Just a defect, is she?\" I grab my datapad and turn towards the door. \n\n\"Where are you going?\" Jemma hisses.\n\n\"To explain myself. To myself.\"\n\n\"Laila!\" Now she's going to have to write the whole thing up. There's so much admin for this sort of thing. Serves her right. \n\nI open up the door and watch the face of the clone go slack in shock. Probably dreaming up all kinds of ridiculous explanations involving time travel. This me is younger by a good dozen years and back then I was a lot less jaded and a lot more demanding.\n\nShould be interesting." ]	3
It only sends messages to the past. It's not possible to send information into the future, silly.	[WP] You've finally managed to build it-- a machine that sends messages to the past. You power it up and immediately begin getting message from your future self.	[ "Ngugi,\n\nI will be brief, Ngugi. This is a message from you, from your future self. As proof I am who I say I am - our imaginary friend, in our little house all those years ago, was a tiger, and his name was Solomon.\n\nTime being what it is, I already recieved this message from myself, and know that you won't believe it at first. I know that you will read these words, and not believe me until it's too late. I know that you decide to put this warning out of your mind, that you will present this machine to your supervisors, and you will win a Nobel prize, and you will be rich. I know this because I already did it.\n\nEven as I write, you are already too late. A madman in this, my time, sent information on how to build a virus to his past self, five years before you built this machine and recieved this message. It's too late to stop the pandemic that will start in two years, a pandemic that will claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. \n\nBut it is not too late to stop anyone else from doing it again. \n\nYou will heed my warning late, but not too late. Many will die, but not everyone - and not you. My warning is not for the catastrophe that is to come, but for the one that may follow it. And I know you will listen to me then, because I did. So, when the plague starts, when you see the bodies pile up, heed my words, even as I will heed them. I send this message only because I had to, because I was destined to do it, and because now, years later, I will finally be ready to listen to myself.\n\nAfter I send this message, I will destroy this machine, so no one can ever use it again. And in two years, when you are in my place, you will too.\n\nYour future self,\n\n- Ngugi Mazulu", "He flipped the switch and the entire neighborhood's lights flickered. Whoa. So his invention took a little more power than he had been expecting. Well, that shouldn't actually be so surprising. He was, after all, breaching the fabric of timespace here, even if it was only a submicroscopic fissure just large enough to transmit a message through.\n\nWhat surprised him more though was when the machine immediately begin making chattery tick tick tick noises as the almost goldbergian design he had tinkered together bounced an incoming signal through the pan-linguistic interpreter matrix, and back again through an old salvaged electric typewriter modified to type temporary text on a form of rewritable paper that he had invented in a spare moment last Tuesday. It worked! He stopped to do a little victory dance and chanted, \"It works! It works! (Oh, how I love to say that!) It WORKS!\"\n\nHe could perhaps be forgiven for taking the moment a bit lightheartedly. He had earned it. Oh, the complexities he had had to deal with in adjusting for paradoxes. It turns out that not only did the solution involve imaginary numbers, but that in fact, there were numbers that were even more imaginary (uh... for lack of a better word, he's think of something more sensible before he published), that were required to resolve the paradoxes by inverting them from grandfather paradoxes into predestination paradoxes, fixing it so that not only was it possible to get a message from his future self, it was actually required by the very fabric of history, at which point, it became a foregone conclusion that this was possible instead of simply the pipe dream those small minded fools had assured him it would be.\n\nBut then he got serious. Ahem. This was an important moment. An historic moment. It required dignity. Composing himself, he strode purposefully over to the digital to analog mechanic percussion driven output generation unit (it would sound so much better in the patent paperwork than \"typewriter\" but perhaps he should go with something more conducive to an acronym. Everybody loved acronyms. So scientific.). \n\nHe retrieved the sheet. Read it carefully. \n\nAttention, me from the past, it began.\n\nAs you have no doubt noticed, our little invention here is somewhat power hungry. Momentarily, you will short out the entire northeastern power grid as a result of the overload.\n\nRight on schedule, the power went out and the room was plunged into gloom. Hmm. Frustrating. Well, after all, no progress without sacrifice. He shook his head and took the page to the nearest window so he could use natural daylight from outside to read the rest of it.\n\nOK, so, obviously, over the next couple weeks, in your spare time, you are now going to go on to invent a revolutionary new power supply. That is smart of me, and I congratulate me on my clever reasoning. I won't spoil the surprise by actually telling me how its done. That would be rude.\n\nHowever, after the first two days, our new power supply becomes unstable. I tell me this now because it will seem less irritating if I'm expecting it. When this happens, we will attempt to brainstorm ways of fixing it. Good so far. I love brainstorming, and I know you do too because you are me.\n\nHe nodded. That was certainly true.\n\nThere's just one thing I need to warn me about. And it's really, really important. Whatever I do, DO NOT under any circumstances whatsoever 'reverse the polarity'. THAT DOES NOT ACTUALLY FIX THINGS IN REAL LIFE. (Apparently). Good luck!\n\n\n", "Write down this message. Commit it to paper and keep it close. Commit it to memory. Ensure that you will be able to recall it years from now. Then burn the paper and destroy the machine. Melt it to slag and erase the blueprints. Leave nothing behind. \n\nPlease, do this for your own sake, or you will find yourself walking the same path I, and so many before me, have walked.\n\nTen years ago today I stood where you do. I was instructed to completely and utterly destroy the machine or face ruin. I listened to my own pleas and chose to wait, out of academic curiosity, to learn more. What would a decade of research, my entire twenties sacrificed for the sake of a half-insane concept, mean if I just walked away and showed the world nothing for my effort? I waited, as my pleas grew more desperate. Vague threats of ruin soon gave way to explicit predictions of massive technological leaps that reshaped the world in cataclysmic ways. Each transmission ended with the same message:\n\n“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”\n\nI have no idea how many times I came close to following my older self's instructions. I bought a furnace. I produced several pounds of thermite. I bought a ten pound magnet to completely destroy my hard drive. I planned out exactly how I'd do it: wipe my hard drive, burn my paper documents, then dump thermite on the lot and slag it all. The next year came and went, and I kept planning.\n\nIn the meantime I bought stock in tech companies I'd learned would do well. I started experimenting to see if the information I was receiving was legitimate. Six months in, I nullified gravity within a thirty foot radius of my apartment. A month later, I cut off my pinkie and watched it regrow in minutes. On Christmas Eve, I lit up the sky with a ten mile-high hologram of a Christmas tree.\n\nAs I pumped out patents, private industry and governments rushed to compete for my favor. For the first time in my life I basked in admiration and respect. I founded and sold technological giants, donated billions to charity and had plenty to spare. I became God.\n\nI looked down from my High Earth Orbit station and played with nations. I controlled the means to cure millions of diseases, to remake people in their ideal image in exchange for their life savings. I could deliver immortality. Humans flourished in the farthest corners of the solar system. Massive technological conglomerates fantasized about building a Dyson Sphere around the Sun. \n\nThe machine kept ticking. My older self kept pleading and begging, sending me more and more dire predictions. I no longer respected him as his madness became apparent. He had failed and had destroyed the world. I had learned from his mistakes! I could catapult humanity into the cosmos!\n\nSo many people had trouble coping with progress. At first I saw small protests, pitiful groups of idiots with signs, believing that their words could reshape the world. Nothing I couldn't handle. Protests grew. Nations had trouble accepting the genetic modifications that made them all beautiful and that made space travel possible. They rebelled against the corporations that made their lives blissful and served their every need. They grew fat and lazy and insolent, and modifications were in order.\n\nI distributed beautifully designed viruses across the globe and planetary colonies. Bliss, complete acceptance of my rule followed. Those who were immune became outcasts. They would be corrected soon. Humanity would reach the stars, I would make sure of it. I stood on high and marveled at my kingdom.\n\nThere is no one left now. I am the only one who still dreams, who still feels fear and hope and sadness. I am the God of all mankind, and I am alone.\n\n“We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.”\n" ]	3
	[WP] The Nazis won WW2 in 1952 when they nuked Washington DC and New York city, they now control the entire planet, describe the day for an average citizen in 2015	[ "my only problem with this is that Hitler lost that war the moment he dragged Russia into it, Russia did more damage to Nazi Germany than the U.S. ever did. it wasn't a question of who would win the war more a question of how much land he would take in the process", "Good thing the resistance eliminated the Third Reich back in 63. The news reported Furher Hitler was traveling around what was once known as Dallas, Texas, only to be shot down while on his motorcade.\n\nThe government pinned the blame on a Jewish man, but we all knew that was continued, and if I may, tiresome at that point, anti-semitism propaganda. No, we all knew deep down it had to be the resistance. The resistance was believed to have been the remainder of the once United States military, although this was never confirmed as they never showed their faces. They chose stealth over glory, I suppose.\n\nLater on that very year, government officials were replaced, and our new leader at the time, with the help of activists, helped to make sure the Jewish people were free at last.\n\nIt was a very dark period in our country's history. Fortunately, tyranny never truly lasts as long as there is a resistance.", "Misunderstood the prompt slightly. Sorry.\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI got onto the monorail, my brunette hair covered up with a wig and my dark eyes disguised with paler contacts. I had assumed a false identity to protect myself, to preserve my craft.\n\nIn my briefcase were so many important things. Memories, dreams from the past, abandoned by so-called progress.\n\nNobody suspected a thing, my false persona slipping under the radar of the guards. Patiently, I waited until the next stop, and dismounted the vehicle, walking past the numerous scarlet banners that hung with undeserved pride on the huge abandoned building, waving somewhat in the gentle breeze. I ducked behind one of them, taking a secret doorway deeper into the reaches of the abandoned building.\n\nI tapped the word \"freedom\" in morse, as was custom.\n\nThe small slat on the door opened, exposing a pair of dark brown eyes.\n\n\"For what do you live and die?\"\n\n\"The Resistance.\"\n\nSlowly, the door creaked open and I entered, promptly removing my wig and contacts to expose my true colors- hazel eyes, brunette hair cropped short, traits labelled undesirable. I then placed the briefcase on the table.\n\n\"I thought you would like these.\"\n\nMy fellow Resistance members ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the contents of the case- a few pieces of \"degenerate\" art, books of which all the copies were thought to be burned, a copy of the U.S constitution, and one more paper that caught the most attention.\n\nA plan so long worked on, thirty years in the making, started even before I was born, a plan that I took so much care to smuggle here, where it would be carried out. \n\nA plan to bring down the Führer.\n", "IT took six decades to form the strength to resist they controlled everything, freedoms defined and histories banned at a global level. The resistance started slowly some graffiti in the corners, a slashed tire a few bolts missing from their machine. Their strength alone defined our weakness they needn't notice such mice. Some of us caved from the doubt we had to watch them for years our lives balanced on secrets. Men of tunnels and sewers costumes and disguise we grew by pain and hunger and ranks swelled and lessons were learned. They couldn't ignore the third blast they couldn't sign off some gas leak or coincidence our time was now on this day.", "Braun never left Germany. Never. And thus we all perished in the burgeoning cloud, ashes of the incinerated past commingled with the radioactive birthing-screams of a new generation, the ones spared Hitler's Hauptbebauungsplan executed with the ardor that only a dying republic could know - the fury of those backed up against the wall. And they won.\n\nAnd our children's children, growing up in the lengthening shadowland of a future in which we had no influence, pick over the bones of ancestors they barely remember.\n\nWhen I sat in my grandmother's parlor in upper Queens for the last time, my wide-brimmed fedora gingerly balanced on the coat tree in her well-traveled foyer, she held my hand. Told me Billy would be safe in the south, with his mother and in-laws. Only the two of us would perish in the imminent holocaust. Said we would be watching over our progeny in Heaven. She was right, to an extent. \n\nFor I have seen what happens to those after us, and often wonder over sleepless eons of roiling in the aether what might have been, only if. What if a rich, golden age of American post-triumphal excess informed a revolutionary consciousness, or some angry uprising borne out of the damage done in the wake of war? But none of that has ever come to fruition. Hitler was, in many ways, an effective king. Certainly his reich never spread to the far reaches of the world, where many morally opposed parties hid in enclaves. So there was peace, a separate peace, but still peace.\n\nI have followed my great-great-grandson's travels in this strange new world. I have seen the many mechanical eyes that watch his path, the probing questions that are asked, the austerity of the Law that is laid upon him. But his step never wavers. He accepts these things as a matter of course, as if documentation of his life were as natural as seeing or tasting. Were we mistaken, that Freedom was synonymous with Life?\n\nI have lost count of the number of times my spirit has orbited Sirius in hot thought, wondering why and nothing else. Where does Hitler's body lay? Next to Abijah or Hezekiah? Maybe in a few more centuries, I will scry the answer to this troubling question. But in the interim, I watch as the wounds of war slowly heal in the waters of forgetfulness.", "I know this is in writing prompts, but I really wanted to say this.\n\nThe other day at my school, a holocaust survivor spoke at my school. This was his last public speaking because it has gotten harder as he ages. Anyway, at one point he showed us a picture of a dark haired German lady getting tested to determine whether she her blood was pure German. He told us that if Hitler was here today, unless you were blonde hair with blue eyes you would be enalaved. Most people don't know just how many people Hitler targeted. It wasn't just Jews, there were over 50 different groups of people who were sent to work camps or death camps. Jews, gypsies, mentally ill, etc. He even had forced german doctors to kill any newborn children who were not of perfect health because they were unworthy to live in his Germany.\n\nThe whole event was hugely interesting and at times hard to listen to. The speaker was Alter Weiner, author of From A Name To A Number. I have been to two of his presentations and this time it was harder to listen to. I never really attached the pictures I saw to reality; they were too unbelievable. Giant holes with hundreds and hundreds of bodies overflowing. All the bodies just skin and bone as they had died of starvation. I struggled to hold in my emotions. So much death, so much sadness. I just can't even imagine the tens of millions who died, that is just... So many innocent people. And they all died because of one man. I actually can't comprehend the pure evil and cruelty that lived inside him.\n\nI am not religious, but if there was a devil, I'd have to say one of his many names was Adolf Hitler.\n\nEdit: Hey this kinda could work here if you maybe think of it as an essay in which I share my personal views. So yeah.", "Leon had always showed a fondness for history, it made him proud to be German. Some radicals and hypocrites said Germany had committed atrocities during the Great War of Unification. It was common knowledge that every country involved had at some point, but at least they weren't as bad as what America had done to their own Japanese citizens after they put them in the internment camps, that was the stuff horror was made of.\n\nThe German Unification gave birth to a strong and united Europe. It was German scientists who had sent the first man in space in the 50s, the first man on the moon in the 60s and built the first permanent settlement on Mars a decade earlier. Sure, a lot of American scientists contributed to the effort but they should be thankful, we had granted them immunity from prosecutions after all.\n\nReligion had slowly died out from old Germany first, then from the rest of Europe. Leon had seen some churches when he visited the countries of California and Cascadia in America. They looked just like in the old history books and he thought the locals must have been a little dumb for believing in a magic man in the sky, their God must have not cared for them much if he let Germany obliterate their capital and economic center in a single night.\n\nThe bell rang, pulling Leon away from his fantasies about the German Empire, he had to hurry to go pick up his girlfriend Hannah. He ran out of class and jumped in his hover-car and sped away.", "A Day In My Life\n\nBy Lawrence M. Keizer, machinist, Krupp Shipyards, Portland, Oregon, Fascist States of America.\n\n6:00 A.M.- Wake up to my cheap, limited-range \"people's receiver\" radio.\n6:15 A.M.- Eat a breakfast of eggs and bacon, provided by what I assume was some poor Dutchman when the Krauts looted his stuff.\n6:45 A.M.- Off to work.\n7:00 A.M.- Arrive at work. I work an average of seventy hours a week. Pay's alright, at least compared to the foreign laborers and slaves in Grobbendeutchland.\n9:36 A.M.- Manager went to go get coffee. Look left, look right.\n9:37 A.M.- Relieve self on the band saw.\n9:38 A.M.- Walk away. No one snitches, and it'll remain a case of machinery wear and tear.\n12:10 P.M.- Got to listen to another goddamn appeal from the American Labor Front. Like the U.S. is run by the Boches, the Labor Front is run by the government. It's the last thing we have that's close to a union.\n12:15 P.M.- Winter Relief made us make a donation to help the poor, starving Aryans of Germany. Palmed mine. If that's going to make me be put up on the board of shame for being meiserly, than so be it.\n12:16 P.M.- Lunch. Einpot soup, and bread. Didn't trust the soup, didn't touch the Erstaz bread. Heard the Nazis developed a superpill that has all your vitamins and nutrients. Would trade Einpot for that any day.\n1:22 P.M.- Management called a meeting. Someone drew the Cross of Lorainne on one of the posters. I don't know who did it, and I don't care. Everyone else doesn't, or they either did it or they're worried about what the people who did it will do to them if they squeal.\n6:00 P.M.- Clock out. One day, Strength Through Joy will take enough out of my paycheck so I can afford to tour Italy.\n6:17 P.M.- At home. Make dinner.\n6:28 P.M.- Enjoy feast of Cabbage, Potatoes, and one sausage.\n6:45 P.M.- Relax to some music and television. Reports from Germany. They claim I'd be welcome there due to my last name. But I'm brown haired, brown eyed, and I'm actually a sixteenth boche, if they could wrap their heads around it.\n8:00 P.M.- Curfew. They claim it shuts down rebellion and crime, but it's when I do my best work. No unexpected visits from collaborators.\n8:04 P.M.- It's a simple procedure. Bottle. Gas. Cloth. Cork. The Finns used it. Not that I like them. Anyone who collaborated is going to get it. I hope they're happy with their piece of Karelia.\n8:38 P.M.- Finished. Clean up, take shower.\n8:50 P.M.- In bed.\n\nUnderneath my pillow is a black market Luger in case I hear them outside my room. In my closet is a shotgun if I hear them earlier. In the basement are several Molotov's and two hand-built Stein machine guns, but that's not for home defence.\n\nThey say we're soft. We gave up. With the exception of a few hoodlums, we're all sheep in the field. But they're wrong. I've got guns, friends, and friends with guns. One of these days, all these fascist pigs are going to get stuck. I can hardly wait. In fact, I can't sleep.\n\nCan't sleep for the gun under my pillow.", "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, über Alles in der Welt…\n\nAs I stood in the city square the loudspeakers blared the national anthem proudly on the bright spring day of April twentieth, twenty fifteen. My feet together, short blonde hair tucked neatly under the black cap I stood upright, head tilted high as to take in the full surroundings. Around me stood hundreds of other onlookers waiting eagerly for the honorary speaker. All in salute, all reverent. \n\n“Mein Gott…” Ana whispered below her breath next to me. Her blue eyes glistened with excitement I was sure. I could not see them, my own transfixed on the man sitting upon the stage. His old body was being wheeled up on the platform to the microphone. Behind him waved the red swastika banner of progress and strength, it’s fierce power displaying to all who stood beneath it the glory of humanity and the Aryan race. \n\nAs the Führer Heinrich Himmler approached the podium, followed by his SS shadow Hans Schweiser, my heart raced. Finally we would hear firsthand about the Weltsführer on the anniversary of his birthday no less. I heard a woman in front of me gasp, and quickly silence herself with her free hand. Neu Berlin frequently got high party officials, or the Reichsführer-SS but never the Führer himself. Schweiser approached the podium and took it. \n\n“Jetzt begrüßen unseren Führer, Hienrich Himmler!“ Hans stepped aside as the aging man moved up to the podium. As he approached, the podium lowered to his level for ease of access. I guessed that this entire ceremony had been designed with Himmler’s age in mind. After all, a one hundred and fifteen year old man could barely make it to the Reichstag these days without some sort of health issue. It showed the power of Aryan genes and technology that a man so old could still command the Reich. \n\nAs he approached there was a noticeable jolt in the podium as he hit the side in his wheelchair, and one of the ten some-odd SS agents all flinched, ready to move to the elderly Führer’s aid. However the old man waved them away and straightened himself out. As he did so I could feel the blood coursing through my veins. \n\nI should be up there. I took a deep breath in while thinking. I could see Weiß and Shulz on the stage. Other regional SS officers from my division. Not down here. Why wasn’t I chosen?\n\nAna must have heard my sharp breath as I saw in my peripheral vision her turn slightly towards me. The white cap she wore accentuated the soft features of her face perfectly, the golden hair and ocean blue eyes riveting, sucking me in and never letting me go. \n\nI remember how earlier that day we had stood on the balcony, hanging the newly washed flag for the holiday. As I had placed it up, she had taken hold of my waist, her warmth soft hands permeating the thick cloth of the uniform. \n\nIch liebe dich. She had whispered to me.\n\nI love you too. I had whispered back. We knew what it meant to speak English on a holiday. \n\nAs I heard the microphone crackle we both turned back. The Führer had begun to speak. The flags fluttered behind him as the excitement in the air was so think it tasted of metal. \n\nHis arm and shot up in the air in honorable salute. So did ours. \n\n“HEIL HITLER!” The wrinkled Führer exclaimed proudly. \n\n“HEIL HITLER! SIEG HEIL UNSEREM FÜHRER!” The crowd shouted in unison as the final notes of Das Deutschlandlied played out over the broadcast system.\n\nAs the old man noticeably smiled the stage exploded into flame, a white hot light erupting from underneath, tearing it apart. As the blast hit me the last thing I saw before I blacked out was the look of shock and terror on my Ana’s face, the reflection of the fire reflected in the glistening blue of her eyes. \n\n-- Thanks for reading! I'm always looking to get better, so let me know what you think! Disclaimer: This is a fictional story, written from the perspective of a Nazi. Not at all reflective of any personal views on my part. -- " ]	9
	[WP]A man approaches you and says "You have been given a great gift, a 'super power' if you will. I cannot tell you what it is, but when the time comes, you will know your gift, and how to use it." Today, that day has come	[ "I've had beatings before, but this one is the worse by far. The blows kept coming from up above like a slow jackhammer. I kept my forearm up and most of the blows are glancing, but I'm wearing out and he's getting more and more accurate. I can only turtle up so much with this guy on my chest. The weight on my chest is heavy, making it hard to breathe. It feels like I've done fifty wind sprints and all he wants to do is to keep going. I put a few cuts and abrasions on him and thought I knocked him out with the brick I struck him in the head with. Turns out it was only a glancing blow and only served to irritate him even further. We've been at this for five minutes. We're both sweating, bleeding, and panting. We're a pile of human misery, me more so, but it's clear that only one of us is going to walk away from this. \n\nDifferent thoughts randomly go through my mind. Usually I'm trying to think what my next few steps are or trying to think of a Plan B if Plan A doesn't work out. I think of the time when asked my first crush out and I stammered and stumbled my way through that. Next comes the cringe worthy time I was in college and spreading peanut butter on myself in the middle of class. I wasn't even drunk, but WTF was I thinking? I remember a man that came to me a few years back saying that I was granted a super power and that when the time came, I'd know and know how to use it.\n\n I get a flash of clarity and know that I have the power of rearranging atomic structures to any configuration I want. I can telekinetically move molecules with astonishing accuracy. My heart would drop if weren't trying to beat out of my chest with this fella trying to rip it out as well. Meanwhile in my moment of clarity, this guy has gone from punching me to trying to choke me. I knock off one hand and get my chin down as far as I can. We're playing handsies with each other with his loose hand and mine. We're both grunting trying to gain an edge over the stalemate that's been the story of our very short but very violent history. I look at his neck and see it pulsing. I lock focus with the pulsing area where I think his left carotid artery is and begin to take strip away the molecules. There is nothing at first, and I'm getting worried that this is it. I then see a cut open fifteen seconds later and I try to concentrate harder. It looks like the tissue is just rotting away like one of those time elapsed movies where you see insects devouring a body over the course of a week. I keep going and then a small bright red spray pops with it getting bigger and stronger. The wound is spraying in rhythm with his heart. He realizes it's him that's bleeding and not me and get up off me as quick as he can. I stumble up and crack him as hard as I can with a devastating right hook straight to the temple. He still has his hand on his neck when he's knocked out cold. The thought comes to me that he deserves to bleed out here on the street. If it were anyone else, there would be a homicide with a victim and him as a perpetrator. I take a few breaths in, and my lungs are still screaming, but they are getting quieter with each full breath. I look at the spot where I had just de-materialized his carotid artery and focus in on it again. It takes about the same time to close the wound as it did to create it. I want to say that I'm guessing that the newly form tissue will hold, but I already know that it will. \n\n He isn't dead. The beating I gave him in our fight really isn't going to kill him either, but with as much blood as he lost, he'll be as meek as a kitten until he gets some blood back in him. I call 911 and report an assault at the intersection of Fifth and Washington. I declare a citizen's arrest while still panting and losing the phone from the blood that's making it slippery. I look at the guy that just tried to kill me and keep thinking that it's an easy choice but hard work to be a decent human being.\n", "Every day I see him. He is weak and slow. He is confused. He doesn't know what day or year it is, or why he lives where he does. I greet him every day, and he greets me back, but he never recognizes me. I change his clothes, I bathe him. I feed him. I clean him. I calm him. I do not love him, though. I do not know him. You can't love someone without knowing who they are, and you can't know who someone is if they don't know themselves. Of course, some of the nurses claim to love him, claim that he is such a sweetheart and would be so sad if he died, but none of them mean it. How could they? There is nothing to love, after all. He is a shell of a man, betrayed by his own deteriorating mind. Would anyone truly be sad if he left us, or would they rejoice in knowing that he no longer suffered, no longer had his soul tethered to the immense weight of his decrepit body. \n\nI know that I would rejoice. I know this because I have seen it. There have been five people that I watched ascend from debilitating illness to spiritual transcendence. There have been five people I used my gift to help. My gift that was given to me only two years ago. For the past month I have considered using my gift to help him, to let him experience transcendence. Today I see it is time.\n\nI walk into his room late at night. He is awake, as he usually is, watching his television blankly. I greet him as I do. He looks at me, feigning familiarity, but he doesn't know me. I ask him how he's doing, as I do, and he responds as he does. But this time I ask him a new question; one I have asked five times in my life, to five different people. I ask it a sixth time:\n\n\"Are you ready to go home?\"\n\nSuddenly, but not instantly, his forced smile turns to a look of shock. He is remembering who he is, where he is, who I am. The sudden surge of memories of a life forgotten is too much for him to bear and he begins crying, sobbing.\n\nHe asks me why I did this. He asks why I have allowed him to see himself in this state. I explain how my gift offers clarity and release. Not one or the other, but both. It allows me to see when both are needed, and I ask if it was correct. He looks at his hands. He looks at the gown he wears, and the bed he is bound to. He looks at the solitary picture on his wall; the one of him and his wife decades ago. He looks at her with longing at first, then anger, then a smile. He turns back to me and answers my original question, saying that he is ready. I nod my head and stop using my gift, as I do. He lies back and closes his eyes, as he does. He goes home, as five have done.", "\"Silence.\", the voice was a cold and synthetic. What the creature actually said was unknown but the translated command was clear.\n\nI stood in a group with 20 other humans. Two massive Cherrelians stood beside a smaller female one. Both were armed with weapons that were probably heavier than I was.\n\nThe female tapped a device and pointed at a middle aged man and a young girl, probably around 11, whom I am sure was his daughter. An unintelligible stream of noises came from the Cherrelian to which each of the guards grabbed the father and daughter separately. \n\n\"To the mines.\" the man was informed.\n\n\"Sterilization.\" the other guard informed the young girl.\n\nThe man screamed and broke free of his captors grip. He only made it a few steps before the world went white with the flash of a gun. Most of his torso was vaporized leaving only his lower half to collapse on the ground. The girl was screaming now but fell silent as the female Cherrelian injected her with something.\n\nThe female stood before me now. \n\nMines. I could do that. It is hard work but I could do it. Just don't send me to slaughter.\n\nShe produced a syringe and jabbed it in my arm with little warning. The vial quickly filled with blood. She removed the needle and emptied the contents into the device she carried. It was just a standard health check. They wanted the mining population to stay free of illness. Anyone with a contagion was sent to slaughter. I waited.\n\nOne of the guards coughed.\n\nI suddenly remembered a strange encounter I had in the city nearly a year ago before the Cherrelian invasion. A man approached me and said \"I'm giving you a great gift, a 'super power' if you will. I cannot tell you what it is, but when the time comes, you will know what to do.\" He slapped a patch on the back of my hand that was covered with what looked like blood. I was angry and tried to pull it off but could not; it seemed to be covered in superglue. My fingers on my left hand started to burn a little. I ran into a coffee shop nearby and raced into the washroom. With some effort I removed the patch.\n\nThe skin had turned white and numb. I went to the police and a doctor but was told by both that there was nothing they could do. Blood work turned up nothing. \n\nI received a letter in the mail a few days later. It was hand written with clear and prophetic instructions: \"Stay alive. You're the only one I could find in time that was a match but it will take a long time to mature and be more adaptable. You just need survive.\"\n\nNext week the invasion started. That was 6 months ago and 5 months before the full surrender of the human race.\n\nThe second guard started coughing. The first doubled over and tore off his mask revealing a slow stream of blood coming from his nose. The female's handheld device remained silent but that couldn't be said for her. She was on the ground coughing and chocking on vomit. My fellow captives seized the opportunity. Two larger men pulled a weapon free of one of the guard's feeble grasp and fired it. Though the shot was badly aimed, it still burned half of the guard's head off which proved effective. The second one struggled to try and get up but a dozen people jumped on him hitting him with rocks, fists, and anything else at hand. He disappeared under the writhing mass of humanity and stopped moving shortly thereafter.\n\nNobody needed to deal with the female. She lay unmoving in a pool of her own blood. Her right hand, the one she used for the syringe on me, appeared as though it has been covered in acid. Her face has invisible under a red liquid mask.\n\nSeventeen sets of eyes turned toward me. Somehow I had been made into a biological weapon so potent that even the brief exposure of a tiny amount of blood had lead to the death of these three Cherrellians. I picked up the syringe from the ground which still contained a few milliliters of what ran through my veins. I don't know why the thought came to me but I squirted the contents into my hand and ran a finger through the macabre paint and drew it across the hand of the nearest person. She didn't protest and I looked up to see every person lined up ready to be drawn on.\n\nEvery person massaged and flexed their hands where my blood had contacted them.\n\nI said the only thing I knew for sure what to say, \"I'm giving you a great gift, a 'super power' if you will. You know what it is, but when the time comes, use it. For now, you just need to survive.\"\n", "\"All right, hand out your phone.\"\n\nYou ever felt a knife against your back? Pressing in like it's a boner poking you between your vertebrates?\n\nIf feels weird. Like a boner poking you between your vertebrates. It's a bad way to feel.\n\n(Unless you're into that, which is fine. Live and let live.)\n\n\"It's cool man, it's cool,\" I turn around slowly and I give him the phone. It's a shitty phone anyway.\n\nHe takes it. Punches me to the ground (which I felt was a little gratuitous, but whatever) and starts walking away.\n\nMy head hits the ground and, like something activated inside, I remember:\n\nMy dick pics.\n\n(Now, I won't give you context as to why a guy who barely talk to girls has dick pics on his phone. I will just say \nthat the dick on the pics is mine, and that my face is exposed in them -- the pics, not the dick --, and that the situation that prompted those \npictures to be taken involved some marijuana, tequila and a seriously convincing Malaysian fat guy pretending to \nbe a nineteen year old Texan girl on the internet.)\n\nI have to get them back.\n\n\"Sir\", I say, feeling that's a bit of a silly way to refer to a mugger. \"Sir, could you pleas --\"\n\nHe turns back. I shut up.\n\nHe walks back. I shit my pants.\n\n(not really, but you know...)\n\n\"Are you trying to start a problem here, buddy?\"\n\n\"No. No problem. It's just that I have... some.. Could you delete... I... Uh...\"\n\nIt's very hard to put words together when the other end of the conversation is opening a butterfly knife in front of your eyes.\n\n\"Can I just delete some pics from the phone?\"\n\nAnd this is when he stabs me in the belly and turns around and walks away.\n\nI fall to the floor.\n\nDear God what an asshole.\n\nI wish his head would explode.\n\nLet me explain to you what happens when a human head explodes:\n\nA person is, for example, walking down an alley with a butterfly knife in his hands, and then the head explodes.\n\nThe head is not the interesting part. It exploded. That's it. A ball of meat and blood and bones.\n\nBut the body, man. For a while, there, the signals have already left the brain, and the body keeps doing what it \nwas told to do, before the head went CABOOM.\n\nThe man walked with no head for a couple of steps, before falling to the ground. Which was absolutely AWESOME.\n\nI look at the scene in front of me, in understandable panic. (It was't until later that I concluded that the scene was, in fact, AWESOME).\n\nThe panic that lasted exactly eight and a half-seconds. Then I realized I can explode people's heads with my mind. (The AWESOME part started somewhere around here).\n\nA rat passes by me. I try it on him.\n\nI wish this rat's head would explode.\n\nHe explodes. My eyes are wide, and I smile. \n\nIt takes another twenty-two seconds for this power to completely go over my head and I start laughing like a \nmaniac.\n\nI get up, holding my belly, and I start limping my way out of the alley.\n\nI gotta go to the hospital. Get myself stitched up.\n\nThen I'm gonna go visit some people.\n\n\n" ]	4
	[WP] You find a book in a library, it details everything that you will and have done	[ "I always liked the library, the smell of books and the soft sound of pages turning. I came to research my English project, reading a book called Metro 2033 or something. Rows of books were high and long, with all the colours of the spectrum. I searched high and low for this book that my English teacher suggested for our related text. He said it was about a nuclear war between the west and the east, and the quest of one Russian man in the metro to save his people. I wasn’t looking forward to reading the book but I liked going to the library so I didn’t mind too much.\nLooking along the endless books something caught my eye, it was an older book with its spine worn down considerably. Its pages were worn with people seemly adding more and more parts to the story. Pen marks covered the pages, editing the plot line and changing the books meaning. I took the book back to the seats and forgot about my English project. I started from the beginning, if that’s what you would call it. The pages were covered in pens of all colours and sizes, like a zoo of pen marks. There were blue glitter pens, black sharpies, even what seemed to be an old ink feather pen.\nI stopped admiring people’s dedication to altering the books meaning and started reading the story, including its somewhat annoying additions. ‘David James Jones was born at Ryde hospital in 1989 on the 4th of May’ reading this my heart stuttered. That was my name and my birthday. It couldn’t be possible that this was me, the books title was ‘To edit one’s life’. It wasn’t possible at all. I brushed this off and continued reading, the further I got into it to more it seemed that this book was about me. The writing in the margins of the pages were detailing what I did differently than the story, everything was detailed down to the time I chose to buy a Toyota instead of a Mazda. \nI was freaking out, how could this book exist, how could people know so much about my life. Why me? I started to get paranoid, I saw people looking at me strange. The librarian was on the phone and looking at me. Why are they looking at me? Their eyes were like small intense flames, heating my whole body with the sustained looks. I got up, my head felt faint and I made my way to the door, people yelled for me but I didn’t turn, I found something. Something strange and I wasn’t going to have it taken away from me. The drive home I felt as if someone was following me, a black car in the distance. It was always there, sometimes disappearing into the rain and fog. It was like a predator hunting its prey, always in the background waiting to strike. I got home fast, my car never driven so fast on such slippery roads before. I felt something grinding while driving and I only now realised what it was. My exhaust manifold had come undone and was grinding against my cylinders. I raced inside, my heart beating outside my chest. When I got inside I found comfort in my warm room, my locked doors and windows giving me a sense of security. I started reading the old book and found the events of today. The writing in the book detailed what had happened, like an autobiography. I continued reading, the book said a knock on my door. I heard a knock. I froze in place, heart beating faster, palms sweaty. I peered through the peep hole. I heard from outside ‘Breach and clear, go, go, go!’ Gas filled the room, my lungs burnt. I looked around, people in swat gear were pouring in, I was forced on the ground and was met with a rifle butt to the face. \nI woke in a secure hospital room, a man in a black suit was standing over me. ‘You’ve seen some things Mr Jones, my heart was again racing, and its every beat I could feel in my head. ‘Things you were not supposed to see’. I said with a weak voice, my throat still irritated by the tear gas ‘What have I done wrong? What was that book?’ The man looked at me, brow furrowed. ‘You are not of this world Mr Jones that book is your life, everything that has happened and everything that will happen is in that book.’ My heart stopped. My stomach dropped. What does he mean I’m not of this world? I’m human, this is just some crude joke. ‘What do you mean?’ I managed to say with a forced expression of wonder. What followed was this unknown man showing me that I was not of this world, I was from a distant planet that was known as T-144. The closest known planet that could sustain life. I was brought here by my people and that book. That horrible book was for the humans to edit my life and the change my outcomes, I could never fail the book. It was me, and I was it. I was their weapon. \n", "I didn't think it would be so small. After reading it I knew where my fate was, how I would die, when I would die, I knew everything about my own life. But the size puts it in perspective of how insignificant you are. I just thought it would be bigger. No one wants to know how little your life may mean.\n\nIt was an ordinary trip to the library. I went every Thursday, and this Thursday was no exception. After reading fiction my whole life, I decided to change it up and go the opposite route. Non-fiction had never been my cup of tea, but I was in the mood for it I suppose. The first aisle I went down I saw it. It was the first book that caught my eye at all, really. I became particularly curious when I saw my name on it. Last time I had checked, I never wrote a book. But it was there on the spine. I took it out and opened the front cover. The inside cover was a photocopy of my birth certificate, and the first page depicted my birth. I flipped through, growing more and more curious. Sure enough, my first steps, my first words, my first everything. I flipped through, faster and faster, seeing my life literally flash before my eyes. And suddenly I stopped on a page. To begin, the page read:\n\nI didn't think it would be so small. After reading it I knew where my fate was, how I would die, when I would die, I knew everything about my own life. But the size puts it in perspective of how insignificant you are. I just thought it would be bigger. No one wants to know how little your life may mean.", "I had always adored books. Since I was young I tirelessly read and reread all of my books learning and loving their stories. The school library became a sanctuary of readers. Nevermind I was the only one in it, it was my hidden nest. Maybe it was weird that I read books unlike the others.\n\nI didn't care. Books were immortal, school friends were not.\n\nLater, I graduated to high school and actually made friends. I still read though. I spent my first year cooped in the library, a different book every day. Eventually, I left the books at home and socialised.\n\nIt went ok. Some people liked me, some people didn't. That's life. I was still a quite loner type but that's just me.\n\nStill I read. Then I started writing. Writing and reading daily. The ultimate cycle. I wrote fiction, fact, opinion pieces and so on.\n\nFinally I came to The Library. It's address was disclosed to me by an unknown person by way of a postcard. It said only:\n\n'Seek the Knowledge you Desire'\n\nIrresponsibly, I went to the location. Knowledge was always good.\n\nIt turned out to be a rather inconspicuous warehouse in the middle of a forest. Maybe it was my imagination but it seemed to stretch endlessly. It was a giant library. A forest of words printed in neat black text.\n\nIt was dusty\n\nI grabbed a book off a shelf and wiped the thick layer of dust off with my sleeve. It seemed to be documenting the life of a Beatrice Rue. From birth to untimely death. Who would write about such a seemingly normal life? I asked myself.\n\nIt occured to me I might be rudely trespassing and disturbing another person's things. I quickly returned the book to its shelf and wiped myself clean.\n\n'Hello?' I called out. I know shouting was inexcusable in a library but it had to be done.\n\n'Is anyone there?' A little louder. Still, no reply.\n\nIdiot. I should check reception and see if there is a log of people or books taken out.\n\nBooting up the aged terminal (I guess they took books over technology seriously.. or had a bad budget) the text based GUI had one repeating message:\n\n'Enter Name'\n'Enter Name'\n'Enter Name'\n\nEh. Why not. I entered my name and the screen bought up an address registry:\n\n'North Side, District 12, Row 12, J, E, 12'\n'Advised to take train'\n\nA train? What library has a train? The partition in the floorboards shifted and a train, complete with tracks, rose up from the floor. I jumped in and knowingly it departed.\n\nIt took 4 hours to reach the destination. I spent much of it thinking.\n\nWhat am I doing here?\n\nWhere am I going?\n\nWhat if this is wrong?\n\nI couldn't stop now.\n\nThe train slowed down and I got out the cabin. I stretched my body out and looked around.\n\nThis area was older. Gas lights had replaced the bulbs from the reception area. Some books had disintegrated into dust from the years of decay. Despicable. A nailed on sign informed me I was in JE.\n\nSmaller milestones were visible starting from A and onwards. They were divided by more letters. In between those still were numbered signs. It was unfathomable how many books were in this library.\n\nThe train set off behind me. I hoped they'd send another one later else it would be a long walk back. How wasn't I hungry or yet? Weird.\n\nI strolled past A and B and C and D and E and on and on and on until I hit J. Then I went on until I hit E. Then I hit 12. My feet should be needing a break but what should have took an age felt like it was no time at all.\n\nI perused through the JE12 section. Why was I here? Maybe someone with the same name as me wrote a book. Yes! Found it.\n\nIt was in a poor state. Torn pages and misc stains were the best of its problems. This library may have a train but they seriously lacked in the maintenance department. However, when I touched it it began to repair itself. Broken pages fixex themselves as if by magic. A fresh dose of ink permeated the text. The dust simply fell off and the header was polished to shine. It stood alone on the cover.\n\n'The Life of James Emerson'\n\nI dropped the book. This was someone with the same name as me, because it was me!. I flicked through the first pages. My birthday, birthplace, certificate. Everything was there.\n\nWait a minute. If the start was there.. maybe the end was too. I could rewrite my life. Become famous. Rich. A god. It was mine to take.\n\nI could know what to do. To never be scared. I could erase people who would do things. Terrible things. I could topple world leaders as easily as getting their book out and a red pen.\n\nThe shadows of the library grew darker. The lights grew dimmer. Did it want me to do that? A cold feeling drifted across my spine.\n\nOn second thought, I put the book back. I was not worthy of this power. No one was. I turned around right as a someone clubbed me.\n\nAnd I was gone." ]	3
	[WP] You wake up in a dungeon with a note on a corpse next to you.	[ "I am aching all over, I dont know where I am or how I got here.\nIt smells of mold and something rotten, I think im going to be sick.\nI must open my eyes, but they are so heavy, maybe ive been drugged. Maybe not! I can feel warm sticky blood on my head. \nWhat the hell happened last night?\nI manage to slowly open my foggy eyes and see a stone wall, maybe, I cant quiet make it out, I reach out and it feels like stone, moist and slippery I manage to use it to stand.\nalmost tripping on something, I manage to catch my balance just as I see a face.\nOh Shit!!! Its a body, I can see he has been beaten badly and has been here a while given the bugs wriggling out of his nostrils. I spew all over him, I know he cant feel or smell but I feel terrible for doing it. \nThats when I notice a piece of paper in his hand. Its rigid and stuck but I manage to pry it loose, as I unfold it I get this horrible feeling, one of those feelings of dred you just cant shake. \nWhen I finally get the note open it reads: \"We have been watching you, and you deserve to suffer\"", "My head was hurting, the city guard do a number on you when you're caught stealing from the local regent. I guess that's my nature, find something nice and take it. It was first time getting caught, they busted the treasury room open, finding me there with a ruby the size of my fist plus a bag of gold. Last thing I remember was getting smacked in the head by a sword, and now I'm here with a corpse with a note.\n\nIf you find this either I'm dead or it was taken from me. My name is Arkdos, I like yourself either ended up here due to some unwise choices. My only choice was being curious about finding a map in the study room of the regent. I had to have a look, so I did. Now, I was told the map was still locked up, which is good, its safe. However getting to it requires some skill in finding things that shouldn't be found, which I did have. Now it's up to you to find the map and to whatever or whoever it leads to. Good Luck\n\nMe and my damned luck I thought. Looking around the dungeon I need to find a way out. Finding a nail I started to dig out the stone blocks. It's better then nothing I thought as my mind started to think of what that map could lead to. ", "\"Five more minutes...\" I muttered, rolling over, away from the person insistently poking me awake. I fell off the bed with a thud. \"Ow,\" I said.\n\nI got up, realizing that I wasn't lying in my extremely comfortable bed, but rather in a dimly lit, stone cell. What was going on? I was pretty sure I hadn't gotten that drunk last night. In fact, I was pretty sure that even if I had, the jail cells didn't look anything like this.\n\nI glanced around. Then I stumbled backwards in shock and fright, seeing who, what, had been poking me. A carefully balanced corpse, swinging in a set of shackles, still with its arms held out and swinging over the cot every few seconds.\n\n\"What the hell!\" I yelped.\n\nThe corpse grinned at me. It couldn't do much else.\n\nI glared at it. Then I noticed that one of the hands it held extended to me held a yellowed scroll. Not seeing many other options, I reached out and took it.\n\n\"What the hell?\" I said again. \"What's this supposed to mean? Forzare-\" there was a ripple in the air, and a dent appeared against the wall.\n\n\"Uh...\" I blinked. \"Forzare?\" Ripple. Dent. \"Forzare!\" This time, a crack appeared, and a chunk of stone fell out of the wall. I went over to peer through the wall. Maybe this mysterious abduction wouldn't be so bad..." ]	3
	[WP] Every person has a clock that counts down the time to their deaths. You see that your time is running out and you prepare to leave this world. At the final moment the clock stops at 0:01.	[ "Tick tock, tick tock. We all had one, a timepiece that is! I received my countdown October 5th 2054 on my 18th Birthday. I was terrified to learn my death date and like most people I initially hid it away, well until my curiosity got the better of me. The US government issued them to everyone when they became an adult, they utilised genetic codes and algorithms in conjunction with cybernetic implants to accurately determine the exact time of our last breath. They claimed it was because of the increasing population and that they wanted to control America's growth but no one believed them. I always found it amusing though, I could see when I was going to die but I still had to wait three years to legally drink.. The government was a joke to me.\n\nAnd now after 37 years on this god forsaken planet, my time was finally coming to an end. The clock had two minutes and thirty seconds left on it. I lifted it from the dark oak cabinet in my lounge and begun my walk to my bedroom. The polished metal cube felt icy cold in my hands, almost deathly. I got to the door and pushed it open, I had prepared my bed earlier in the day for my passing, it terrified me but I wanted to die in my own sheets, for my own dignity if nothing more. It was at one minute 15 seconds now. I placed it on my bed and pulled my phone out my pocket. The authorities knew when and where I was going to die, but your family you had to tell. I looked at the screensaver of my ex-wife and child, a hurt smile creeped it's way on my face, tears beginning to well in my eyes. I couldn't bear to leave my daughter behind, but it was unstoppable. I text draft I had typed ready earlier in the week, I wanted it to be perfect. My eyes scanned it one last time for any errors, before I clicked send.\n\nI lifted the cube and pulled back my sheets, slowly lowering myself into the fresh linen I had laid in many a day before. I turned to my side, covering myself in the thin white fabric and stared at the timepiece. Twenty seconds. Tears were streaming down my face now, I wasn't ready to go. I began to whimper and cry further as it truly dawned on me everything I had failed to do and everyone I had failed. Fifteen seconds. My family were everything to me and I lost them because of my stupid mistakes. Ten Seconds. I was so sorry but, but there was nothing I could do now.. \n\nFive seconds.\nI felt a tear slide off my cheek. \nFour seconds. \nI grasped harshly onto the covers. \nThree seconds. \nI was so scared, I didn't want this. \nTwo seconds. \nMy eyes began to close. \nOne Second. \n\nThen there was the final tick, but no tock? My eyes shot open, the salty liquid that had streamed my face stuck to my eyelashes. The clock was stuck at one second, but it couldn't be a mistake! I was still alive.. I sat up in shock. A smile formed on my face and I chuckled at the prospect. I wasn't dead!? Had this happened before? Were the government wrong?\n\n\"No Tom.\" The deep and raspy voice echoed through the room. \"This is the first time this has happened.\"\n\n\"Who is this? Where are you? How do you know my name?!\" I leaped up and span around looking for the voice.\n\n\"I am everywhere and everything child. Soon you will be too\" The man coughed with his harsh tone.\n\n\"What do you mean? Show yourself!\" I screamed. I was panicking now, what the hell was going on?\n\n\"Very well\" The walls around me began to crumble, white light piercing through the cracks and the windows becoming clouded in a thick pale smoke. I stepped back and span to face the door! My feet went one in front of the other as I charged in terror towards the door. It slammed shut, the wooden frame splintered with the force. The ceiling was rumbling now, dust pouring from it and light shining from everywhere. The walls and ceiling collapsed.\n\nI dropped to the floor expecting the pain from the debris. Nothing happened, I glanced up and everywhere was white. \n\n\"Am I dead\" I wondered out loud.\n\n\"No you aren't dead\" The voice coughed again. I stood up and turned to face where the sound was coming from. A pale, feeble old man dressed in white rags struggled towards me. His hands grasping at the tall wooden staff. \"This is a new beginning, for you at least my time has long since passed, it is now such a time someone takes my place.\"\n\n\"Who, who are you? where am I?\" I stuttered, to say I was petrified was an understatement. My world had just collapsed and I had no idea where I was..\n\n\"You are in paradise. This is the space woven in the universe, it allows for unlimited possibilities.\" As if to prove his point he raised his hand and a dark red smoke swirled before dissipating, leaving an apple in its wake. \"You are my replacement, this your new home Tom.\"\n\n\"You haven't answered my question! Who are you?\" I begged.\n\n\"Oh surely you should know by now?\" He said as he turned and walked away. \"I am God, or at least I was! That's your mantle now!\" He continued to walk until he had faded into nothingness, leaving me stranded. Stranded in limbo.", "Operator: Hello 911\n\nMan: Hello, I have 1 second left on my life clock.\n\nO: Ok sir, what is your location? I can send someone to get you body.\n\nM: No it’s stuck at 1 sec.\n\nO: OH… Sir can you repeat that?\n\nM: My life clock is stuck at 1 sec.\n\nO: Umm… I’ve never had this situation. Do you think you can make it to the hospital?\n\nM: Not sure I can keel over any second.\n\nO: I will send an ambulance for you.\n\nLater at the hospital\n\nDoctor: Ok sir, it looks like your life clock was running a little fast, but because your still alive it just adds 1 second overtime the second runs out. This is a first for me.\n\nM: Ok do you know how long I have left?\n\nDoctor: Well it wasn’t to fast. It should be coming up just about... now." ]	2
	[WP] The reason earth has never been contacted by intelligent alien life is that it has been under a longstanding quarantine. Today the quarantine is lifted, you learn why...	[ "I already posted one, but I had a short, funny idea:\n\nI awoke with the worst hangover of my life. \"Rumplemintz. Never again,\" I muttered to myself. I never remembered my room being this bright. I couldn't see a damned thing. \"Your kind has been cut off from all other sentient beings for too long,\" sung an angelic voice. \"Da fuck?\" I croaked in response. I could really use a gatorade. \"'Da fuck,' indeed,\" the voice soothed. \"We mean to open communication with your people. We simply need a vessel to monitor your planet so we can determine the most effective way of doing so.\" Perplexed and feeling none too cooperative with whatever the hell was going on, \"I nominate Greg. He's more the kind of guy to do that.\"\n\n\"Do not be foolish. You will do just fine. Now, you may feel some discomfort, but it will only be momentary. After that, you need not do anything apart from live as you normally would.\" I head a slight humming. Then it stopped. \"That wasn't so-\" then a searing pain ripped through my ass. \"There. Completed. We will send you home.\" ", "Y'know, I always wondered why aliens haven't tried to contact us. Well, scratch that. Me and a few million other people. Of course, there's a bullshit theory about them contacting us in the past here, some vaguely credible evidence about them actually existing there, and jokes about \"the only proof we have that intelligent life except us exists in the universe is that none of them have tried to contact us\" galore on the Internet.\n\nMy theory was that extraterrestrial life had no resistance against Earth diseases, and that was why they never dropped in to say hi.\n\nNow, as fire rains down from the sky, dead bodies litter the ground, and I slowly start drifting away into oblivion, I finally realize why aliens had avoided us.\n\nThey weren't afraid of our Earth bacteria. No, that wasn't it.\n\nWe were the bacteria.\n\nAnd as I see bright lights drifting down from the sky, I smile.\n\nGuess I was right.", "Sasha walked along the coast, heading North where he thought it might rain more. As he approached the old orangey reddish bridge, it was getting dark, and he decided to camp in a park next some fruit trees. After many years, the corpse smell had finally given way to the smells of overgrown vegetation. As he settled into his sleeping bag, a fog rolled in. A bright light appeared in the sky and slowed as it came down. It made the fog glow. Sasha had seen a helicopter once as a small kid, but that was forty years ago. The possibility of seeing another person overcame any fear he might have had. Sasha walked toward the light. It was not a helicopter. \n\nA sphere with a few marks and bumps and metal pieces changed shape and grew some stubby legs as a hole appeared and a ramp. It grew from the opening. Humans did not walk out of it. A smaller white sphere with a black window in it floated around and approached Sasha. Sasha started having strange hallucinations. \n\nHe saw the Earth all at once and somehow knew that humans numbered only in the hundreds. He could see where they once lived. Then he could see them on a huge ship, together, in group pods, frozen. The hallucination zoomed out, and swept through a few stars, and zoomed back into a planet with many blue/purple islands in a green sea. He knew he would be taken there, but couldn't quite see why. His mind tried to grasp the question, but the hallucination immediately stopped. The experience left him disoriented and nauseous. When he got his bearing, the smaller white sphere had in the mean time grown an arm and was walking him to the bigger sphere with a hole in it. Sasha started to try and get away, but the grasp of the sphere was too tight. In response to his resistance, another arm grew, held him by the torso and flew him into the ship, where a pod was waiting to freeze him. He remembered being thrown in, he remembered screaming, the next thing he knew, he was lying in a bed of purple grass, and some naked humans surrounding him. \n\nAn older woman said, \"Welcome to the galactic wild life reserve. Follow me.\"", "The sky opened up. It had been cloudy all month on the eastern seaboard. From Charleston to New York, everyone felt the ground shake and heard a terrible roar. Windows rattled in their frames. Car alarms were set off. Small children cried out in fear and animal scurried away. The air traffic controllers at Andrews Air Force Base saw their screens fill, first with millions of small contacts, then one massive one. A smooth, silver, oblong object came to a halt about 60,000 feet above the Potomac. Secret Service Agents rushed the president and his family to Marine One, unsure if that was a safe move, but knowing it was probably the safest. As the helicopter hovered, first family on board, over the White House lawn, a radar operator saw what his training told him had to be an air-to-air missile streaking in. \"Bandit! Bandit!\" he screamed over the radio, as the chopper pilot made a risky and likely futile evasive maneuver. The powerful turbines came to a sudden halt as the helicopter slammed into the ground. A matte, silver, bullet-shaped object, the size of a school bus, streaked in and came to a jarring halt mere feet from the presidential helicopter. \n\n\"Mr. President! You must stay inside. We don't know what it is!\" barked the protection detail lead. \"If it was going to harm me, it would have done so already,\" snapped the commander-in-cheif. He stumbled out to see a willowy humanoid figure standing on he grass. An erie moaning sound emanated from its direction, followed by a tinny computerized voice. \"Am I correct that you a leader of this planet?\" \n\nThe president croaked, \"I- I am... I am the president of the United States of America. Who, or what are you?\" \n\n\"Your kind might refer to me as an alien - as I am from a different planet.\" The voice responded, coming from no particular direction. \"We have dispatched emissaries from our coalition to what we have identified as the major capitals of your planet.\"\n\n\"What are you doing here?\" responded the president, his presidential voice coming back to him. \n\n\"Mr. President, let someone else handle this. It's not safe,\" warned the Secret Service Agent, as he slid up next to his charge. \n\n\"Dammit! I will conduct this!\" hissed the POTUS. \n\n\"You are correct to be unafraid. We mean no harm,\" said the voice. \"Your system has been under quarantine for some time. As we began noticing signs of development from this region, we detected a series of uncontrolled thermonuclear reactions that would indicate barbarism unfit for interplanetary contact. It has been a long enough period of time since the last incident and we have determined to lift the quarantine on your planet and forger a relationship.\"\n\n\"I am pleased to hear this. Let me be the first to welcome you to Earth!\" As the president reached out to grasp the end of the being's arm. They touched and he began to feel a supreme warmth and peace spread through his body. But, as suddenly as it began, the feeling of well-being was violently ripped from the president's body, leaving him feeling empty and ill. \n\n\"Your kind has proven to lack the advanced state we had expected,\" the voice chided. \"The quarantine is reinstated. Do not expect a similar visit during your lifetime.\"\n\nThe being blinked out of the exitance. The small craft streaked away and the large one pulled out of Earth's atmosphere. \n\n\"What happened?\" gasped the exasperated leader.\n\nThe agent responded, \"I'm getting a report on the radio. One of the other ships was attacked.\"\n\n\"Who would be so daft? The Russians? The Chinese? An EU power?\"\n\n\"New Zealand, sir. It was Wellington.\" \n", "The sun is a young star and there are ones that are far older than ours, there is a high probability that those stars will harbor earth like planets. From those planets earth like planets, civilizations will spring forth will develop space travel. Given that the universe is over 13 billion years old, these civilizations could colonize the whole galaxy in little as 10 million years even with current envisioned technology. We are left wondering, where are they?\n\nThis is what is known as the Fermi Paradox.\n\nWe had no idea why we have not seen or heard from our interstellar neighbors. They skies remained silent has they have always been. \n\nThen a whisper. An simple numeric sequence made out of dots and dashes coming from a previously unknown planetoid between earth and mars orbits that was perfectly synced with Earth's own orbit with the sun.\n\nSETI finally popped open that bottle of champagne. However, that excitement turned into concern as that numeric sequence was revealed to be a count down. \n\nThe pentagon militarized the whole project and deemed it classified even though anyone with an AM/FM radio could pick up the signal on a clear night. Men in military uniforms locked everything down and threatened us with charges of treason if we, like the General Swartz put it, make like Snowden.\n\nThe next week the office was tense and oppressive. The count down made the situation all too real, and the military types felt it too and some of them blamed us for this. \n\nNASA and NORAD watched this new planetoid that some how appeared in the night sky. It was close enough for our telescopes to see that it was a rock about the size of Alaska, it did however have structures built on the surface on the planet and had scars of a mining operation on its face. The orbit was stable and it was not decaying in one way or the other. It was close enough to mars and our own plantet that it should have messed its orbit but it seemed to ignore the gravitational influence of both its neighboring planets.\n\nOur own attempts to contact the object were only met with silence. The silence here, however, did not last for long. The planetoid was too close and its radio signal was strong enough for a car radio to pick it up. We didn't need to leak it, amateur astronomers did that for us. It was all what the 24 hour news networks were talking about, only to break away for about a day to cover a mass suicide by a doomsday cult.\n\nRiots were starting to break out, a lot of states in the US declaring a state of emergency with national guard units supplementing police forces. Supermarkets wiped clean by the populace preparing for the worst as the countdown nears its end. \n\nThen a Bang. A massive data stream overloaded everything on every wavelength. The planetoid did not change its orbit or seem to change. It took us about day to figure out what happening. Everything using a radio frequency was knocked out due to the over whelming strength of the signal.\n\nWe were surprised to see what was in the data stream, it was not only in our languages but it was using our codecs and file types! I personally opened a zip containing schematics for a consumer grade quantum CPU. \n\nThen among all the data we found protocols for linking to an alien network. We quickly kluged together a text messenger using those protocols and sent a message in our own language.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: To it may concern, the massive data stream your are sending is currently disrupting our own networks and technology on a global scale. We cannot handle this load, please respond.\n\nThe whole room was tense, uniforms and SETI nerds huddled around a projector as they waited for a response. Radios in the room cleared up from the static, and Internet service returned soon after.\n\nThen a response.\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION] Apologies, we have over estimated your planet's infrastructure. It was not our intention.\n\nWe all gasped not quite expecting it. We quickly confirmed it was from the planetoid. I cracked my knuckles not quite knowing what to write next.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: My name is John, who are you?\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION]: I am Professor Loc'nex of the Quarantine Office for the LNM Empire. I writing to you through a translator program to speak to you in your specific human dialect. \n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: Why are you here and why now?\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION]: Your planet has been quarantined for [585.83 years]. It was deemed no longer necessary and this was our attempt to initiate to contact through the WANet.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: Why were we quarantined?\n\n[Quarantine Office, LNM Empire, SOL STATION]: I'll tell you, but first, I need about treefiddy.\n\nThen I realized the Professor Loc'nex, was a 500 foot tall monster form the paleolithic area.\n\n[SETI, USA, EARTH]: God Dammit Loch Ness Monster, I ain’t gonna give you no tree fiddy!!", " “Again, we sincerely apologize for how this quarantine must have affected your planet, but for the good of the galactic community, the infestation had to be stopped.”\n\n “Huh.” I really didn’t know how else to respond. I was chosen as a representative of humanity to communicate with the alien landing party, and I thought I was prepared for anything: declarations of war, offerings of peace and cooperation, or even a complete lack of communication, but not this.\n\n“Of course,” the alien dignitary continued, “The galaxy thanks you for your sacrifice and service in extinguishing that horrifying species. Citizens of Earth will be welcomed happily into the-“\n\n“Wait-“ I interrupted. “Wait, are you saying that you were just waiting for us to extinguish the ‘threat’ this whole time?”\n\n“Well no, not exactly,” the alien glanced sideways, he looked a bit uncomfortable now. “We- we really didn’t believe you would survive at all.” He shrugged apologetically.\n\n “So many systems were infested, and given up for lost! Once they exhaust the resources and food supply of a planet they move on to the next, our only chance was to strand them on Earth.” \n\n“Right. Well… I need to confer with my superiors about this uh- revelation.”\n\n“That is reasonable, shall will reconvene tomorrow?” The alien asked politely. \n\n“Yeah, yeah that will be acceptable. G-goodbye.”\n\nI walked back to headquarters slowly, lost in thought, contemplating the reason for our entire lonely existence in the galaxy for so long. As I entered HQ, it was suddenly silent and every eye looked to me. The General spoke one word, “Why?”\n\nI looked back at him in a daze and replied, “Pandas.”\n", "My skull felt like John Henry and the steam engine were in a race to see who could burrow through it the fastest. I ached all over and it was like every nerve fiber was turned up to 11. My hair hurt. It was like the world's worst hangover and more. Yet I was fairly certain I hadn't been drinking. \n\nI remembered clocking out from work and taking the bus home. The closest bus stop was on the exact opposite side of Thompson Park so, like usual, I cut across the park towards my apartment. This time, though, I had stopped because there were these weird lights floating overhead. Then I had been illuminated by a shaft of light and . . .\n\nOh.\n\nMy eyes snapped open. I was in a spartan white room. The walls seemed to emit a soft white light. I was also butt naked and strapped to a steel operating table. I clenched my butt cheeks together in a desperate bid to avoid what I figured was scheduled for the main event.\n\n\" . . . rhythms . . . alert . . . fully integrated,\" a voice sounded from nowhere. I was only catching a word here or there. Not because the voice was low either. No, it boomed loud enough to make my throbbing skull feel like it was about to explode. I cringed in my straps and tried in vain to release my arms so I could clamp them over my ears. Maybe someone out there noticed my reaction and took pity on me because when the voice spoke again the volume was at a less ear splitting level.\n\n\" . . .waves . . . asynchronous . . . presently,\" the voice said again. Yeah, it wasn't my imagination after all. I was struggling to follow the words because they weren't in English. They weren't in any language I ever head before either. I wasn't even sure that the \"words\" could be made by a human throat. Yet I understood them. Sort of. When the voice spoke up a third time I concentrated on the sounds and found that eased comprehension.\n\n\". . . the symbiotic . . . but only in the language areas. Extraordinary, really. The Chimera really did . . . . work of art if I do say so myself,\" the voice concluded. I couldn't tell if the voice was male or female. The inflection and tone of voice was all wrong too. It made the voice sound almost synthetic but I knew instinctively that wasn't true. The speaker was very much alive but, I was now certain, not human. After an agonizing moment where nothing happened, part of the wall ahead of me dissolved and a pair of figures stepped into the room. The first thought that occurred to me is that, apparently, hazmats suits look the same all across the universe.\n\nThe pair were definitely not human. The proportions and shapes were all wrong. But the suits? They would be right at home at the CDC. Walking balloons with gloves and boots and a clear plastic face plate. The face behind the plastic looked like a shriveled up apple with too many eyes. The eyes were like a spider's. Two large compound eyes with smaller sensors scattered around its head. The taller one opened its toothless maw and that same voice spoke up again.\n\n\". . . should be integrated enough to allow mutual comprehension,\" the voice said, \"But there is no way of knowing as we are dealing with eons of neural drift patterns. Still, you can try.\"\n\nThe shorter one stepped forward and addressed me.\n\n\"Can you comprehend me?\" it asked.\n\n\"Evening,\" I greeted, \"How's Elvis doing these days?\"\n\nThe two figures stared at one another.\n\n\"The symbiotic matrix must have affixed itself irregularly,\" the taller one concluded, \"I was afraid of this. We may be completely unable to communicate with it.\"\n\nThe shorter one looked back at me.\n\n\"Are you able to comprehend me?\" it asked, \"If not then we shall have to dispose of you and find another subject for interrogation.\"\n\nI didn't like the sound of the word dispose so I opted for tact this time.\n\n\"I understand you just fine,\" I said, \"But if you bring out a probe without the decency to lube it up first you can forget asking for a second date.\"\n\nThe two regarded each other.\n\n\"Extraordinary,\" the taller one said, \"It seems to be able to understand us but it's like half its words are complete gibberish to us. Perhaps the symbiote hasn't completely updated its lexicon of their language to the ship.\"\n\nThe smaller one considered this.\n\n\"Perhaps it is a token gesture of hostility?\" it mused, \"A war cry or a declaration of defiance?\"\n\n\"It's called sarcasm,\" I called out, \"Better get used to it because if this is how your make introductions on your world you are in for a lot of it.\"\n\nThey both regarded me.\n\n\"I do believe,\" the taller one said, \"That the symbiote is linked. You may interrogate the subject, Captain.\"\n\nThe shorter one, the Captain I now realized, strode forward until he was standing beside me.\n\n\"There are over 7 billion of your species,\" he said, \"How is this possible?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much and Barry White is singing in the background-\"\n\n\"Captain,\" the taller one interrupted, \"I believe the gibberish is a defense mechanism. He is likely unaware of the Barricade Worlds status.\"\n\nThe captain smacked his lipless mouth a few times before turning to face me once more.\n\n\"How has your species survived?\" it asked me.\n\n\"We wonder the same thing,\" I informed it.\n\n\"Then you know of the Khrikll plague?\"\n\nOne word did not translate. I just looked at the captain.\"\n\n\"How did your species survive this?\" it asked.\n\n\"I have no idea what you are talking about,\" I said. The captain looked at the taller one who I now thought of as the Science Officer.\n\n\"It is likely telling the truth,\" the Science Officer concluded, \"I find no traces of the plague present in its body. Yet, oddly, there is evidence of infections with several related diseases. It seems to have developed and immunity to them.\"\n\nAgain the lipless mouth smacking. A sign of anxiety, I realized. I was starting to pick up elements of their body language. Curious.\n\nThe captain faced me again.\n\n\"The infantry species,\" it asked, \"What happened?\"\n\n\"What are we talking about?\"\n\nThe wall before me flashed and became a screen of some sort. Projected on this screen was a rather familiar looking figure. Well, familiar in the sense that I had seen it before in museums. But usually they were wearing animal skins and carrying clubs. The mechanized armor and high tech assault rifle were an interesting twist.\n\n\"That's a Neanderthal!\" I blurted.\n\nThe two aliens regarded one another and looked back at me.\n\n\"What happened to them?\" the captain asked.\n\nI tried to shrug but the straps made it difficult.\n\n\"We're not sure,\" I admitted, \"They seemed to have lived with our kind for a few thousand years and just dwindled away. Some scientists think they interbred with us.\"\n\nThe captain's mouth smacked more vigorously. Agitation.\n\n\"Only the commandos have survived?\" it asked. \n\n\"Commandos?\" I asked.\n\n\"Your species! The Chimera Commandos!\"\n\n\"I have no idea what you are talking about.\"\n\n\"Captain!\" it was the science officer, \"Perhaps if I gave this creature some background it might facilitate our interrogation?\"\n\nThe captain's mouth jittered, but it stepped back and allowed the Science Officer to take its place. The screen flashed and I saw a picture of Earth floating in the inky blackness of space.\n\n\"Your world,\" the Science Officer said unnecessarily.\n\n\"Nice place,\" I told it.\n\n\"It is a hell,\" it corrected me, \"A rock with unstable tectonic plates, destructive weather patterns, and aggressive fauna. Which is perhaps why the Chimera used it as their personal petri dish.\"\n\n\"You keep talking about the Chimera. Who is that?\"\n\n\"Genetic tinkers,\" it told me, \"An ancient race from the far side of the galaxy. They manipulate their own genes and the others they come in contact with. Trying to make the perfect species. Who did not join them willingly were conquered.\"\n\n\"They sound unpleasant,\" I agreed.\n\nThe screen flashed again. This time to an image of multiple flying saucers firing energy beams at a t-rex with cannons strapped to its sides.\n\n\"The Second Wave Invasion,\" the Science Officer informed me, \"The attacked our ground forces with these dragons. We eventually traced their origin back to your planet. We thought we destroyed their weapon factory when we launched an asteroid at the planet to destroy all life. Without their dragons to supplement their ranks they were forced to retreat.\"\n\nThe image flashed back to the image of the Neanderthal in battle armor. But the image was now zoomed out and I saw another person behind him. A more modern looking human wearing lighter armor.\n\n\"The ground troops from the Third Wave Invasion,\" the science officer concluded, \"Imagine our surprise when we traced their origin back to the same planet!\"\n\n\"Our bad?\" I said.\n\n\"Your species were extremely versatile shock troops,\" it went on, \"Exceeding violent, easy to heal, strong, fast, limber, and, most of all, numerous. Your biology made you highly resistant to psionic and chemical attacks. We were forced to create a biological weapon to wipe out your species. A virus so dangerous that we have blockaded your entire sector for eons waiting for the disease to run its course before investigating the effectiveness. Now we find you not only survived but thrived! More numerous than ever!\"\n\nI tried to shrug again.\n\n\"Healthy living and a lot of porn,\" I said.\n\n\"Another defense mechanism,\" the Science Officer declared, \"But I believe you understand us. Despite our best efforts to destroy your hell world it seems to insist on providing the most vicious monsters known to the galaxy. Which is why we are here.\"\n\n\"To try to wipe us out again?\" I asked.\n\n\"Hardly,\" the captain said, \"Early scout ships from the far quadrants are alerting us to movement among the Chimera strongholds. They are scaling up.\"\n\nBoth of them jittered their mouths.\n\n\"The Fourth Wave?\" I guessed.\n\nThey recoiled from me but didn't deny it. Oh boy. Looks like things are going to get interesting real soon. " ]	7
	[WP] You wake up to find that every time you walk through a door, it takes you back to your bedroom.	[ "\"This can't be right,\"\n\nMr. Higgins was still rubbing the crust out of the edges of his eyes with his knuckles in the early morning. He was on his way to the bathroom when he realized he really wasn't on his way. He opened and walked out of the bedroom door again, only to stumble back into a view of his bedroom. He repeated the process to the same effect, much to his horror.\n\nMr. Higgins looked around nervously. Had he been selected as the recepient of an elaborate prank? He couldn't have. A fifty-four year old actuarial accountant with no memorable relations had no business with events as strange as this.\n\n\"What the fuck is going on?\"\n\nMr. Higgins pulled at the whiskers at the edge of his mustache nervously. A great wave of anxiety crashed over him, and he also really needed to pee.\n\nHiggins reached for his glasses on his nightstand. The room looked very much the same, and nothing was out of the ordinary. Another few rounds through the door made him feel increasingly agitated.\n\n\"Hello!\" He screamed out.\n\n\"Heeeelllooooo!!! Anyone!!!\" No one replied\n\n\"This isn't funny but I am going to be late for work.\" \n\nIt was true, Mr. Higgins was going to be late. Something he never was, and something he felt he could never afford to be.\n\n\"Aha,\" he exclaimed. Finally struck with an idea that pulled him out of deep despair. Higgins went to open the window, the cool autumn air poured in and the branches of the trees bounced lightly in joy.\n\nFreedom was there for Mr. Higgins. He grabbed his watch, walllet, and keys beside his bed and fetched a neatly folded blue button-down shirt, long navy-blue socks, a pair of grey slacks, and a belt all from the dresser in his bedroom. Now all he needed was his coat, tie, and dress shoes. He went to open the closet door when he again saw his bedroom.\n\n\"What in the fuck!\" Even more troubling than this, the window was open in both, the sheets and blankets were identically disheveled, and the same belt, socks, pants, and shirt were missing from each dresser on either side of what was supposed to be the closet door.\n\nHiggins couldn't take it anymore. He slipped on his cozy fox slippers and made for the window. He strained and struggled to pull himself up and through, till his stomach was balanced on the windowsill. His house was only one story, but you would have that he was climbing out the top floor of a skyscraper. After a long ardous process of heaving and twisting and repositioning,'Higgins finally elected to release his hands from the ledge to land softly on the lawn.\n\nThe pressing of the window onto his bladder was now causing him great distress. Higgins raced for the fromt door and unlocked it.\n\n\"Are you fucking kidding me?!\"\n\nThere was his bedroom, window still open. The same view was behind him on the other side of the door.\n\nHiggins went out of the window in a hurry this time, landed more roughly on the lawn, unzipped his pants and urinated right there in his front yard. He shook it to dry it off as best he could, and it bounced like the branches in the breeze.\n\nHiggins checked his watch. 8:39. No time\nFor breakfast, he was already in danger of being tardy. He unlocked the car door and sat inside the front seat, but he ended up falling a greater distance than anticipated, bruising his tailbone against the bedroom carpet.\n\n\"Ow.. Oh no, fuck no! Jesus fuck!\" Higgins let out a string of curses in pain and frustration.\n\nAgain Higgins went out the window with urgency, walked to the parked car in his driveway, popped open the trunk of his car, and crawled to the front seat. The car started as normal. The drive was rather pleasant but He made it rather quick, which was not normal for for Mr. Higgins, who never risked speeding. In the employee parking lot, Higgins crawled out of his trunk. While dangling out and pushing his spectacles back into place, he looked up to meet the face of his very confused boss.\n\n\"Oh.. hello Michele, How are..\"\n\n\"Higgins, should I even ask?\"\n\nHe might have said yes, but then he thought better of it. Repeating the story to himself made the morning seem ridiculous, even though he was there, and even though it was.\n\nMichelle was heading through the lot toward the large glass doors of the accounting firm when Higgins raced to catch up with her.\n\n\"Michelle?\"\n\n\"Yeah Matt?\" She tucked her hair behind her ear wirh her fingers as she turned her head toward him.\n\n\"Would you allow me to hold your hand as we walk through the door?\"\n\n\"What?\" She was completely off-guard. Put off even, from what Mr. Higgins could make of her expression.\n\n\"It's not like that it's just. Well it's a superstition?\"\n\n\"Higgins, do you need me to make a meeting for you with HR ?\"\n\n\"God no,\" Higgins sighed. \"Look it doesn't mean anything, it's sort of an experiment.\"\n\n\"An experiment?!\"\n\n\"'No, look it means nothing. It's just a favor. Will you do it for me?\"\n\nShe apprehensively placed her hand in his. Her hand was cool, her fingers traversed slowly until they interlocked with his. Now that Higgins though about it, this was the first time he had held a woman's hand in twenty years since his divorce.\n\n\"Your hand is warm.\"\n\n\"Sorry,\" Higgins said instinctively.\n\n\"No, it's not bad. I just didn't think your hands would feel warm?\"\n\n\"Why? What were you thinking my hands would feel like, and why were you thinking about what they would feel like?\"\n\n\"Because you asked me to hold your hand! Isn't that why you asked me?\"\n\n\"No..\"\n\n\"No?!\"\n\nThey were through the door stepping into the hallway now. They both looked at their hands, then at each other, then let go.\n\n\"Actually yeah, I haven't held a hand in a while and I just thought I needed it.\"\n\n\"That's really sad.\"\n\n\"Is it?\"\n\n\"Yeah it is.\"\n\n\"You hold hands often then,\" he joked awkwardly.\n\n\"Well umm.. I've been on a few dates since Derek and I separated\"\n\n\"You're separated?\"\n\n\"You didn't even know Derek and I separated before you asked to hold my hand?\"\n\n\"..Sorry, I'm going to head to a meeting now?\"\n\n\"You mean the one I'm heading?\" Michelle asked.\n\nThey walked through another set of doors into a conference room. This time they weren't holding hands but Higgins still got there. \n\n\"I guess it's over..\" He muttered.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" he replied.\n\n\"Matt are those fox slippers?\"\n\n\"Oh shit..\"\n", "So, i know I'm gonna get downvoted for this, but I need some advice, and this seemed like the right sub. \n\nA little background: I used to get picked on a lot when I was in school, increasingly so in high school, and eventually I kinda retreated into my own space. I spent a lot of time in my own head daydreaming about places in fantasy books I've read, I would make really elaborate maps and go on journeys in my worlds, stuff like that. the point is that all that stuff has led to my lifestyle being really secluded, and I basically just hang out in my room all day.\n\nRecently I have been reading more non-fiction and realizing how much stuff in the real world is just as amazing as the stuff in my fictional worlds, and I decided to venture out and try to experience some of it. This was a big deal for me, but apparently the gods or the universe didn't approve, because the day I decided to make my first major venture out into the world, they changed the fucking laws of physics to make sure I couldn't.\n\nI mean I really wanted to, and i still do, now more than ever, it's just that every time I try, I can't. Not like i cant bring myself to leave or the door is locked. I mean the fucking doorway leads to the same room from both sides. I don't know if I'm going crazy or what, but I swear its true. I open the door, can clearly see the hallway leading to the living room, but as soon as I step out it turns into my room. I turn around, and what once was my room now looks like a hallway. I can jump back and forth all day (trust me, I have) and I never go anywhere but my room.\n\nI'm fucking starving. I've been pissing and shitting in jars for three days, and I'm really scared I might die in here, where ever here is. \n\nI don't want theories about what's happening, I don't want jokes from people who don't believe me, I just want help getting out of here. Please, will somebody roll a die and tell me what happens next? I'm tired of playing this game alone." ]	2
	[WP] A big wave of suicides happens all around the world. You end up realizing that they were all astronomers and you just bought your first telescope.	[ "\"No matter what happens, I promise it will be okay.\"\n\nSarah hasn't looked yet. I brought the telescope down to her house so she could see. I looked. And now I can't take it back. I will soon kill myself, like the rest. The clock is ticking.\n\nI called Sarah and told her, \"I don't have much time left, I'm going to kill myself soon,\" and she asked me to come over, and to bring my telescope so she could see it too.\n\nSarah and I had been in love, once, long before the suicides started a couple of weeks ago, but then people can stop loving each other sometimes, but don't stop caring.\n\n\"What am I going to see?\" she asks, nervously holding the neck of her sweater between her teeth so that if I didn't know her, I wouldn't have understood what she said.\n\n\"I can't ... describe it to you,\" I say. \"Just know, once you look, you're going to feel this urge, like nothing matters, nothing matters so fucking much that it hurts, it burns, like I'm burning inside right now, I can barely take it.\"\n\n\"I don't want to die,\" Sarah says, stepping back. \"Dan, this can't be real.\"\n\n\"I didn't believe it either,\" I said. \"But I was on Reddit and someone laid it out... get a telescope, point it here, and you'll know why people are committing suicide.\"\n\n\"I saw that too,\" she says. \"But I didn't go out and buy a fucking telescope.\"\n\n\"I was curious, \" I said. \"I don't regret it. I wanted to know, now I do. And now I know, life is not worth it.\"\n\nShe steps back, the star lit sky above our heads sparkling to us beneath the many worlds that dot a sheet of infinite nothingness between them. She is still innocent, pondering the unknowable, and her eyes still glimmer with hope. Mine might as well be closed here, for elsewhere they are open to the impossibility of knowing anything once I die, which is what makes this pain go away.\n\n\"I won't look,\" she says. \"I don't care if I end up the last person alive. I'm not going to kill myself.\"\n\n\"I'm not forcing you to,\" I say. \"Don't be scared Sarah. You should look. You should look through this lens and see.\"\n\n\"I won't do it!\" she screams, turning to run from me. I chase her. Why? I feel this urge, like I had felt when I first saw the sky for what it was, as false, as a false fabricated thing that isn't real, and I want Sarah to see it too, for her to know, that we don't have to waste another second in this world.\n\n\"Look!\" I scream, holding her down on the grass by the arms as she writhes under me, squirming, her eyes are filled with tears.\n\n\"No,\" she sobs. \"No, no. No.\" She stops fighting back, and I let go of her. My hands are shaking. She cries underneath me, my knees pinned to the grass around her waist. She covers her eyes and starts to cry.\n\n\"I'm sorry Sarah,\" I say. \"I'm going to have to go soon. I can't... I can't fight anymore. Not for something that doesn't exist.\"\n\nI get up, looking down at her on the grass, as she sits up and looks up at the night sky. She seems calm. Her eyes, still the same, look from the sky, then into mine.\n\n\"I saw it Dan,\" she says. \"I looked at it days ago.\"\n\n\"Then you know we have to kill ourselves,\" I say, bending down.\n\n\"No I don't,\" she says, still the same, her eyes still seem full of hope. \"I know that life is absurd, I know it's nothing compared to the vastness of infinity and the cause of this pain is knowing once and for all that it doesn't matter. But you know what? Fuck you.\"\n\n\"I have to go,\" I say.\n\nThere was no cause, nor explanation. There was nothing afterward. There was nothing before. In between there was us, and even this knowledge, knowing it is fleeting, hurts me still. I sit in my living room, alone, the street outside quiet, until morning comes. A shotgun next to me keeps me safe. The sky changes, the sun rises, and all the things I was taught to believe are true are still lies. But I don't believe them anymore. Just one more sunrise to watch, for its synthetic beauty. Where I will go now, alone, is back to the beginning, an end to this middle part, which I will soon come back to all over again.", "Focused prism surging \nHappiness among werewolves \nBloody staples follow them \n. \nSix hundred minds gone \nOf their own will \nI have become a sheep \n. \nBlack and firefly tease me \nDancing behind the glass \nA tiny tether I see \n. \nFifty years of searching \nThe truth plain as grass \n\"We are not alone\" \n. ", "A *cage.\n\nI look up, back, forth. Standing, I take a few restless steps away from my new toy, before returning, driven by that same internal force that drives a person to return to a refrigerator minutes after looking and seeing nothing good enough for a snack, and look into the lens again.\n\nA cage.\n\nIt isn't an obvious one, not made of straight lines or even the curves of a birdcage, but clearly a cage nonetheless. It's a strange sort of shape, some sort of convex form, made of stars and empty space. And just as a rabbit can't leave its cage but for short periods of time due to its need for food and drink, humanity is trapped in our enclosure for the same needs.\n\nNow, sitting back and letting this sink in, I am left to decide whether to live a life of captivity or to escape as the others have done. I look down, then out the window at the field I once associated with freedom, and heave a sigh.", "It became big news, how the heavens attacked.\nThe religious went... Nuts.\n\nMost religions didn't really put much credence to the idea that Gods or Godesses were wreaking death on those that dared peer into its creation, but...\nExtremists be extreme.\n\nIt killed off humanity's drive to go to space.\n\nBut one day, I couldn't take it.\nPerhaps it was just the depressing sense of finality, that this planet was all we were ever going to get.\nThe realisation that there were secrets, laws about the universe that mankind would never know.\nThe moment when humankind stopped looking outwards at the universe, and isolated itself.\n\nI grew sick, depressed, and wrong by the standards of the world I lived in.\n\nSo I bought a telescope. They weren't easily available, but hobbists tended to trade in the black market. Usually second hand castoffs from funerals of people with a interest in space.\n\nI looked out, one night.\n\nAs far as the world knows, I committed suicide. The Earth upon which I was born has become a dystopian nightmare, where science is outlawed, and hope is lost.\n\nI am now free.", "I looked through the looking glass and saw the smooth darkness and twinkling stars. Nothing else.\n The headlines of mass suicides peaked my interest and many others. Hell it took 6 stops at every hobby shop in the area just to get this 10 year old child's telescope. I never had much of a interest in space with it being up there and all but the morbid curiosity led me to sitting in a farmers Field 40 minutes from home looking for earths possible doom.\n I checked the twitter account of an Australian astronomy teacher in Melbourne. It just simply had coordinates in the sky of where to look. I didn't have much hope of seeing whatever it was that led the bastard to kill himself considering nobody has seen anything in the spot in the 2 days since. But I figured why the hell not. I sipped on the Luke warm coffee and wondered what they knew that governments didn't. Nothing is there. My eyes were tired and I was starting to get cold. \nI looked away from the eye glass and stared naked at the moon. An immediate shock of complete blackness surrounded me. My first thought was blindness but my phone at my side illuminated. Low battery. Then all sound was gone. No moon over the horizon. No stars. Nothing. The cold was instant. ", "I pulled out the folding chair I had bought previously that day and set up my equipment. Setting the telescope took some time but relatively quickly I was ready.\n\nFrancine had bought it for me last Tuesday. For my birthday it came with a note saying 'Since your head is in the clouds most days, you're perfect to see the stars!'. I grinned at the reference to telescopes and atmosphere interference. Being with a astronomer does that to you. She seemed a little distraught when I opened it though; Some friends of hers had gone missing recently.\n\nI opened my hamper and brought out the vital part of tonight's viewing.\n\nSetting my party eaten sandwich aside I fished the starmap from my left pocket. Keys, no. Phone, nope. At last! To the outside eye it was a boring black book. Further inspection would show tiny, almost non-existent white dots just like the black sky. Inside was a wonderfully organised and laid out guide to stargazing.\n\nI closed my eyes, opened the book and threw it into the air. Opening them, I was on Page 112 - Mercury. A quick adjustment to the scope and bam I had a different world in my sight. It was a little.. underwhelming. I expected it to do a little dance or wink at me. A real shame it didn't.\n\nLooking for something with a little more excitement I perused the list and settled on Mars. We were going there, eventually, so might as well perform some amateur reconnaissance. The Red Planet was rather dusty. Somewhere all alone a little rover was loyally chugging around that planet up there sending reports back to us. Once we get there I think we should take him off of shift. Poor guy needs a break from all that work. Damn it must be lonely.\n\nTo distract myself from the upsetting imagery I decided I'd look somewhere no one* had before. I randomly span the the numbers and gazed at this unknown sight. The way I see it if the universe is constantly expanding a million people could look at one place one at a time and still something new. It was a beautiful thought.\n\nShame the view wasn't. It was a black canvas ripe for painting. Maybe the light hadn't reached it to us yet but waiting around a few million years or so wasn't an option for me. That would be boring!\n\nJust as I was about to give up hope I saw something tiny pop up. A slight flash of white. Then more appeared and started to form letters. \n\nHELP\n\nWow that was weird. As if space was asking ME for help. I'm puttting that on a CV.\n\nHE IS HERE\n\nOkay then, little bit freaky. \n\nTOO LATE\n\nThis must be a joke. My mouth opened to laugh it away.\n\nRUN\n\nThe nervous laugh caught in my throat.\n\nThe cold feeling in my stomach got colder as I waited for the next message.\n\nI AM COMING\n\nNO ESCAPE\n\nNO SAVIOUR\n\nAnd then it repeated.\n\nNo no no no no no. This wasn't happening. I was going crazy or it was true. I had to tell Francine. I had to tell NASA. The White House. How could I prove it? I wrote down the coordinates and raced home. My sandwich left uneaten.\n\n---\n\n'Francine!' I shouted 'You HAVE to see this'\n\n'What is it dear? What MUST I see?' Any other time I would love that sarcasm. The mirth from her eyes vanished when she saw my face. How scared I must look.\n\n'I saw it in the telescope. There's something. Something bad. Just look'\n\n'Okay I will'\n\nThe wait to set up the telescope was antagonising. I punched the numbers in erratically and practically shoved Francine into the eyepiece.\n\n'Calm down now and I'll look'\n\nShe looked.\n\n'Well? What do you see?!'\n\nNo reply.\n\n'Francine?!'\n\nNo reply. I pulled her and she collapsed to the floor. A fountain of blood exploded like a volcano from her eyes. Her nose. Her white skin was sullied by crimson red. I couldn't handle this. I stared down at the patch of space.\n\nThe messages were gone. Instead was a perverse creature. All I could see was a giant yellow eye surrounded by trenches of teeth. It noticed me. It couldn't have. It was trillions of light years away. How could it notice me?\n\nThe eye turned red and I felt a wetness on my face. My eyes closed and I departed.\n\n---\n\nDeep in space the Mind Devourer inched closer.\n\n---\n\nI liked writing this - haven't done anything like this.\n\nI was planning to direct you to a sub made up of my original work but turns out I need to get some karma before I can do that. Instead if you're interested PM me, and I'll message you when I have that setup. Thanks.", "He peered into the lens at the empty patch of sky. Stars, like the twinkle in his daughter’s eye, spread in front of him by the thousands. But he wasn’t stargazing today. He was looking for it, the cause of hysteria among the astronomical community that left hundreds bereft. He first heard it from his father over the phone, quivering in his own skin, words escaping his throat like razor blades. Thank God for Allie’s swift mind, she booked him the first flight to New York that very day.\n \nHe raised his head from the telescope and turned to his father. “Dad, what am I looking for?” he asked. He was silent, elbows on his knees, and face buried in his palms. After a few moments, he spoke up, “Nothing Gabe. You’re looking for nothing.”\n \nHe raised a brow, “Nothing? You said something was coming. You said something about the signal...” Again his father fell silent. From the other room, his wife walked in with three cups of tea and a packet of Milano cookies, his favorite. She took a seat on the rocking chair next to his father and placed a hand on his shoulder.\n \n“James, please. Talk to us. We are trying to understand like everyone else.” she looked over to Gabe with furrowed brows and pointed at the seat next to James with her eyes and a nod.\n \nHe walked over next to his father and sat down. “Dad,” he said, “the reporters are saying that there is gamma radiation just inside our solar system or something? What’s going on?”\n \nJames leaned back into his seat and stared at the ceiling his eyes were glazed and his expression as dry as overcooked turkey. “We knew it was coming. We have known for four decades, but we ignored it.”\n \nAllie and he exchanged glances. “What...what did we know?” she asked.\n \n“The signal…” he said, coupled with a sigh, “We were facinated by it...until we realized what it was. We tried to warn them but they ignored us.”\n \nGabe raced through the extensive library of astronomical documentaries he viewed in his mind. For him to develop an interest was only natural as talk of the heavens was all he heard his father discuss since childhood. “Four decades ago? Dad, are you talking about the Wow! signal?”\n \nJames turned to face him. “Yea. That’s it.”\n \n“They said it was an anomaly, an earth signal bouncing off debris or something like that.” he said peering at his new telescope.\n \nHis father’s chest vibrated under his sweater as he chuckled. “Yea, okay. If you told me you were Jesus, I’d believe that before I believe that it was deflected radio signals.”\n \n“What do you mean?” Allie asked pausing halfway as she reached for a cookie.\n \nJames sat up, “The most powerful transmitter we have on this goddamn rock is 2500 kilowatts and that’s strong. The Wow!, assuming that it was remotely the size of the telescopes we have on earth, would have been eight-hundred-and-eighty times as strong, 2.2 gigawatts. And that’s not considering the other message…”\n \nThe three of them fell silent. “What other message?”\n \n“The one we had to sign an NDA for.” he said standing up and making his way to the telescope.\n \n“What do you mean ‘we’, James?” Allie asked.\n \n“I was there, with Jerry. I was the first one he showed it to, right before Martin. Martin was a smart son-of-a-bitch but holding on to shit he should hold on to was not his thing.”\n \n“I remember uncle Marty.” Gabe said. He moved with his father to Ohio after him and Ma split. Uncle Marty and dad became good friends until he died.\n \nHis father knelt, one knee to the ground, and peered through the telescope. After a few seconds, he raised his head and spoke, “Shit, what does it matter now anyway. Non-disclosure-agreement, or not, it won’t mean shit now anyway.”\n \nGabe glanced over to his wife in silence. Confusion, coupled with the stench of swelling dread, was thick around them. “What happened?”\n \n“There were two signals, Gabe, not one.” He sat down next to the telescope beneath the window ledge and combed his beard with his fingers. “The Wow! signal, the famous one, was strange, but that was it. It was relatively indecipherable. Along with it, however, we got another one almost twice as long as the Wow!. See, no one knew about this one, because the feds were on us in less than a day. How, is beyond me.”\n \n“Okay, I get that,\" he said scratching his head, \"but what's so special about this second signal?” Gabe asked. \n \n“It was a supplemental message. The Wow! alone meant nothing. This new message alone meant nothing as well, but when we compared the two in conjunction, playing and reorganizing the values we realized it was a message, perhaps even coded due to the mismatch in frequencies.”\n \nGabe’s heart began to thump. He wiped the sweat from his palms on his jeans and saw that Allie’s expression resembled his. “Message” he asked, “You mean like from aliens?” James just looked at him in response.\n \n“What was the message?”\n \nHe sighed, “Eight Coordinates. At least that was the first part of it. The first was what looked to be their position in the Milky Way as viewed from Earth. The second we realized was Earth from their position in the galaxy…”\n \nGabe’s heart skipped and his legs felt like jelly. Before he could say anything, Allie broke the silence, “Wait…you mean, that they knew…”\n \n“They knew exactly who they were sending the signal to.” James said completing her sentence, “We were the intended recipients. The fact that we even discovered the signal was a miracle, just sheer luck. We can only guess to how many they sent out.”\n \n“What about the rest?” Gabe asked. His face tingled the way it did right before fainting.\n\n“The five coordinates after that connected the first two…They were plotting a course.”\n \n“How is that possible?” Gabe’s head was spinning. “How can…you’re telling me the Government held on to this? An NDA isn’t enough to keep people from exposing this…”\n \nJames sniffled, “Martin thought so too. Started telling people…and…well, it took a lot of propaganda for the government to divert the conspiracy theorists.”\n \nHis eyes widened, “So uncle Martin…But he died in a plane crash.”\n \n“It was convenient wasn’t it?” He said with a fabricated chuckle. “I haven’t seen any of the reporters from the Ohio Times he told either.”\n \nNone of this made any sense. How could something like this be possible?\n \nThere was still one thing his father left out. “Dad, what was the last coordinate? You said there were eight. One for earth’s location, one for theirs, five for plots in between. What was the last coordinate?”\n \n“It was Earth’s coordinates again…except this time it was followed by zeros. It was just zeroes over and over again.” He said. “Through coordinates they informed us of our fate. Gabe, they sent us a declaration of eradication.”\n \n“James…” Allie said, the unbitten cookie between her two fingers trembling, “You said the first part of the message was coordinates…what about the rest?”\n \n“That was one thing we couldn’t figure out. Hundreds of astronomers were tasked with deciphering the code…and it took years. But we finally did it.”\n\n“When?” Gabe asked.\n \nJames closed his eyes.\n \nIt was not a heart thumping in his chest, it was a drum. “Dad, when?\n \nHis father looked up at him. “If I ask you to meet me on Times Square…and say nothing else, what bit of information are you missing?” he asked.\n \n“Time.” Allie responded before he could, “You need to know when to meet.”\n \nJames smiled. “Well we had the location already didn’t we? It turns out they gave us a time of their arrival too…based on the galactic center instead of the sun.” He looked at his son and daughter in law with tears resting on his bottom eyelid.”\n \n“We deciphered it a week ago. Those aren’t just random gamma rays, Gabe. They’re here.”\n", "I set up my little tripod, and put down my flask of tea. I glanced at the post it note I'd stuck on my backpack, with the scrawled co-ordinates on it. South a bit, West a lot, little bit North... that's it, right in position.\n\nThere's nothing there.\n\nI rub my eyes a little and adjust the focus, but still nothing there. It should have been there – the forum had said it would be exactly at this location. Maybe I wrote the co-ordinates wrong? I reach into my bag and shuffle around the bits of paper I printed off.\n\nTopic: astronomer suicides\n\nThe spot is circled on that diagram, I can't give you guys anything more specific because I haven't looked myself. All I know is that he looked, and stared for hours. When he was done he wasn't the same... he looked at me as if he didn't know me. That night he hung himself, and I never got to ask him what he saw. I'm too scared to look.\n\nI stare at the paper some more, double check the co-ordinates. Pulling my jacket closer to me I realise that it's getting later and colder, and I have to head back to the car soon. I decide to have one last look, and turn back to the telescope.\n\nBut there is no telescope.\n\nI scan the ground around me, in case I had lost my bearings. But no, there is no telescope here. Has someone stolen it? I didn't hear anything moving. But now there is no noise at all except what sounds like a broken television somewhere out of sight in every direction.\n\nWasn't I here with someone? Where was Jack, I know he wanted to see it too – did he leave already? That doesn't make sense, the car was still there. But the car was a mile away, how can I know it's still here, that doesn't make sense either.\n\nThe sky is bleached red now, I don't think it was like that before. There are purple dots hanging in the sky like foreign stars I'd never seen before. I look down from the sky and see a man standing about fifty feet away, one arm stretched out towards me. I yelp and stumble backwards, tripping over my backpack.\n\nOnly, now I realise it isn't my backpack. What is this thing? It's sticky and putrid and black, and my hand is melting into it like custard. I try to scramble to my feet, but something is holding me down. It's the man, his hand on my head.\n\nAnd then I am standing in the field again, my eye pressed to the telescope lens looking out into an empty spot of space. Jack is saying something I don't understand. The wind brushes past my face.\n\n“What did you see?” I understand Jack to ask in a moment of clarity.\n\nI open my mouth to give an answer, but nothing comes out. I need to see it again." ]	8
	[WP] In the middle of the night, a teenager leaves the safety of her parents' home to go exploring. She finds something that makes her glad she did	[ "A crystal.\n\nWhen one's parents are a little bit... 1960s, hippy, doolally in the head, New Age, and so on...\nAnd you have a passing interest in science...\nYou know your geology.\n\nAnd you know this is unlike anything you have ever seen before.\n\nYou pick it up, of course, and stuff it into your jeans pocket.\n\nAs the light starts to glow from it, and you feel your fabrics, and soon your flesh, dissolve in its rays, as your agony enters a fever pitch, as your very sinews are evaporated in a single instant, as your nails rip out, as your eyes witness, tor the first time, your heart being vaporised...\n\nYou realise that going outside may have been a mistake. A sentiment that, had you the time, would be accompanied with much cursing of your fortune.\n\nA week later, you emerge from the glowing aura that fascinated residents of the Midwest and had hit the news internationally.\n\nYou emerge, conscious of thin, bright red coloured material where your clothes once were.\nYou feel strange. Stronger, more... Sure of your position in the world.\n\nYou open your new eyes, and see that your body is now made of blue crystal, humanoid in shape.\n\nYou then realise you are dressed as a superhero.\nAnd then you notice you are hovering, unaided.\n\nPhotographers flash, people speak.\n\nThe burning white light fades.\n\nYou are now internationally famous, have potential superpowers, and look pretty buff.\nAnd you have a costume.\n\nThis is... Probably a good thing.\n\nMemory of your pain clashes with the elation of gaining mysterious superpowers.\n\nConfusion erupts, as you take off in reaction, when someone shoves a microphone in your direction.\n\nYou... Aren't ready to be their superhero.\n\nNot... yet.\n\nBesides, you need to apologise for scoffing the power of crystals.", "Karen stumbled through the darkness, her hands searching in vain for purchase. Her bare feet hurt. They hurt from the cold, from hard packed winter earth. They hurt from the bumps and scrapes left by the brambles of the bushes. \nBut Karen persisted. She wanted to see the ghost lady again. The woman had appeared outside her window a mere half hour before. Or had it been an hour? Or longer? Karen did not care, she would find the ghost lady, with her pale hair and shimmering eyes.\nEventually she came to a clearing. The clearing was perfectly round and the snow, white as fresh sheets. It whispered and melted as she made her way to the centre, where the ghost lady stood before a weathered stone nestled in the roots of great oak tree that had long ago been struck by lightning, it's skyward branches bare.\n\"Hello?\" Karen whispered as she approached. The ghost lady paid her no mind as she looked down at the stone, untouched by the snow though there were no branches above it to keep the snow away.\n\"Hello Karen.\" The ghost lady said at last, wiping a single tear from her face as she turned to the little girl. \nInstantly Karen felt uneasy. She shivered in her bright blue pyjamas and stepped back. The ghost lady frowned, her white dress fluttering despite there being no breeze.\n\"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.\" She told the little girl, lowering herself to her haunches so she could see eye to eye with the seven year old.\n\"I'm not scared.\" Karen said after a moment, pushing out her chest and settling her chin. The ghost lady smiled.\n\"Just like your namesake.\" She said. Karen quirked a hazel brow. \n\"Nothing.\" The ghost lady confessed, raising a hand in submission. Karen quickly moved on.\n\"Who are you?\" She asked innocently, scanning the pale woman. She seemed...off, even the child could tell. Slightly inhuman. \n\"My name is... was Molly. But he was the last person to call me that.\" She said, motioning to the gravestone on her left. Karen took another step back.\n\"You killed him?\" Karen asked, shocked. Molly's eyes widened.\n\"No. I meant... I meant it's been a very long time since I went by that name. He died a long time ago.\" She told Karen, who shook with both fear and cold.\n\"Who was he?\" Karen asked after a long moment, turning to look at the stone, not old, but uncut. There was no inscription on the headstone. \n\"A good man.\" Molly said immediately, the sadness in her voice palpable. She stared at the stone for a long moment before turning away and walking towards the trees.\n\"Wait!\" Karen called to Molly. The woman stopped.\n\"Will I see you again?\" She asked. Despite her terror, she was fascinated by the odd woman and the tingling field around her.\n\"Maybe. Only if you ask your mother about your grandfather.\" Molly told her, reaching into the folds of her pale dress as she did so.\n\"Why? Grandpa Jerry is boring.\" Karen said, trying to peek at what Molly hid in her hand. \n\"Not that grandpa, the other one. Your mother's father.\" Molly explained to Karen as she placed a small bundle of leather in the little girls hands. Then she turned to leave once again.\n\"But grandpa Harry died before I was born. Why's he important?\" Karen asked, opening the leather bundle.\n\"Dear, he may have been the most important man ever.\" Molly said without turning. Karen was shocked by the answer but she was to enraptured to pay it much mind.\nShe was far to bust looking at the ugly necklace resting in the bundle of soft leather. It was silver, and still shone despite the years. But it was twisted, bent into an unnatural shape, though long ago it may have been a star. Karen took the cool metal from it's wrapping and held it in her numb hands. It thrummed with power, giving off the slightest semblance of warmth. Karen loved it. She looked up to thank Molly for the gift but the woman was gone, footprints in the snow ending a few feet from Karen. Only then did the little girl realize how cold it was. She gasped and cried out, turning for home.\nBut she did not get far. She found herself wrapped in shadows, the folds of a great black coat pressing her to a warm body. The little girl knew the heartbeat all to well.\n\"Mom!\" She cried out as she was lifted from the ground and swaddled in the infinite space within the coat. The mother pressed her sole child to her chest, tears of joy stinging her face.\n\"What are you doing out here?\" The mother asked, stepping away from the tree and towards their home, a small affair at the edge of the forest.\n\"I met a woman named Molly. She was nice but weird.\" Karen said, knowing she would be punished for talking to strangers. \n\"Molly?\" The mother asked seriously. Karen nodded her head.\n\"What did she look like?\" The mother asked. Karen described the strange woman, from her pale hair to her strange, cat-like eyes. The mother was upset by this.\n\"She gave me a gift.\" Karen told her mother, showing her the twisted necklace tied on the rough leather cord. \nThe mother was speechless. She took the necklace and stared, standing in the winter cold. \n\"Mom?\" Karen questioned. The mother turned to her daughter, looking at her big brown eyes within the folds of the battered leather coat.\n\"Y-yes?\" The mother stammered, beginning to moved forward once again. \n\"What was so important about Grandpa Harry?\" Karen asked. The mother sighed and moved slower. \n\"I should have known this was coming.\" The mother muttered as she moved through the forest, creatures of the night bowing their heads from the shadows. They knew of the tales, of the mad man who once note that battered coat. Even now, they still feared it. \nAnd from the shadows, Molly, the Winter Queen, watched Margret Dresden carry her child home through the snow and cold. ", "Through the woods she stumbled, the hems of her sleep pants becoming dirty and frayed as her bare feet trudged on. Asking herself why did go through her head but didn't stop her forward movement. Above the full moon lit her path like a beacon guiding her to some unknown destination. It had been so long since she had entered the woods behind her house, growing too old for such childish exploration. Instead of her old imaginary friends she now had real ones and no longer needed to lose herself in the forest. So once again, why was she here?\n\n\"Because we asked you to come..\" A voice whispered from the shadow of a tree. Turning quickly she lost her footing, her balance failing her as she fell to the ground but no pain came to her. Opening her clenched eyes she found herself to be falling still but not quickly. Above her she could see the moon fading in the distance and watched as it grew smaller. \"Sorry about that dear...\" That same voice whispered to her from behind. Turning she tried to see the person the voice belonged to but instead finding a face of a human she found one of a hare. \"Oh!\" She exclaimed, \"Where did you come from little one?\" She spoke to it softly, the hare smiled an almost otherwordly grin. \"You know very well where I came from...\"\n\nAs the hare spoke to her and she watched his lips move the girl was thrust into her memories. A strange world full of wonderful yet weird creatures, one of which the very white hare before her. \"Oh no...\" The hare nodded, \"I'm afraid so Alice, Wonderland needs you once more.\"\n\n(Apologies for butchering this. I'm at work and this is my first prompt so I wanted to have fun. I usually have an editor help me with my longer stories so yes I'm sure there are grammatical errors but this was a rush job. Hope it's not too bad.)" ]	3
I left the "surprising result" up to you.	[WP] Scientists discover an algorithm for predicting a person's date of death with 95% confidence. When you finally decide to enter your parameters into the algorithm you see a surprising result.	[ "\"I'm nervous..\" she said, anxiously pushing up the bridge of her glasses with her index finger in quick, short jabs. \"Don't be. I think this stuff is full of nonsense anyway..\" I shoved my hands deep in my pockets, sighing softy as we walked towards the center. \"So, you're not scared at all? What if it says tomorrow?\" With a playful smirk, I shrugged, \"Then you and me would grab a few rounds at McGinney's and toast to my life tonight.\" Through her quiet laugh and elbow-jab to my side, I could tell she wasn't herself. \"Just relax, Emily.\"\n\nWe turned the corner and walked up the stone stairs, large light-posts to either side still remained despite the city's vast remodel. These small hints of our past always comforted me. Not everything's changed. Perhaps a bit ominous however, one light wasn't working and the other flickered and buzzed as we passed under it; Both of our eyes following it before opening the door and stepping inside. \n\nEmily stepped in first and walked over to stand on line. There were confessional-style booths lined up throughout the center, along the walls. People would walk in, sometimes together, never more than 2 at a time. Some would come out smiling, some expressionless, and others appearing more shaken, shocked, or in full-on hysterics. As we stood there for what seemed about a half hour, taking only half steps forward at a time, I found that there weren't any older people. The oldest person I saw leave the center was mid fifties. Perhaps they knew something we didn't or maybe they just didn't care. Maybe they were taking the right approach. \"C'mon.. \" Emily grabbed my hand, sweeping me from inner contemplation, and walked us over to the booth, slipping behind the curtain and pulling me with her.\n\nIt was simple. You placed your finger in a small contraption which would insert a very tiny needle, draw a minute amount of blood and give you your results on a computer screen in under a minute. We gave the automated directions a quick once-over and I went to put my finger into it, \"No..\" Emily, pulled my hand out, \"I want to go first.. I can't wait any more.\" I gave her a small nod and she complied. The screen prompted, \"You will feel a small pinch\". I saw Emily's slender figure give a tiny jolt. For some reason I thought there would be some sort of computer sounds -- beeping or booping or comically amusing noises of what one might expect. Instead; silence. \"Your results are ready. Please sign, using the touch-pad that you are ready to see you results. Thank you and good luck.\" \"Good luck?\" I scoffed with a shake of my head at the screen. \"Ready?\" \n\n\"No\" she said flatly and quickly signed her initials across the smudged pad before she could rethink the decision. \"August 14th, 3075\" appeared across the screen. Neither of us said a word as we tried to calculate how old she'd be in our heads. \"92!\" she finally proclaimed, breaking the quiet. \"I'll be 92. That's good, right?\" Her face seemed much brighter now, hopeful and relieved. \"It's great, Emily. It's great.\" Stepping aside for me, \"That wasn't so bad.. Now you.\" \n\nI stepped forward, putting my finger into the finger-shaped resting pad. Out came the needle and the small pinch. I glanced over at her, she was smiling. When she caught my stare, she corrected her smile into a serious expression; as if not to rub it in. \"It's ok. It's great.\" I reassured her with a chuckle. The screen lit up again, asking for my signature. With a deep inhale and heavy exhale, I signed my initials. \"October 31, 4394\". \n\nWe stood there for a moment, \"Wait, what?\" I shook my head and looked again. \"It's broken... it broke.\" Emily popped her head out from the curtain, \"Excuse me. I think this one's broken... Can we get help?\" A larger woman in her early 40's in a blue uniform waddled her way over, a lit cigarette dangling from her chapped lips. \"Let me see.\" She pushed her girth past us, stuck her finger in the machine, pressed a few buttons, and up came \"July 9th, 3009\" That was next year. \"It's fine.\" she grunted while walking out, again brushing herself against us roughly before waddling back to her stool by the front counters. I guess she'd come to terms with it. Cancer, I'd imagine. \"Do it again...\" Emily demanded, urging me back inside.\n\n\"Hey come on! It says what it says. We've been waiting an hour!\" We heard the shrill cry of a woman stuck somewhere in the center of the line which was now wrapping beyond the outside of the building. \"Oh hush..\" Emily growled beneath her breath as she physically placed my finger again and held it. We went through the procedure again, this time Emily rushedly signing my initials, \"October 31, 4394\". This time, we barely had a moment to face one another in contemplation before the curtain ripped back, the metal hooks clanking loudly. A large man dressed in a white collared shirt and brown trench coat stood ominously before us, \"Sir. You're going to need to come with us.\" \n\n\"But I .. I didn't break it.. I swear..\" I stammered quickly as he took hold of my arm, \"It was like that.. that lady tested it..\" Using my free hand, I pointed over to the front counter, the stool now empty. \"She was just here..\" As I was escorted towards a back door marked, \"PRIVATE\", another trench-coat clad men, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, stepped in front of Emily, \"You can pay at the front before you exit, miss.\" She looked past him towards my direction \"No, he's my friend, I'll..\" \"You'll do as you're told.\" he barked, \"Pay at the front.\"\n\nMy last memory of Emily was that day. Her frightened, confused eyes peering beyond the wide shoulders of the living wall in front of her. She watched as I was lead around the corner. I wish it wasn't my last vision of her; but sadly it's one of the only ones I've managed to hold on to as vividly. I wish the machine had said the next day and her and I would have had drinks and cried and laughed until the morning sun appeared. I would have been happy with that. I would have treasured that. Instead, I would go on to wage a war that would wipe out three quarters of humanity. I'd lead the charge despite the suffering and endless tragedy it would cause. I'd kill women and children for sport, watch everyone I know die painful deaths and I'd continue on to bring the legacy of my people to a harsh, tragic end. \n\nIt's October 30th .. and I cannot wait until tomorrow.", "snap\n\nThe doctor put on his rubber gloves as he walked into my room. \n\n\"Uh, doc I am just here for the basic D.D.F. (Death Date Finder). You don't actually need to use that do you?\"\n\n\"Oh, no. I just like to give my patients a good scare.\" The doctor chuckles to himself. \"Alright, all we need is a very small amount of your blood which will be scanned and we should get results within the hour.\"\n\nAs he walked towards me with the needle in one hand an collector I began to feel uneasy. I am not afraid of needles, but putting things inside of me always made me cringe. The doctor preformed the very basic procedure and walked out with the test tube. Now the waiting process. I decided to pull out my phone and check Reddit, my holy source of entertainment. After getting to about the 12 page I checked my watch and began to wonder what was taking so long. I looked towards the door and my eyes met with a nurse looking through the glass. She quickly turned and continued on her way. 'Hmm, wonder what her problem is.' After another 5 minutes or so I noticed people were staring as they walked by and some even tried to sneak a picture of me. 'Alright, what is going on. Is this some sort of prank. Whatever I'll just leave and they can text me the results.'As I walked towards the door many of the assorted medical staff began to rush away. 'What the hell, this is just plain rude now.' As I found my way to the front door I looked outside and saw flashing lights, orange jumpsuits, and a few S.W.A.T. officers with high powered rifles.\n\nI pushed the door open and as I took my first step outside I was immediately yelled at.\n\n\"Get on the ground!!! I said GET ON THE GROUND!! NOW!\"\n\nI did as the officer said and tried to remain as calm as possible.\n\n\"Officer, whats going on? I only s..\"\n\n\"SHUT UP!! Keep your hands where I can see them! No sudden moves either!\"\n\nAs the officer handcuffed me I felt a slight poke in my neck and suddenly the world began to tilt. The cars all began to fly and the trees began to sink. I felt my head hit the pavement and I was out cold.\n\n--\n\nI awoke to basic hospital sounds, like a heart rate monitor, an air pump, etc. I was still cuffed, but this time they were soft and I had a little bit more room to move around. I began to struggle slightly and that was when a new doctor approached. He was wearing one of the big orange suits I had seen earlier. He looked like he came straight from a Scifi movie. \n\n\"Whastgbbglbblbl\" I tried to talk but quickly noticed the tube down my throat.\n\n\"Oh, no need to worry sir, we will keep you safe.\" Said the doctor, all too mysteriously. \"You see, we have been waiting for someone like you to come around, and it seems like the waiting is over. I bet you are wondering why you are here, well it involves that test you did a week ago at the doctors office.\"\n\n'Holy crap, did he just say week!?'\n\n\"I assure you we will answer all of your questions but to start of I will read you the results of your test. You are Greg Duncan, born in New York, New York on February 8, 1984. You are currently unmarried, living alone in a small town in Nebraska. You prospected death date, which may be off by 3-4 years, is February 8, 1984... BC.\"\n\nEdit: still trying to get this whole formatting thing down.", "A lot of times, you'll hear someone who had a near death experience say that they're \"living on borrowed time.\" Man, they have no idea. \n\nEveryone thought it was a joke, at first. Answer a few questions and find out how long you have left? No way was that possible. Oh, sure, plenty of people signed up for it, but it mostly just for shits and giggles, like going to a psychic or playing with a Ouija board. Some people took it seriously, but they were the weirdos, the headcases, the kind of people who already believed in all kinds of stupid crap. \n\nIt took a little while for all the information to come together, but after about six months, it came to light that a lot of people were dying exactly when their deaths had been predicted. After two years, the facts became too obvious to ignore: the death date machines were right. Always. \n\nWell, almost always. \n\nI'd managed to avoid the things for a while. I have a bad habit of overthinking, so even when we'd had the luxury of denial, it was the kind of thing that would have weighed heavily on my mind, and I didn't want that. \n\nSo I stayed the hell away, especially after we learned that the whole thing was real. I had no intention of learning my death date. Fate, though, had other plans. \n\nIt became common practice in hospitals to determine patient's death date, especially in life and death cases. This allowed hospitals to free up resources, focusing on the patients who had at least a few years left. If you got hit by a car and your death date was a week from now, why bother with a bunch of expensive surgery? They'd make you comfortable and let nature take its course. \n\nKind of scary, if you think about it. \n\nI was outside cleaning the gutters one day when a breeze from hell came out of nowhere and my ladder fell over. I hit the patio pavement, and my head went fuzzy for a few seconds. There was a lot of blood, but I felt fine a few minutes later. My wife, anxious little worrywart that she was, insisted on driving me to the emergency room, just in case. \n\nI agreed, mostly to appease her, but also because head injuries are serious business, and it really had been a lot of blood. I knew the hospital would take my death date, but the law forbade them from releasing that information to the patient unless they specifically asked for it, except in extreme cases. \n\nMy case ended up being extreme. \n\nI knew I was in for it when the nurse walked in, holding one of those black sheets of paper. My wife, sitting in one of those uncomfortable green chairs they have in patient's rooms, let out a gasp. \n\n\"I don't want it,\" I told her, shaking my head. \n\n\"It's in the past,\" she said quietly. \n\n\"What?\" \n\n\"Your death date. It's in the past.\" \n\nI didn't have a choice at that point. Without consciously deciding to do so, I reached out and accepted the sheet of paper. \n\nFirst, I made sure that it was really mine. It was. My name was printed at the top, along with my date of birth, my social security number, and all those other metrics that the government uses to sort its citizens. \n\nPrinted in large type at the bottom of the page was, \"December 21, 2012.\" \n\n\"What does this mean?\" I asked. \n\n\"I don't know,\" the nurse said. \"I, uh, I'll go get the doctor.\" \n\nMy wife and I sat in silence, her hand in mine, for the next hour. Finally, a bald man in a white coat came in, looking disheveled. \n\n\"We ran your death date six times,\" he said. \"Same date, every time. I called up the Center for Disease Control, they keep track of the death date program. You are the first recorded person to have lived past your death date.\" \n\nMy stomach churned, and I fought down the urge to throw up. \n\n\"So what does it mean?\" I asked, not really expecting a coherent answer. \n\nMy expectations were met. \n\n\"We have no idea,\" he told me. \"The good news is that you don't have a concussion. You're free to leave. The CDC might want to contact you. You should know, though, that word of this will not get out, not from the hospital. Patient confidentiality.\" \n\n\"Thanks, doc,\" I said. \n\nWith that, my wife and I left. We didn't make it very far though. \n\nI was too rattled to drive, so I asked her to do it. To this day, I still haven't forgiven myself for that. \n\nShe was rattled by the experience, too. I should have seen that. \n\nShe didn't look both ways before pulling out of the hospital parking lot. She didn't see the eighteen-wheeler coming. \n\nThe truck slammed into her side of the car. The car went flying. We rolled, and another eighteen-wheeler hit us, this one coming the other way. Neither of us had a seatbelt on. We both ended up on the pavement. \n\nI was conscious though the whole thing. I heard her cries of pain when the ordeal started, and I heard them get cut off when the car rolled on top of us. It kept rolling, thankfully saving us the trouble of being trapped, but the damage was done. \n\nFor the second time in the same day, I found myself covered in blood. Only this time, it wasn't my own, not all of it. \n\nThere was a lot of commotion as the truck drivers stopped and came to try and help. The ER staff came and transported my wife and I back into the building. I could barely recognize her due to all the trauma. \n\nI was hurt, there was no way I couldn't be. I should have been dead, though. After everything I went through, after having a freaking car land on me, I should have been the same bloody pulp that my wife was. But I wasn't. \n\nThat black piece of paper kept resurfacing in my mind. \n\nThe nurses and ER techs kept walking by my room, glancing in nervously, as though they were afraid of me. The nurse who was actually taken care of me spoke in short, quiet bursts, as though I were a vengeful god, one easily angered. \n\nIt wasn't a surprise when they came and told me that my wife was dead. No need to punch in her numbers, no need to get a black piece of paper with her name on it. She was already gone. \n\nThey let me out of the hospital the next day. I got a ride home with a friend, but insisted on being alone when he tried to stay and look after me. I lied and told him I would be fine. \n\nOnce he was gone, I went to the garage. I closed the garage door, got a hose, and stuck one end on the exhaust pipe. The other end I put through the window of my wife's car, the little Toyota she'd loved. \n\nI sat in the car, turned it on, and relaxed. It wasn't long before I lost consciousness. \n\nThen something unexpected happened. \n\nI woke up.", "I watched the machine process the parameters supplied for an hour which became a day which became a month which became a year. I let the machine run in my drab living room even as the thought of it faded from my mind. Death calculators had become a popular and cheap accessory; there was no need to move it or stop it from inevitably working towards my fate. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nN/A\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI was always intrigued by humanity's obsession with innovation. It seems that we as a species care so much about \"the next big thing,\" that we never stop to make sure it works first. Death calculators often malfunctioned. Coupled with the fact that they only had a 95% success rate even if they did work, they were more of a party game than a tool for clairvoyance. With this in mind, I reentered my parameters, and once again walked away from the machine without thinking twice about the result \"N/A.\"\n\n&nbsp;\n\nThis morning I moved my old death calculator to the basement to free up space for a new playroom for my children. Seven years had come and gone and a lot had changed in my life, but my death date was still \"N/A.\" I was never one to take emotional stock in such a gadget, yet I still found myself worrying from time to time. All of my friends have found their death dates and are already preparing so that their families may continue to live comfortably beyond their death. How could I do the same? Out of this fear I purchased a new edition of the death calculator; this model, no bigger than a pocket calculator, boasted a 99% success rate and a much faster calculation time. This will calculate my death date with ease.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nN/A.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nMy wife died this morning. The doctors say it was a heart attack. I worry for my children. Surely my death calculator will provide me with my death date soon enough. I just wish my wife could have seen our children grow up. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nN/A\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI watched my second child graduate college today. I suppose in a way my duties as a father are completed. I have successfully raised my children to be self-sustaining. And yet, I still worry as to the fate of myself. As I get on in my years I grow ever more curious as to my death date. But no matter which device I buy, I always get the same answer.\n\n&nbsp;\n\nN/A\n\n&nbsp;\n\nMy firstborn son died today. They chalked it up to an array of complications due to old age. I watched him father my grandchildren and calculate his own death date for their sake. But today I put him in the ground myself. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nN/A\n\n&nbsp;\n\nI am here, standing on the rooftop of the apartment complex where I raised my two beautiful children with my lovely wife nearly 100 years ago. My wrist death-calculator is blinking, calculating my death date. I do not feel as though I need its approval, but something holds me on the roof staring at it. I feel the autumn wind rustle my aging jacket as the watch beeps twice and begins to spell out a message. \"November 1st, 2103.\" With a smile, and a single tear, I step forward into nothingness. \n\n&nbsp;\n\nI died on November 1st, 2103.\n" ]	4
	[WP] Humanity isn't an intelligent race, or an intuitive race, or a fast race, or even a violent race. But it is the longest lasting race in the galaxy.	[ "Cockroaches... Humanity is the galaxy's cockroach. They spread like a plague and are blasted difficult to eradicate. Not because human populations are uniquely tough in any way. Humans in fact are the weakest of all race. But, in the time it takes to eradicate a solar system you can be certain another dozen worlds have been colonized by these galactic vermin. \n\nYou can be certain any trade port suffers an infestation of humans. Try as you may, stowaways will occur. Doesn't matter how many you deport or execute. Some will slip past. The worst mistake is to accept a few of their traders and let them inhabit even a smallest portion of a port. Once you invite the infestation nothing can uproot them. \n\nNo race had any hope of outlasting these vermin when in every struggle hundreds of them are striving against your best. You had one chance against their 100. Luck is a fickle mistress but favors their masses. I mourn the galaxy. Such diversity has been lost. All have fallen before their infestation.", "Another derelict planet. \n\nFlying just below the clouds, the familiar sorrow spreads slowly inside my chest as my screens show me the ruined ground. As a planetary surveyor, you would think eventually even the sight of an extinct race would eventually have less of an impact after a while. But it doesn't.\n\nI tried to look for the things I had come here to find. Water, minerals, oil. My screens did most of the work, but it was my job to compile a report of how much of each resource had been found, recommend colonial population size, settlement locations, and make note of what adaptations would have to be made for human habitation on this planet. \n\nAs I did my research, a familiar pattern emerged. Everywhere that I recommended for settlement, the ruins of an alien city stood. Eventually, after the fifth time in a row this occurred, I simply started ignoring the instruments, and placed markers everywhere there were ruins, prioritizing them by the size of the burnt-out urban sprawls.\n\nFollowing the footsteps of this dead race so closely, I began to see pieces of what they must have been like. They clearly shared the human need for water, past population density clearly rising closer to the coastlines and rivers. Their buildings extended extensively underground, as I could see wherever the above-ground portion had collapsed or been knocked over. As well, they had no roads on the surface, leading me to believe they must have traveled below or above ground.\n\nAmateur historians and paleontologists would study some of the history of the species that had once dominated this planet. And they would definitely do a better job of it than me. But I tried to find out what I could all the same. In a memorial, of sorts. For practically every planet I visited, at more than two planets a year, held signs of past sentient life, though not all would be repopulated by humans. They were simply not all suitable. For many of these races, I would be the only sentient being to ever witness that they ever were. \n\nAs I gazed sadly at the planet of ruins, full of evidence that I was not so different from the lost souls below, I wondered what small thing it was that made us different, that we were still here, when they had gone.", "\"nobody looks twice to the janitor in a room\" my father told me once. Now as I lay in my chair in the balcony of the human embassy to the 'eternal' Torquan empire I ponder on the wisdom of his words. I'm the 40th ambassador here, the position being for life. This speaks good of the torquans, most species don't last enough to get their 8th human ambassador before being exterminated or brought back down to a pre industrial level on a single world. we humans being the exception. we have always been here, or so feel the rest of the sophonts in the galaxy. nobody is bothered by it ( and why should they be worried ) we're middle of the way in smarts, weaker than 2/3rds of the rest and not particularly aggressive. the thing is, we cultivate that image. its particularly useful to our real strength: Diplomacy. we see promising species and help them along a bit and uplift, we cultivate relations and friendships, we plead, we bribe, we Charm. It is not an easy game but we have had a long time to perfect it, and we're good. meanwhile nobody wonders why we barely have the need to mantain a fleet and how in every public contract humans seem to be first picks. Who would've known? Friendship is magic." ]	3
	[WP] God Sends Jesus back to Earth not to end all humnity but to present his new book: The Bible 21st Century Edition.	[ "Jay lay against the wall and tried to drone out the inane chatter of the people walking by him, it was the height of summer on London's busiest high street. he could barely make out the dial tone as he keyed the numbers into his phone. \n\"Alan!\" Jay screamed into his phone, like a man screaming at dog on his lawn. The loud rustle and bustle of the busy high street ebbed and flowed around him. he sometimes felt like locking himself away in a cave to escape. \n\"How long do you think it'll take you?\" Jay could hardly make out his Editor's voice so he dipped into the side street of the office beside him. \n\"Is it good?!\" he shouted anxiously awaiting the verdict. this would change his career. \n\"It depends, how long will it take you? You've got other commitments, the power goes out if you don't get back to it.\" \n\"I know, I know! It's already done, I've been writing this for a long time\" Jay replied into his phone. it dabbed his earlobe as his hand shook. He was nervous. What laid ahead of him would decide the rest of his career, if they liked his book he could get back to signing books, filming TV commercials and discussing his other books with movie directors for the next few months. He'd never changed his genre before but for this it was worth it. \n \n\"There was just a few issues with what you sent me, It's not like the first book you wrote.\" if only the producer knew the first book he wrote. it started out as a collection of short fiction drafted by him and his friends at a lunch and ended up as a cult classic. he still felt ashamed of it, its directive creativity was besmirched and mired through all the re-writes and edits that he wanted to kill himself. \nHe came really close at one point but settled for locking himself away. \n\"Not enough apocalypse?\" \n\"You could say that... can you come in?\" an ominous, vague and apprehensive reply. \n\"I'm outside, I've been here for hours\" his strong reply could only exude confidence, not the creep of his delusions. \n\"Good...\" The dial tone rang, his editor didn't like to mince words. \nJay lit a cigarette and waited, he hadn't felt this nervous since his shenanigans at the park when he was younger. His lip flapped against the bud of his cigarette until it settled. \n \nWhat the fuck could be wrong with it? he knew modern books had a little bit more creativity to them these days, god forbid them getting shorter. was it not enough zombies?, Gargoyles?, Aliens?, freaky fucking alligators? confusing and unexplained blood smeared walls and plagues?. \nPeople had told him how to write his entire life, he'd been down every conceivable writing path before. it was all contrived bullshit. \nDues ex Machina and the hidden closeted agenda of homophobes he thought. Jay laughed to himself. His old friend peter always told him he loved his books, but after the editing, it didn't really feel like his work any more. there was always a hidden agenda. \n \nHe climbed the back stairs of the office, he'd convinced himself if he'd look healthy and not take the elevator so the hot blonde receptionist might notice. His sweaty brow and arm could only be blamed on his own hubris. \nHe eventually reached Alan's office door after dipping and diving between editorial staff and a precariously unsteady personal assistant. she held a tray of coffee with the stains to match. \n \n\"this is what your good at...\" Alan had been patiently waiting holding a copy of Jay's most recent book, The Dolphin Within. \nJay looked the man before looking him up and down, he was some suited and booted city big-wig. An ex-country boy who'd made his debut into retail editing only three weeks ago. \n\"It's not me though\" Jay sighed, he resented that book more than life itself. it was originally about the spiritual calm inside everyone's individuality and soon transformed into part dolphin monsters destroying the upper social echelon of New York. His started in Bristol for Christ-sake. \n\"And this is?\" Alan walked to his desk and sat down in his leather arm chair, where every good general does. he opened his draw pulling out Jay's manuscript and slammed the draw shut. \nJay didn't like to argue, he closed the door to Alan's office slowly glaring back at the cubicles reflecting his awkward gaze. \n\"I'm sorry Jay...\" Alan had calmed down. \"it's well written and we can clearly hear your voice... but... do we really need another self help book?\" \nJay was shocked, He'd hoped he wouldn't have to shelf his latest book in his small apartment study. Chicken broth for the spirit wouldn't fit next to My Dad, the Serial Killer or Realising Infidelity - A Millennial Struggle", "Jesus: \"Alright everyone, so, God told me to drop by and give this to you. It's a new revised 21st century version of The Bible, so uh, here you go. Take it as you like..\" \n\nPriest: \"... Jesus, this just says don't be a cunt over and over again.. On.. Every page..\" \n\nJesus: \"Yeah?\"\n\nPriest: \"...\"\n\nJesus \"...\" ", "“Listen, I’m gonna be honest with you, Jon. We didn’t proofread the first one.”\n\nJon Stewart dipped his chin behind his steepled fingers, and his mouth quirked upwards at the corners. “So, what is this, then? Bible Two?”\n\n“I like to think of it as a re-release. It’s the definitive edition.”\n\n “So, what? Is this Blu-ray? Goliath shoots first? What’re we talking about, here?” The audience laughed obligingly. \n\n“It’s more-“\n\n“-WE LOVE YOU, JESUS!” a random jokester called out from the crowd.\n\n“-I love you too, Charlie. Your dad’s doing great. He plays fetch with Rusty all the time. …Where was I?”\n\nThe audience went awkwardly silent. \n\nFrom somewhere came a muttered “Rusty?! But that… that was* ^my ^dog’s… ^how ^did ^he?!”\n\nA person coughed.\n\nJon’s eyes widened slowly, with impeccable comedic timing. “Wait. Waitwaitwait. You’re really Jesus?!”\n\nJesus looked a little nonplussed. “Yes!”\n\n“And you’re really here to hock a book?!”\n\n“Ah…yep. Yep.”\n\nThere was a smattering of nervous laughter. Jon sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.\n\n“…What’s in this book.”\n\n“Well, for one, I put the dragons back in.”\n\nJon lowered his arm, and, again, with consummate showmanship, raised an eyebrow.\n\n“The… dragons?”\n\n“They’re big scaly monsters, Jon.”\n\n“…I know what dragons are, Jesus.”\n\n“Well, then you should know I tamed a whole den of them. As a toddler. Just, like, ba-zam!. Boom. God powers. Tamed dragons. Look it up.”\n\nJon paused. “Uh, now, Jesus. I’m the first to admit, I’m not really a New Testament kind of guy-“\n\n“-Well, it’s no surprise, what with the editing-“\n\n“-But I don’t really recall that, uh, of that particular, um, episode of your life.”\n\n“Well, to be fair, they could have been just really big snakes. I hate snakes.”\n\n“You hate snakes?”\n\n“Yep, hate ‘em.” \n\n“Isn’t Jesus… supposed to be more, um, forgiv-y?”\n\n“Oh, hell no. Check out this other part, where I totally blow up a snake.” He flipped through the pages, which, the audience noted, seemed to contain an awful lot of Ed Hardy graphics.\n\n“…WOW.”\n\n“Yeah. I figure, what with the declining religiosity in young people, what’s really needed is a more relatable Jesus, you know? Someone who’s a bit more cool.”\n\nJon tightened his lips over his teeth, and nodded. “Yes. Because we’ve all had that… snake-exploding phase in our lives.”\n\n“I know, right?! And check this part out, where I totally blind a bunch of people!”\n\n\"...\"\n\nTHE END\n\nPostscript: [Yes, really.](http://www.cracked.com/article_18948_5-real-deleted-bible-scenes-in-which-jesus-kicks-some-ass.html)", "“So Jesus, what have you been up to all this time?” Ellen smiled at the bearded guy in the skinny jeans who sat across from her. \n“You know, just hanging out, did a little writing, spent some quality time with my father…” \n“Yes, your father, he’s sort of important right?” \n“He used to be, but you know, out of the limelight, your image sort of fades and is replaced by memories and interpretations, which, I’m sure you know, can get a little fuzzy every now and then.” Jesus winked at Ellen. \n“I have no idea what you’re talking about” Ellen deadpanned him for a few seconds before breaking into her trademark smile. Jesus smiled back at her. \n“So I hear you’ve written a new book?” \n“Not just me, it’s a collaboration with my father and mother…” Jesus was interrupted by the audiences cheering. \n“Yes, Mary is pretty popular” Ellen remarked. \n“…As I was saying, my father I sat down around fifty years ago and we tossed around the idea of writing a new book. Mother came to the process a little later. The old one was pretty well received, but to tell you the truth, that really was a first effort in every sense of the word.” \n“What do you mean 'first effort'?” \n“Well, a lot of the themes aren’t fully explored and to be completely honest, the narrative sort of sucks. There’s no flow, some chapters come as just derivative crap, and there are plot holes and inconsistencies everywhere.” \n“Well Jesus, you sent me an advanced copy, and let me tell you, the sequel is much better. It’s short…” \n“…Just two hundred pages, shorter than fifty shades of grey” Jesus quipped. “Which was terrible by the way.” \n“And also” Ellen continued, “there is a fair amount of…um…how should I put this, bad words in the book. You and your father are big potty mouths!” \n“Yeah, I think we were just struggling for the right words to discuss the current situation here on earth, and frankly, Dad and I, we aren’t authors. I’m a carpenter and part time doctor, dad is a few thousand years old and in his prime he was more of an engineer than anything else, and mom, well she only learned how to read and write after she died.” \n“But what about the first book?” \n“There were a lot of ghost writers on that one.” \n“Gotcha, JK Rowling ghost wrote my biography, it’s about my teenage struggles as a lesbian witch at Hogwarts.” \n“Yeah, if JK had been around when we wrote the first one, we’d definitely have had more witches and wizards…and quidditch, how great is quidditch?” \n“Did you know there is a professional quidditch league?” Ellen asked Jesus \n“No, really? I thought, well I thought humans didn’t have magic.\" \n\"We don't its just high college students running around on brooms\" \nJesus laughed a hearty beard laugh before responding. \"I remember dad sort of penciled magic in at one point, but as any engineer knows, there are priorities when it comes to design and he was under a bit of a deadline.” \n“Seven days right?” \n“Six actually, he rested on the seventh.” \n“Anyways, back to your book, it’s called: Stop bleeping up and pay attention. A few wise words from Jesus, Mary and the Big Guy. Catchy title.” \n“Yeah, one of the archangels, Michael I think, came up with that one.” \n“So tell me a little about the book” \n“So mostly it’s just about how to be a better person. It may come across as a little preachy, but to be honest, I think humanity needs a little preachy every so often.” \n“Yeah, like every Sunday right?” The audience laughed and Jesus and Ellen shared a chuckle. \n“Actually, we talk about that in chapter three. We say something like stop dictating church attendance and just let people worship whenever and however they want.” \n“That sounds pretty straightforward” \n“Yeah, we tried to update a lot of the rules and stuff and really make them more…um…direct. We really didn’t like all the interpretations, so we just laid some stuff out. So chapter one talks about how to treat other people, and I think at one point we just come right and say: Stop fucking killing each other if you will excuse my French. We just figured that there was some confusion in the first one, so we simplified.” \n“Tell me about your mother’s parts.” Ellen paused for a second and then looked straight into the camera. “Yeah, that came out wrong…tell me about the parts of the book your mother wrote.” \nJesus laughed a bit before responding: “So dad and I were trying to write some chapters about the female experience and we realized that we had no idea what we were talking about. Stuff like When a woman has a discharge, and the discharge in her body is blood, she shall be in her menstrual impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. stuff like that kept coming out and it just sort of didn’t fit with the rest of the book, so we got mom in on the writing action and I think she did a damn good job.” \n“Yes, so do I” \n“For example, that last part, mom cleaned it up a bit, so now that passage reads: Women will have their period once a month. This is perfectly natural, don’t freak out about it. We think it reads a bit better.” \n“I agree, it does seem just a teensy bit better. Alright, we’re almost out of time anything else you want to add?” \n“Yes, just a quick thanks to some of the people who helped out on the book, Mohammed, Siddhartha, everyone else, you know who you are, thank you so much.” \n“Jesus Christ ladies and gentlemen, and his new book: Stop bleeping up and pay attention. A few wise words from Jesus, Mary and the Big Guy”\n", "Jesus stared at the man seated at the startlingly large, mahogany desk in front of him. A silver nameplate engraved with words “Mark Sterling” stood in the center of it, resting just beside beside a thin, black laptop and dozens of stacks of papers and books. Mr. Sterling didn’t exactly look too pleased, but rather disgusted and possibly offended. Jesus hoped desperately that he’d just become rather poor at reading human facial expressions during his millennia of absence, and that the guy actually loved what he’d written. That had to be it.\n\n“I’m going to be honest with you,” Mr. Sterling said, lowering the manuscript down onto the mahogany desk and slowly pulling his glasses off his face. He dropped them beside the stack of papers Jesus had brought with him. “It’s absolutely terrible.”\n\n“What?” Jesus said, leaning forward slightly. “It’s terrible? How is it terrible?” He’d spent the last two years working day and night on the manuscript, putting in everything he could for what he hoped to be the ultimate sequel. A modern follow-up to the bible, adapted for the 21st century reader. He’d spent the last six months alone reading and re-reading it to make sure it flowed correctly, to ensure there were no continuity errors. How could it be terrible? \n\n“I mean, it doesn’t hold up to the original at all.” Mr. Sterling paused, glancing at a watch on his left wrist. “You had lighting in a bottle with the first one, that bible of yours. Phenomenal piece of literature. I’d literally kill an entire tribe of orphans for a chance to publish that.” \n\n“Then what’s the problem?” Jesus interrupted, staring at the stack of papers Mr. Sterling was now softly tapping with his right hand. He’d handwritten the entire thing to make it feel even more personal, literally bled as he completed the two-thousand page book. \n\n“The problem is that this isn’t the bible. I mean, I get that it’s the sequel—Bible 2.0, if you will—but it’s just not good. It’s quite bad.”\n\n“How is it bad?” Jesus said, doing his best not to raise his voice.\n\n“Well,” Mr. Sterling began, “it doesn’t really apply at all to your first book. For example, you have a seventeen page car chase that effectively makes no sense in the story whatsoever.”\n\n“That was supposed to appeal to the younger readers,” Jesus again interrupted, “they love cars and violence.”\n\n“I get that,” Mr. Sterling continued, “but you just randomly threw it into the story. There’s no tie-in, there’s no lead-up. The main character just climbs into a 1996 Toyota Corolla and starts getting chased by ninjas. I mean, is there something I’m not getting there?”\n\n“No,” Jesus said, sitting back in his chair, “that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s exciting. It keeps the reader on their toes.”\n\n“You go on for seventeen pages, half of which are just onomatopoeia of engine noises. I mean, literally, you have the word “vroom” written over thirty times on one page alone. And don’t even get me started on the vampires.’\n\n“Vampires are so in right now!” Jesus said, now shouting. “Have you heard of Twilight? That’s super popular. I mean, Fifty Shades of Grey is basically the same exact thing! Kids love that!”\n\n“You’re writing a sequel to the bible,” Mr. Sterling said calmly, “not a tween fanfiction. I mean, I understand that vampires are the in-thing, but those books are about vampires. Or, rather, at least one of them is. Your book, though, is a scattered mess of explosions, car chases, and a main character that abruptly turns into a vampire about seven hundred pages in. You don’t even give a reason, you just say, ‘Abraham wakes up and suddenly realizes he’s a vampire.’”\n\n“How else do you realize you’re a vampire?” Jesus argued. “You just kind of know it one day. It’s not like someone rings your doorbell and says, ‘hey, you’re a vampire.’”\n\n“Look,” Mr. Sterling said, “I’m just going to be blunt here. This isn’t the sequel we were expecting. I wanted more ‘thou shalt not steal,’ not ‘then she blew a seal.’ Our readers—your readers—are conservative folks, young kids who are highly impressionable. We can’t have six chapters dedicated to incredibly vulgar and overtly descriptive acts of bestiality. This isn’t what we were looking for. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to decline your offer.”\n\n“God dammit!” Jesus said, talking to himself. “Fine, you know what? Fine. I don’t care. I had other ideas in mind anyway.” \n\nJesus stood up from the chair and thrust himself across the mahogany desk, grabbing the manuscript and tucking it under his arm. So what if his publisher didn’t want The Bible 2: Return of Abraham? He knew someone that would, and that someone absolutely loved extended car chases and needless explosions. All he’d need to do is hop on a quick flight to Michael Bay’s house, ring his doorbell, and show him some of Storyboards he’d put together. There was no way he wouldn’t sign a deal the moment he saw the scene in which Abraham rides a motorcycle off the exploding pyramids and into the waiting arms of God’s robot hands.\n" ]	5
	[WP] You have an imaginary friend. But your imaginary friend thinks you are its imaginary friend. Which one is real?	[ "“Imol shh, mom will find us!” a child’s whispered voice “If she catches us we lose the game”\nImol looks over “I know that Sam! Don’t forget it was your fault last time.” Imol watches as Sam peeks out of the closet “The coast is clear quick lets change hiding spots before she catches us” The girls sneak out of the closet tip toeing quietly looking around. They reach the room door peeking out slowly “No sign of her, let’s go to the kitchen” they look at each other “Why go there? Mom is almost always in there or the den!” \n“So it’s the last place she would look for us isn’t it?”\n“Yea but there aren’t many places to hide”\n“There are plenty, you aren’t using your imagination”\n“But..”\n“But nothing, we are going to the kitchen”\n“Fine..but it’s not my fault if we get caught”\n“Stop complaining”\n\nThey both peak around the corner slowly there mom walking out the door.\n\n“Quick now, she’s taking out the trash”\n\nThey dash into the kitchen and slide under the table\n\n“See this is the perfect spot!”\n“IT is! She won’t look under here!”\n\nMom walks back in and continues her cooking. After a minute she hears giggling and turns looking. “Ok I know you are in here! Where are you hiding?” She says playfully. She checks the pantry first, then the cabinets under the sink. “Hmmm now where could you be?” She slowly walks to the table before ducking under “Ah! There you are!”\n\n“Oh mom! You found us!”\nShe looks confused looking at her daughter “Us? Hun it’s just you.”\n\nThe girls look at each other confused then back to mom. In unison “But mom…she’s right there…” Again they look at each other only this time gasping at one other.\n", "After a day of fun outside, chasing each other, playing hide and seek, telling each other secrets, Lucy and I say goodbye.\n\nI run into my house eager for dinner. My mom has made my favorite: macaroni and cheese. And it's even from the blue box; that's the good kind. I swing my legs as I eat spoonful after spoonful. I eat nearly 8 spoonfuls before I remark that I am full.\n\nMy mom insists I try to eat more. When I argue that I am full, we compromise that I at least stay at the table to talk to her and my dad. \n\n\"How's Lucy,\" she asks with a smile.\n\n\"We had so much fun today. It took her so long to find me hiding in the bush next to the fence. I wanted to try to find her one more time, but her mom called her to dinner.\"\n\nMy mom and dad chuckle. I don't know what's funny, but they always act strangely when we talk about Lucy, like it's funny for some reason. Sometimes they talk to her, but it's like they're just pretending, like they don't even listen to her. I don't understand what their problem is.\n\n\"What are they eating for dinner,\" she asks.\n\n\"I don't know,\" I say annoyed, \"She didn't tell me. I'll ask her tomorrow.\"\n\nTomorrow takes forever to get here. I'm so excited for fun with Lucy. I run into the backyard towards her, but something is wrong. She seems sad.\n\n\"Lucy, are you ok?\"\n\n\"It's my mom,\" she says staring at the ground, \"she says we can't play anymore.\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"She says I'm too old to hang out with you. She says you're not real. I'm about to start preschool with other kids, so I need to start spending more time with real friends.\" Lucy kicks the dirt as she says this, her eyes fixed on her pink Sketchers.\n\n\"Not real? That's so silly. Of course I'm real. I just ate Lucky Charms for breakfast. My mom gave them to me. Then, my dad had to leave for work.\"\n\n\"Sadie, I don't know,\" Lucy says slowly, \"I'm just really confused. I like hanging out with you, but maybe my mom is right.\"\n\n\"Lucy, don't you see me here? Haven't we had lots of fun together,\" my voice raises and I become angry. I feel like I'm slipping away like rising steam. \n\n\"Bye, Sadie,\" Lucy says, her voice sounding as if she was standing far away, even though we are right next to each other, and then she begins to walk home.\n\nI try to chase after her but smash into an invisible force field. Frantic, I tried to break out, and run to her, but I was unable.\n\nAt first, I tried to call her name when she walked by. At first, I could tell she heard me, but wouldn't answer. Now, I know she hears nothing of my voice.\n\nI see her with new friends. Real friends. And some part of me knows this will all end soon enough. I will be nothing, barely even a shredded memory. " ]	2
	[WP] 50 years from now the Earth is in a synchronous rotation around the Sun, resulting in all of Earth's inhabitants populating one half of the Earth. This story is about the brave people who dared enter the Dark side of the Earth...	[ "A drop of sweat dripped onto the rusted and dented metal casing of the generator Daryl was packing. Sweat was going to be the only wash anything was going to get anymore, since the water dried up. \n\nGetting way too hot, thought Daryl as he continued to prepare the group's equipment for their exodus. It was definitely time to move again.\n\nBut that was the problem. Move to where? They've run out of room, and nothing but the uncertain darkness lay ahead... But what lay ahead was certainly better than what chased them from behind. \n\nIt had happened so quickly. No one knows exactly what ended the world. The news, in those few we 'days' before the end reported the earth's rotation had slowed to a crawl. A single day/night cycle would last about 15 years. The collapse of civilization was remarkably fast. People in Eastern Europe and south Asia froze to death in eternal darkness. The people on the west coast of America and Australia burned under an unrelenting sun. One half of the world encased in ice; the other charred into a parched wasteland. \n\nAnd now all that remained was a few survivors like himself, clinging to life in that narrow band of twilight. The dawn was supposed to bring hope of a new day. Couldn't be further from the truth when that day would kill you. \n\nDaryl and his small band of nomadic survivors had scavenged what they could as they slowly moved to stay in the shade. But now that time was up. They had hit the coast of the pacific. They waited as long as they could for the ocean to thaw, but the survivor's couldn't hold out any longer. The day was coming. \n\nDaryl finished loading the generator into the back of an old Ford, and began to drive down to the coast. As he crested the dunes on the beach, he saw a small swarm of activity surrounded the boats the group had been repairing. \n\nThe group had agreed they couldn't last forever out on the water. They'd have to head to to land on the other side as soon as possible. But that meant the freezing dark. A bleak future, but the only one that offered any possibility of a future. \n\nAnd if they survived the voyage... there they would wait, through the longest night; praying for the coming dawn. ", "Tobias pulled back the heavy curtain used to block out the perpetual sunlight. The sun remained bolted in the sky where it had permanently resided since he was born. His early school textbooks had multiple chapters devoted to the science about the Earth's rotation slowing down incrementally every year, until it finally came to a stop. Those school-aged lessons were many years ago for him, and were beyond his comprehension even if he could recall them. He had lived a simple life working the coal mines of the Appalachian area of what used to be the US. Kentucky to be exact. \n\nMost folks tried to leave the mines- but Tobias only wanted in. He craved the darkness. It wasn't uncommon for him to sneak away to a hidden nook in the mine shafts and turn off his lamp. Something in the darkness called out to him. \n\nTobias ran his comb through his long wiry gray beard. He locked eyes with himself in the mirror and he didn't recognize the wrinkled husk of a man that stood before him. A life of physical labor wasn't kind. It had been 6 months since he retired. It had been 6 months since he felt the comforting embrace of the mines.\n\nHe slid his comb into a small bag and pulled on his black leather jacket. After a few failed attempts, he managed to pull his long gray hair into a pony tail. He grabbed his bag that had a few days worth of clothes, a pair of sunglasses, and headed for the front door. He grabbed a set of keys hanging from a wall hook. He turned his head and looked at the inside of house. This was the home he raised his 2 children- who had since moved away. This was the home he carried his bride into 40 years ago- who had since passed away. He flashed a small smile, and headed out the door for the last time. \n\nHe held the clutch in on his motorcycle and hit the starter. The motor of his 1800cc cruiser turned over but failed the start. You son of a bitch He hit it again, this time twisting the throttle giving it small amounts of gas. The engine roared to life and he smiled. He kicked back the kickstand and took off. He was heading south- towards the darkness.\n\nThe winding roads of former Kentucky and East Tennessee carried him to the foot of the Great Smokey Mountains. The further he road the south, the more the sun was setting behind him. He was getting closer to the dark side of the planet. Technically, it was completely legal for anyone to travel into the dark side. You just couldn't return. Not that it mattered much. As far as Tobias knew, anyone who had left never did seek to return. Perhaps they felt the comfort of being in the dark like he did?\n\nTobias read the sign \"Welcome to Gatlinburg, Tennessee!\" as he roared past on his motorcycle. The streets were empty. The sun hung low on the northern horizon towards Knoxville. For the first time in his life, he saw stars twinkling in the night sky. The once tourist-attraction town that brimmed with life was now a ghost town set in perpetual dusk. All that existed between him and the dark side was a large concrete wall and the military checkpoint. \n\nHe followed Highway 441 through Gatlinburg. The highway was 4 lanes, which at one time were 2 lanes of traffic heading in opposite directions. Those had since been painted over and all 4 lanes pointed in one direction; they pointed towards the gate where a dozen armed men with rifles watch Tobias slowly ride up on his bike. He noticed the indicators on the road and realized that if he crossed through the check point- there would be no road coming back. \n\nHe rolled to a stop 20 yards from the gate. Two large spotlights surged to life and craned over onto him. A short pudgy man in military fatigues and a beret walked out of the wooden building next to the wall. He signaled for Tobias to shut off his motorcycle, which Tobias complied with. \n\nThe man spoke with a Spanish accent, \"Good morning, sir. Papers?\"\n\nTobias reached into his jacket pocket and the sound of multiple rifles having their safety toggle switched off echoed above on the walls. He estimated about a dozen men had trained their rifles onto him. \n\n\"Easy there, fellas. Just showing your boss here my papers...\" \n\nTobias pulled out an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to the man. The pudgy man had pudgy fingers to match, and they slowly went through each document carefully.\n\n\"It seems you have everything together here, Mr. Harris.\"\n\n\"Name's Tobias.\" \n\n\"I am Colonel Vega. While I appreciate the pleasantries, I am afraid it isn't going to matter much. After you leave here, we will never see you again. You do know the terms of what happens when you cross through the wall?\"\n\nTobias nodded, \"Yep, sure do. I can't ever come back. But from what I hear- no one ever wants to come back. Must be one hell of a party.\" \n\nColonel Vega didn't smile. \"Very well then.\" He waved over a younger soldier and handed him Tobias' documents. \"Corporal, incinerate these documents. Mr. Harris has relinquished his citizenship and doesn't exist anymore.\" \n\nTobias quirked an eyebrow. \"I don't recall doing any of that.\" \n\n\"Mr. Harris, I am going to have to ask you to leave. No one is allowed to travel through the Confederate States without proper identification.\" Vega turned and yelled up to the wall, \"Open the gate!\"\n\nA squad of soldiers ran out of the shack and focused their rifles toward the gate, 3 on each side. The large metal gate moaned as it lowered like an old castle draw bridge. \n\nColonel Vega unholstered a pistol and started walking towards Tobias. \"Mr. Harris.\"\n\nTobias started up his motorcycle. \"I get it Colonel. Time for me to head out.\" \n\nColonol Vega nodded. \"Yes, it is. Take this.\" He handed Tobias the handgun. \"You will need it.\" \n\nTobias stared at the handgun. He had never fired one in his entire life. Firearms were banned for all civilians. He awkwardly took the gun from Colonel Vega and slid it into his jacket pocket. It was the same pocket he had brought his paperwork in. \n\nHe nodded at Colonel Vega, who in returned the nod. \"Good luck, Tobias.\" \n\nTobias slowly crept across the metal gate that had been lowered. The only thing on that side of the wall was a dark forest and an overgrown Highway 441 illuminated by the headlight of his motorcycle. The gate slowly pulled up behind him. He turned and watched Colonel Vega and his mean disappear behind it. Once it was completely retracted, the spotlights on the other side of the wall shut off. \n\nHe took off his sunglasses and tossed them onto the ground. He wouldn't be needing those anymore. However, he touched the gun through his jacket and wondered why he would need that. Why did no one return? What was out here?\n\nHe pulled the throttle on his motorcycle and slowly rode into the dark forest. For the first time, Tobias felt completely alone. And he was terrified of the dark.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "\"Is it time yet?\" \nThe sun began to create a shimmer of dancing colors over the Edge. The place where time was frozen still as dusk or dawn. For us, dusk. It was going to get darker where we were headed.\n\"Tomorrow... lets set up camp here for tonight.\"\nEver since the M.I. event 50 years ago the world has never been the same. The mass population migrated to the 'Sunny Side,' as its jokingly called, to escape the frozen dead lands. It took years and years to unite, but the event unified countries and people together. Luckily for everyone, parts of Russia remained intact and was large enough for earths population to survive.\nIt wasn't long though until we discovered the unseen side effects of this new life-style we had to endure. A new 'Black Plague' began to sweep the Sunny Side. With no rotation of the earth our bodies had to adapt to this new harsh environment. This new disease started with just a small simple rash. Nothing to be alarmed about, however it would then envelop the body and become incredibly painful. After a week the patient's brain would ultimately meltdown from the unbearable pain and they would pass away. \nThe disease began to eat away at the population. It didn't seem infectious at all, but random. Starting from one Edge and randomly appearing at another Edge. No one was safe. No cure was on the horizon... until a freak storm appeared.\nPeople from the Edge were reporting of vast winds and storm clouds appearing from the Darkness. We were swept over. A storm of massive force swept through the S.S. However, there was no rain or thunder. Just wind. Wind that howled through the S.S. for a week. The storm also brought something else with it. Pedals. Perhaps flower petals, but these were big. Large enough to be leaves on a tree. Although the Wind storm was as disastrous as any other type of storm, the petals it disperse throughout the S.S., with its Lavender color and gold lining, brought the most pleasing smell anyone had ever experienced. It also served as a miraculous cure to our new plague. After the storm had dissipated people with the disease began to feel healthier and the rash lighter. People collected the petals throughout and discovered its medicinal properties were a cure for the Sun disease. We thoroughly collected all the petals the storm had left and healed the S.S. This was 30 years ago. Not another wind storm has passed and the Petal collection has grown scarce. Only the rich can afford its luxuries and healing properties now. The Sun disease crept slowly back into our race, and has since been diminishing our numbers. We've developed a resistance to it though, it doesn't take our lives as fast as it used to. With the first appearance of a rash, a average person has about a year until it fully develops lethally.\nIt was without a doubt that the wind storm 30 years ago began on the Dark side and brought with it these life-saving Petals. Grown from some tree of plant. We don't know because crossing over is a death-sentence. There used to be a camp we were able to communicate with during the early days, but no one can remember what became of them.\nNow my husband has the disease. There's no choice but for me and my son to enter the Dark side and hopefully find what so many need.\n\"The Edge is beautiful... isn't it?\" Adma said.\nI grunted in agreeance. \n\"Never ending colors of rainbow... a perfect temperature if you find the right spot. why would you ever leave?\"\n\"You know why,\" I looked over to him as I unrolled my back pack.\nAdma nodded solemnly and began to shiver.\n\"You best be getting ready, we have no idea what to be expecting. But hopefully this will be short. They say those who have threaded the Edge have smelt the Pedals, meaning they have to be close. Maybe not even a half days journey in.\"\nWe lay down and cast our eyes above the artful way the sun battles the night. Only hearing our synced breathing. \n\"Do you think Papa will survive long enough till we get ba...\" he stops. \"If we get back?\" Adma finishes.\n\"Only time will tell... I'm going to say yes. Now lets rest our eyes, Adma. We need it to finish the coming journey ahead.\"\nTo be continued?\n\nOnly twice in my life has fear awoken me from my slumber.\nThe first time was when I was 5. 50 years ago... When the Meteor Impact occurred. No man made instrument could detect its arrival. Some scientists theorize the meteor contained unknown metallic's that allowed it to remain undetectable. Some also say it was traveling at a incredible speed, too fast for our telescopes to pick up. The lucky survivors who were far enough away to catch the screeching Meteor on camera said it was but a brief, blinding flash of light. The footage, slowed to a incredible amount, revealed the Meteor's surface. Mirrors. A sea of mirrors. Smacking the Earth like a pool ball trajectory and made us spin until we finally stopped.\n\n\n \n Edit: Spelling and some more story, getting busy but i'll try to continue working on this throughout the week and wrap it up as well! Thanks guys, :D" ]	3
	[WP] You're an astrobiologist on Ganymede, and you can't ignore the data any more: the third planet from the sun looks more and more likely to support life.	[ "“Look at these numbers. What do you think? Can the planet support life?!” I asked with excitement. The professor looked at the screen thoughtfully.\nI had been working on this for months. My Doctoral Advisor, Dr. Harklight had told me that it was a dead end. He said that the carbon dioxide levels were too high to sustain life. But, Prof. Skylar had egged me on and turned my attention towards the sensor database gathered by the ISCA-3 satellite. He might not have the same qualifications as Dr. Harklight, but he definitely would have been a better advisor. \n\nThe ISCA-3 is a satellite orbiting the third planet from the sun as part of the Intra-Space Communications Array. Ofcourse, it had the necessary communications array, but it also had a whole host of other sensors added in as part of the funding deal by the Planetary Council of Astro-Biologists (PCAB). The ISCA-4 had been the in the spotlight for a while last year. The PCAB had scanned nitrogen compounds on the fourth planet that could only result from nitrogen fixating bacteria. The first group of researchers are on the surface right now, trying to see if it is a viable planet for hydroponics. Ganymede had recently started looking for other planets to grow food on. This was the result of Dr. Harklights study on population growth vs. maximum food production on the planet. Demand would outstrip supply within 50 years. With all the focus on the fourth planet, no one has been looking at the host of data coming in from the sensors on the other ISCA satellites. But, I had founding promising data by overlaying the Density Spectrum and Chemical Analyser. It appears that there is water in the atmosphere.\n\n“Please don’t keep me waiting Professor!”\n\n“It seems okay. I mean, this isn’t a provable hypothesis yet. You just don’t have enough data.” He looked up with a smile. “But, it should be enough to introduce it to the PCBA review forum. If they like it, you could have some time on the ISCA-3 sensor array to gather the data you need. This could be bigger than the fourth planet, you know. If you are right, a planet that size could easily compensate for the nutrition needs of a growing population for centuries.” I was crestfallen.\n\n“Are you sure?” I asked quietly. “Is there no way I could turn this into a full thesis paper? He looked up at me confused by my change in mood. I sighed.\n\n“I don’t care really about this anymore. I just... I just want to be done with my bloody thesis paper!”\n\n-----------------------\nThanks for reading. This is my first ever post to a writing prompt. All criticisms are welcome!\n", "I floated off to the side as my colleague flipped through the latest stream of data I had generated with the Eye, the first and only telescope built onto the first and only observatory on the surface of our home. Though to be honest, that thought felt strange in my head, considering that we were currently 150 km above the \"top\" of the subsurface ocean - our actual home. I glanced through a small window: the cold mountains and jagged valleys marking the barren tundra looked sharply back at me, against a backdrop of black space. I made an involuntary shudder. Only a few layers of metal and glass separated the warm, saltwater-filled laboratory from the lifeless landscape beyond. \n\n\"This could be incredible,\" he finally stated. He floated away from the computer and pointed a tendril at me, almost accusingly. \"Do you have any idea of the implications for these data?\"\n\n\"Obviously,\" I said cooly. \"Otherwise I would not have been so eager to show you these numbers.\"\n\n\"A more than decent magnetosphere, stable, high oxygen levels, presence of liquid water,\" he continued, summarizing some of the findings. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at a row of figures. \"But this worries me. Well, this and a couple other things...\"\n\nI signaled agreement as I moved closer to the terminal. \"I know what you're thinking - the planet's water to rock ratio is quite low, maybe too low to support the evolution of life.\"\n\n\"Exactly!\" he exclaimed. \"And consider the temperatures estimated to exist on this planet, what with its proximity to Sol and the diversity of its terrestrial portions; white at the poles, which we can reasonably assume to be ice, but it's brown and green as algae closer the equator. There are some large tannish spots as well - I can't even begin to imagine what that could be.\"\n\n\"Well, it's not like we don't have differential temperatures,\" I interjected. \"After all, it's quite warm back home right now, but that'll change with the season in a few months. But halfway across the globe, it shall be precisely the opposite.\"\n\n\"Yes, I suppose that's true,\" he agreed.\n\n\"But the low water levels are indeed something to consider,\" I went on. \"I did have a crazy idea about that, though.\" For a second, I hesitated before continuing to speak. I feared his ridicule. \n\nBut he caught the reluctance. \"Go on, man, I'm listening!\" he urged impatiently.\n\n\"Well,\" I said slowly. \"Imagine that intelligent life on this planet, if there are any, did not evolve the way we did - imagine that they live not in their oceans, but upon those terrestrial surfaces.\"\n\nHe gave me a shocked look. \"Do you mean to say that these hypothetical creatures have evolved to live on dry land?\"\n\nMy external gills hid the grin on my face. \"Indeed. After all, their proximity to the sun allows not only for increased surface heat (making life viable), but also for increased ultraviolet radiation, which means faster mutations, which could mean more drastic evolution from a life contained within water to one upon dry land.\"\n\n\"That...is a lot of speculation,\" he said a little doubtfully. He pulled a little closer to the window and looked out. \"I suppose this frozen , unlivable wasteland is skewing my ability to entertain your supposition. It's difficult to imagine creatures actually living in free, stale air instead of life-sustaining liquid...\"\n\n\"Additionally, we took a long time getting to this inhospitable surface of ours,\" I remarked. \"And no wonder; a 150 km thick sheet of ice and rock is no easy obstacle to overcome. But my hypothetical aliens could very easily have flopped onto land in their evolutionary history.\"\n\n\"But what about technology?\" he demanded. \"Forget the biological conundrums. How do you suppose they build computers without free, easy saltwater to conduct electrical flow?\"\n\nI shrugged, a little annoyed that I had not thought of that myself. \"Well, seeing as they would not have spent much of their industrial or exploratory revolutions researching efficient Mg-core drills for mining a thick crust, I'm sure they would have figured out some way of making completely dry computers.\" He did not answer, so I went on, thinking as I spoke: \"Actually, something has just occurred to me that makes my membrane shiver: they would have seen the stars so much sooner. No ice to block their view.\"\n\n\"So?\"\n\n\"So,\" I continued, \"what if they already invented their telescopes, their observatories? Or even more than that...what if they endeavored to design a craft that could pull free of their planetary gravity. Perhaps they approach us now, as we speak...\"\n\nThis time, we both started laughing. \"Oh very good,\" he replied, chortling. \"But let's stick to data for now and leave science fiction for the writers.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" I conceded. I had only been half-joking, but I decided it was best not to pursue it. \n\n\"Come,\" he motioned. He turned the hatch on the lab door and I followed him through. \"Let's a call a full meeting. This is preliminary but good data; I'm sure our young scientists will be as excited as the veterans will be skeptical. I'll break out the celebratory drinks, should be a good time.\"" ]	2
	[WP] Aliens arrive on earth and give us clear indications that they aren't here to invade but instead are here to help our race survive.	[ "The cloaked saucer landed in the center of the Pentagon before uncloaking. Hands raised, they departed their ship holding a white flag. Behind safe walls, they spoke to Congress about how their scientists analyzed the trajectory of Earth's atmosphere and recognized dangerous toxins polluting the air. Toxins that entered the food cycle, altered weather patterns, weakened the general population, altered brain chemistry of the masses suppressing their potential intelligence quota.\n\nThat's when the aliens discovered the world leaders were replaced by Z'bop'Diddle replicas, who herded the general population of Earth like cattle for their consumption. By their estimates, the human population will be docile enough and populous enough within the next few decades to supply the Z'bop'Diddle home world with a sustainable source of protein. The aliens didn't stand a chance. And now their home world was on the Z'bop'Diddle radar too.\n\nNo good deed goes unpunished.", "2015/03/30, 02:00 UCT. That's when we picked up the signal from trans-Neptunian space, and it wasn't from any probe humanity had sent out. It was just a simple radio spike, a 'ping'.\n\nThat was weird enough, but the second 'ping' came seconds later, from a point several light minutes closer to Earth. We barely had enough time to plot the course and note it wasn't following a gravitationally-bound path before it was slowing down to sub-light speeds just outside the orbit of the Moon.\n\nWe never saw it coming, only heard the radio blips announcing its arrival. And finally, a small sphere about 3m across landed just outside Reykjavik. That alone caused a lot of international tension, of course... but nothing stopped dozens of media outlets from having cameras and parabolic microphones aimed at that sphere by the time it opened.\n\nA line formed, from top to bottom, and then it was two as the doorway opened. An orange-skinned, vaguely humanoid creature wearing nothing but a black sash emerged from the ship. It looked a lot like a man in a bad Halloween costume with a squid on his head... at least that's how it was described later. At the time, there was quite a bit of awe at humanity's first alien contact preventing such humorous observations. It had large, black eyes, which blinked against the bright mid-day sun.\n\n\"Lasdfl, [brfrt] tasgnr.\"\n\nThere was a stunned silence that lasted the better part of a minute. The alien's head twisted around, looking over the crowd. Suddenly, it's mouth-tentacles started writhing and it reached into a pocket in its sash and brought forth a small device. After a few moments, it held the device up to its mouth.\n\n\"Sorry about that, I always forget about the translator. Humanity, my identifier is Torth of Squirem, 3rd-tier Magistrate of Galactic Planetary Affairs. I have been assigned as your caseworker.\"" ]	2
	[WP] You try to make a deal with the Devil, he refuses your soul as payment.	[ "Being a religious person was particularly hard for me. I never really understood the meaning behind the teachings of God. I always took the teachings as literal interpretations and so had a hard time figuring out how it all worked rather than why it all happened. So early in life I gave up on being a religious man. I focused on the materialistic.\n\nI became successful. I got rich. Climbed my way up the corporate ladder and became a CEO. I got whatever I wanted in life. I worked hard. But I didn't do honest work. I cheated to get to the top. And when that didn't work out, I prayed. I didn't pray to God though. I wasn't praying to anybody. But whenever there was a life changing moment, like say a big promotion in line, I prayed. Every single time I did this, I got what I wanted. I didn't notice at first, but after years of this happening, I started to notice the pattern. Then I realized. Someone was listening to my prayers. And it was most certainly not God. It was the Devil. I don't know how I came to this conclusion, but I had the coldest feeling possible after my realization. But I overlooked it. I couldn't prove it, so I discarded the feeling.\n\nI continued to live my life as I always have. My company was growing into other nations. It was becoming a real powerhouse on the global stage. I was still praying whenever I had a bad feeling things might not go my way. And it continued to work.\n\nUntil one day I get hit by a truck. I'm hospitalized and I'm waiting for my surgery. I start to pray.\n\n\"Please.\nPlease let me live through this. I do not want to die yet. There is so much more I have to do with my life. I still haven't found a wife. I haven't yet traveled the world like I always planned to do. I haven't taken up that offer to take a trip to space with Elon Musk. I haven't found a successor to steer my company in the right direction. I haven't yet gotten rid of all those greedy bastards on the board of my company.\nPlease.\nPlease let me live through this.\"\n\nAnd then I say it. The words I have kept from saying in my prayers for a long time, until the time I really needed his help.\n\n\"I pray to you Satan, I offer you my soul in exchange to let me live the rest of my life!\"\n\nSuddenly I hear a voice.\n\n\"You fool. I don't want your soul. I already have that. You think the luxurious life you enjoyed were because of your doing? No. You know the truth. You've always known the truth. You don't believe you honestly earned anything you achieved in life. You know deep down in your cold black heart that you were always praying to me. You just didn't know the price you were paying. I've long owned your soul. You were on borrowed time. But this it. Your time is up on Earth, but your payment of servitude to me is just beginning. I'll see you soon in Hell, partner\"", "Hades laughed. \"You'll have to do better than that.\" \n\n\"What's that suppose to mean?\" I said, hurt. I offered him my soul. \n\n\"Look little girl, you humans all die eventually. You're soul will be mine. So what will it be? What do I get if I give you the power you wish for.\" \n\n\"What's it worth to you?\" I huffed. I want to be a powerful thinker of Athene. I want men to fear my name, Aspasia. \n\n\"It's not worth anything to me. None of this silly human affair stuff is. What is it worth to you.\" He grinned. \n\n\"I'm not sure.\" \n\n\"You're first born? No. Something else.... ohhh how about love?\" \n\n\"Pardon?\" \n\n\"The ability to love, yes. I'll take that as payment. I've always wanted to see what a woman would do without love.\" \n\nHades grabbed me, pulling love from my chest. Heat fled my body. In an instant, He was gone. I felt an lightness about me. Then I got on with my day. ", "\"Aw come on man, why not?\" Yu asked, confused by the matter. \n\n\"Because there are so many Yu's!\" The Devil sneered. \"Why? Why are there so many Yu's?! And becuase of THAT, I can't take your soul as payment.\"\n\nYu frowned. \"That's racist.\"\n\n\"Hell, I'm the Devil, sue me.\" The Devil shrugged. \n\n\"I can't, you took all the lawyers...\" Yu smirked. \n\n\"OHHHH!\" Yu's conjoined twin laughed. \"Evil lawyer joke!\"\n\nThe Devil rolled his eyes. \"Oh, that joke, never heard THAT before...\"\n\n\"Really? Man you need to get out more often it's really common.\" Yu gave the Devil a pity look. \n\nThe Devil's eye twitched. \"Sarcasm. It's sarcasm you moron.\"\n\n\"Ooooh...\" Yu frowned. \"So you can't take my soul as payment because you're a racist?\"\n\nThe Devil sighed. \"No. Not exactly. It's your conjoined twin that's at fault. I can't take your soul becuase it's also technically your twin's soul too.\"\n\n\"Dude...\" Yu's eyes widened. \"It's all your fault Mi!\"\n\n\"Hey chill out, you know what this means right?\" Mi asked. \n\n\"No, what?\" Yu wanted to hear this. \n\n\"We ARE like siblings. Only closer!\" Mi was giddy. \"Even more so than we thought!\"\n\n\"Spongebob was right!\" Yu's mouth went agape. \"Spongebon was right!\"\n\nThe Devil groaned. \"Hey, you idiots, so if you want drugs to be legal you need to give me something besides your soul. OR! Mi has to agree to this soul taking as well.\"\n\n\"What do you say Mi?\" Yu asked. \n\nMi frowned. \"I dunno Yu, a soul is like important and stuff. And we have like this special one, you know.\"\n\n\"You're totally right!\" Yu nodded. \"Ours is worth like 3 souls. Yeah.\"\n\n\"That's it, I'm burning this town down. And you won't get your drugs you hippies!\" The Devil sneered and left angrilly. \n\n\"So that's why when you get high, I also get high...\" Mi giggled. \n\n\"Dude...\" Yu smiled widely. \n\nNeither noticed that their town was being burned to the ground. ", "\"No,\" he said, sounding slightly annoyed. \n\nI stared at him, agape. \"But..but why not? Is my soul not worth enough?\"\n\n\"Where have you heard of the idea of selling your soul to the devil?\"\n\nI looked at him confusedly. \"Uh...I don't know. It's just...a thing that happens, I thought.\" I gestured to the black occult books strewn about my bed. \"I followed the instructions and amazingly, they actually worked and you're here, so I thought...\"\n\n\"OK, I'll give you credit for that,\" he allowed, \"you did your research and got the sigils right and...is that a dead bunny?\" He pointed to Fluffles, the family pet, whose internal organs I had carefully arranged onto the points of the pentacle I had drawn in his own blood. Satan whistled. \"Shit, boy, your mother is going to drag you to the priest for daily sodomizations for a month...\"\n\n\"So why won't you buy my soul?\" I interrupted.\n\nHe sighed heavily. \"You gotta stop listening to TV and junk about serious stuff like this, kid. Read something for a change. Like the Bible.\"\n\n\"Seriously? The Devil is telling me to read that rag?\" I shot back with a snicker. \"That's, like, super ironic.\"\n\n\"It is pretty ironic,\" he agreed, \"but my point is, if you were well versed, you would've known that deals with the Devil ain't a thing.\"\n\n\"What!?\"\n\n\"Yup,\" he said cheerfully. \"Not one person in the Bible sold their soul to me. I mean, think about it: if they were the kind to want to sell their souls, I would have them anyway, after they died. Pretty useless bargaining chip, y'know?\"\n\n\"You're just...making shit up,\" I said angrily. It sounded kind of logical, but the Devil is a tricky person, that much I knew. I wasn't about to let him rip me off. \"Just--\"\n\n\"John? John, are you up in your room? We're going to be late to the Church charity drive!\"\n\nI blanched at the sound of my mother's voice. Shit, I had run out of time! I was supposed to have the power to make her disappear by now, but the Devil was being such an ass. I took several steps back, mind racing.\n\n\"Are you even dressed, young man? Oh, never mind. I'm coming up!\" For a second, I stood there frozen. Then, when I heard her climbing the stairs, a jolt of electricity ran through and I leapt into action, locking the door and whirling around to face the Devil.\n\n\"You gotta help me!\" I whispered frantically. \n\nHe rolled his eyes and pointed to the ground. I followed his gnarled finger and saw that the circle of salt surrounding the pentacle star had a break in it; I must've stepped on it at some point. Horrible realization dawned on me. I looked up at him.\n\n\"Sorry, kid,\" he said, waving a hand at me. \"See you in hell, probably.\" And with a crack and wisp of smoke, he was gone.\n", "Morningstar pinches the space between his eyes and sighs.\n\n\"I, I just can't.\"\n\nPietre takes off his glasses, his hands trembling softly. He rubs each lens between his silk handkerchief, the fine tremor slowing his process. He replaces the glasses and stares into the cool blue eyes of the young man sat opposite him.\n\n\"I prayed, and I prayed.\" Tears fill Pietre's milky eyes as he speaks. He blinks, sending a few droplets rolling down his thin, wrinkled cheeks. \"But nobody answered. Until you.\"\n\nMorningstar adjusts one of his cufflinks. It shines almost as brightly as his light blonde hair. He clears his throat, the sound almost filling the small living room. A neat little teacup sits next to him, the foul smelling herbal concoction within still steaming.\n\n\"You understand who I am? What I am?\" Morningstar rubs at the black paint on the tablecloth next to him, forming a small chip in the pentagram that surrounds the teacup.\n\n\"I understand.\" Pietre nods, his head trembling in union with his hands. He gestures around the living room, the old armchair containing him groaning in protest. Pictures line his walls and window sill, smiling faces dulled by a thin film of dust. \"This is all I have now. I am an old man, what worth do I offer to the world? At least in death, I can give meaning.\"\n\nMorningstar smiles sadly, his teeth shining behind thin lips. His eyes rest on a silver frame on the mantelpiece, containing a young boy. The boy is also smiling sadly.\n\n\"Is that him?\"\n\nPietre nods. He reaches out for the chipped wooden stick resting against his chair, and pulls himself up slowly. His movement over to the picture frame is stilted, his steps small and rigid. Morningstar tilts his head to one side before standing to join him. He rests his hand on Pietre's shoulder as the old man speaks.\n\n\"Too young. Cancer is an illness for the old. He is too young.\" Pietre doubles over his stick, banging it hard against the ground as he speaks. \"Please, you have to accept! You have to!\"\n\nMorningstar lifts the picture frame from the mantle and studies the boy, before handing the frame to Pietre. He guides him back to his armchair and waits patiently as Pietre finds his way down. He crouches down to meet Pietre's desperate gaze.\n\n\"Your actions are pure. Selfless.\" Morningstar speaks slowly, frowning as he does so. \"There is no place in Hell for you, Pietre.\" He rests his hand on Pietre's knee, gently squeezing the thin leg below.\n\nPietre sobs now, his shoulders shaking as he gasps for air. His tears strike the glass of the frame in his hands. Morningstar stands, his frown remains.\n\n\"Go to your grandson, my friend.\"\n\nPietre blinks, and is suddenly alone. He dabs his handkerchief against the wet glass in his lap, his touch hovering over the face of the boy. He sighs." ]	5
	[WP] Describe an obstacle in your life that you had to overcome. How did it go? Were you changed at all?	[ "True story. \n\nOn November 8th, 2007 I was scheduled to undergo a routine arthroscopic surgery on my left knee. During the surgery, I woke up, and was awake for thirty out of forty-five minutes. It was very scary, and as you can imagine, left me with emotional scars, and sleep problems. For a coupleof years after, I just wanted to die. The flasbacks were he'll, and I only slept about forty-five minutes a night. What changed me was meeting another Anesthesia Awareness survivor, who'd woken up during FOUR surgeries! Her tale terrified me, and when she made me promise to never shut up about Anesthesia Awareness, my psyche began to heal. It's not been easy, and I still have sleep issues, but knowing I've learned things that can prevent Awarenesses, it really has helped me heal, and I'm no longer suicidal. I can say 'that which almost killed me made me ten times stronger than I was before. It almost killed me, but ended up saving me instead.' life's ironic like that'", "It came a little late, but I had a bit of a revalation while on a table, in a hospital gown, ready to get a needle poked into my spine. And that revalation was this - I wasn't going to get better. Not to the better I used to know, anyway.\n\nI spent a really, really long time telling myself that I couldn't be disabled. I couldn't! I'm not in a wheelchair, I'm not really disabled. I may have severe depression and anxiety, but that didn't keep me out of a job...until it did, and I had to go to the hospital. I may have headaches and full body pain that makes me sob, but I still can work...until I couldn't, and I had to go to the hospital.\n\nWhen you come to grips with realizing that maybe life won't be like you thought it would, and maybe you won't be able to do quite as much as you used to, you go through a mourning period. Sure, there's tons of inspirational folks out there, and inspirational platitudes, and supportive people, but none of that really gets through when you're grieving. You get angry, yelling at the room around you that you don't deserve this, that this isn't fair. You bargain, telling yourself that if you just get through the day you can take that muscle relaxer after work.\n\nAs far as acceptance...that takes a good long while. It took me a while to stop breaking into sobs. I think it helped that, even though I had to give up the life I knew and move home, I went cross country to do it. Driving alongside sweeping vistas and mountains and cliffs, and powering through the perhaps not so grand states (Iowa is flat. Flat flat flat flat.) - the trip home helped take my mind off of my situation. It wasn't exactly an easy move, but it was something of a vacation. I could take a minute, breathe, and look out the window and just take in the beauty (and Iowa.) It was nice, and after all the stress of becoming so sick and having to change my life, it was a breather I desperately needed.\n\nTo be honest, I'm not all the way ok yet. I still cry sometimes. I'm disabled. I have a grab bag of illnesses. I still wish I could have my old normal back. I don't think that ever really goes away. However, the black hole of sadness isn't quite as close - I'm finding a new normal. I have a routine that brings me comfort, and I have the time now to write and sketch and generally be creative. Sure, I'm doing that while I'm waiting for test results or getting used to medication, but I still have the time and ability to find what make me happy.\n\nThere's no real solid ending to this. There never is, honestly. I'm \"better\" though, in that I came to terms with what I'm dealing with. After all the tests and meds and doctors visits, I'm ok with at least being at peace with myself.", "Many considered me a ghost, others considered me mute, I considered myself weak. Seeing my peers have conversations so easily was like watching ballerinas; such a graceful art that I know I will never be able to gracefully do.\n\nI sat stonefaced for years, continually shrinking into the background, forgotten. Soon nobody knew who I was, and neither did I. \n\n\"Should I speak or stay silent?\", I asked myself once again.\n\nI always hyped myself up, telling myself I could do it, telling myself that I would speak loud and clear for all to hear! My thoughts flowed and my mouth opened, but quickly shut again. \n\n\"Nobody would care what I have to say\", I told myself.\n\nSo I stayed silent still. Years I didn't speak, many people who I knew since before I could write my name forgot who I was. Then one day, despite being surrounded by people, I was entirely alone.\n\nWhen it seemed I would not speak again, I was asked, \"Who was I?\"\n\nI was stunned. I had no answer, but still I replied. As soon as my mouth shut I was asked another question, then after that, another. I was talking more in ten minutes than I had in two years.\n\nThat day, I went home and had a name. That day, I went home and spoke. That day, when I was all alone, I felt more surrounded by people than I had in years.", "I'm five years old, the birthday cake is alight in front of me, candles dribbling wax onto the giant number '5' that has cars and a race-track drawn onto it. Petulant disappointment fills me; I don't like cars; they only exist in my life because my father is a motor mechanic and he thinks they are cool, so as his son, I should like them by default. \n\"Make a wish!\" says my stepmother. \nThe candles gutter out under my breath and I make the wish. \nI wish I was a girl. \nThat night I go to bed excited. No one has ever told me who grants birthday wishes. Maybe it's a birthday fairy like the Tooth Fairy; her dress like a layered cake, twinkling with candles. Maybe it's God or it's someone else. Whoever it is, I hope they heard me and I get my wish. \nBut in the morning I'm the same. I don't quite know what I was expecting, other than to feel happy, to have been made a girl. I get dressed in disappointment; my wardrobe is not full of princess gowns and fairy-crafted slippers, my hair is still so short it's basically stubble. \nFor the rest of the day I'm melancholy and cantankerous; sullen and hurt. \n\nI seven. I learned about wishing on a star, so I try this every night. \nI wish to be a girl, make me into a girl. \nThen I learn about God and I pray to him every night, begging him to fix me. \nFor my eighth birthday we go to a production of Pinocchio at the university theatre and I 'm captivated. \nI know how you feel, wooden boy! I want to scream at the stage, I just want to be a real girl! \nMy family would walk past that theatre on the way to feeding the ducks at the University lakes and I would press my face up against the glass, staring into the darkness of the closed theatre, looking for the Blue Fairy, in case she was there to grant my wish. \nBut I never saw her again. \nIt didn't stop me looking though. \n\nMy teenage years begin and the others know there's something off about me. \nI don't like sport, I'm not interested in anything much except reading and drawing; endless portraits of myself as a girl are drawn and destroyed before anyone can see them. They are my secret, my shame. \n\"Teasing is normal\" I'm told by the teachers and my parents, but I don't have any friends. In this macho, rural culture of wife-bashing, beer-drinking masculinity, I am anathema. \nFaggot becomes synonymous with my name and I regularly sport cuts and bruises from my excursions outside the library and classrooms. I grow to hate people, I grow to hate humanity. \nI nearly tell the school counselor what I dream of being, but a stray comments about homosexuals makes me rethink that immediately. \nHopelessly depressed, I retreat further into the worlds I write and draw; writing becomes my lifeline - in my stories I can be who I was supposed to be. \nSo I survive. \n\nI'm sixteen; my parents caught me crossdressing. \nWhat little money I had leftover from buying books and pencils went into buying some women's clothes. \nNo, not women's clothes, my clothes. \nMy stepmother rages, disappointed that it's 1994 and people like me can't be thrown into mental institutions and forgotten about. My father tells me I'm gay and to 'stop it or else'. \nThen come the threats. My stepmother threatens to leave my father if I ever do it again. My father threatens to 'punch my lights out' if I do it again. \nSo again I retreat, further into the world of my writing. I engross myself in art, creating wildly insane, surrealist landscapes to escape from this perpetually confusing and ugly reality. \nBut I make a promise to myself that I won't give up. \nOnce I am free of my parents, I can be free. \n\nEighteen now, I've left home. \nI struggle with my gender daily, trying to figure out how to make the change over. I grow my hair out and people are regularly baffled by what sex I am - often they're downright rude and sometimes abusive. \nI confide in my best friend, who responds with incredulous bigotry. \nShamed, I retreat back into some semblance of masculinity, but he knows now. \nCareless, he spreads my secret around and my 'perversion' becomes known. It's like school again and what progress I have made is lost in a whirlpool of emotions; regret, shame, yearning, desperation, fear, hope and despair. \nI start to give up. \nThere is no Blue Fairy. \n\nI'm twenty one, in the army and doing my best to become the best facsimile of a man there is. \nBut despite my best efforts, I'm still pegged as 'a bit gay' and 'sensitive'. My parents are happy with me though; seemingly for the first time in my life. My stepmother confides in me that she is proud, that I did the right thing. \nEveryone is happy it seems, my sister, my grandparents, my old teachers, family friends. \nHappiness, it seems, is something you create for other people - or something elusive that hangs in the distant future, a fantasy. \nI do what I'm supposed to do; I date women and I find one with two children. We move in and I play happy families, pretending to be 'normal' and 'happy'. \nBut like all shams, it lasts only so long. The illusion becomes too hard to maintain. \nAt twenty four I leave the army and I leave her. \nFor the first time in my life I start to feel free. \n\nI'm twenty eight and an alcoholic when I finally give in. \nSuicide had been on the table as an option. The other two options were to transition or find something stronger than drink. \nMy cowardice saves me; transition now seems like the least scary of the three options. \nI come out to my boss. I come out to work. \nAs expected, it's terrifying and awful. I'm a man in a dress and I'm miserable. \nBut underlying the misery from how other people are treating me, the happiness grows within. \nI start on hormones, I grow my hair. \nEvery 'ma'am' and 'miss' is a blessing; a breath of oxygen on the smoldering ember of my happiness. \nThe pictures show the evidence; in each image my smile is bigger, broader, more genuine. \nI start to feel alive! \n\nThe room in the Thai hospital is cold, the air conditioning is blasting and I'm shivering uncontrollably. \nMy throat is dry and I croak for water and a blanket, which are promptly provided by a nurse. \nI won't see the results of the surgery for another three days, but I know it's been done. I am whole for the first time in my life. \nThe nurse calls in my fiancé and he rushes in to hold my hand as she wheels my bed back to my room. \nShe's like me, most of the nurses are. \nDressed in blue, I realise that I finally found where all the Blue Fairies come from." ]	4
	[WP] The Titanic is stuck in a time loop, hitting the iceberg and sinking over and over...forever. And only one person on board is aware of the day repeating	[ "I open my eyes as the sun comes up. It begins again.\n\nAll of my efforts to avert the looming disaster have been in vain. I've staged armed takeovers of the wheelhouse and executed full-scale sabotage in the engine room! Attempts at altering the ships course or mitigating its forward progress are fruitless. It is always there, no matter where we go... we hit the iceberg and the ship sinks! It's been many months now and there are only two constants for me... the nightly fate of the ship and my enduring memories of each event. I am now tempted to begin each recurrent day by acquiring a pistol and taking my own life. I cannot continue to live through the hopelessness of the night and early morning that is yet to come.\n\nWhat am I supposed to derive from this? What is the lesson for me? Have I been cast in this macabre production for eternity?\n\nMoliere said \"We die only once, and for such a long time\"... My God, if only this could be true!\n\nOnce again, I've got all day to dwell on this and mentally prepare myself... but right now I'm hungry. I make my way to the second-class dining saloon, and take my breakfast with a cheerful group of young men! I eat grilled ham, fried eggs, potatoes and buckwheat cakes with maple syrup. The talk is light and lively, everyone is happy and pleasant. I strike up a conversation with the young man seated directly to my right. His name is Henry Cotterille and he's a Carpenter from Cornwall. He insists that I call him \"Harry\"... I insist that he call me \"Robby\"... we become fast friends! Harry is making his way to America with his companions \"George\" and \"Percy\". They all hope to find good paying jobs there. Harry tells me of his dream to marry and own property. I ask him to tell me of his life in Cornwall, and he gives me gloriously vivid accounts of his home, his brothers, and his parents. His father passed away 3 years ago... Harry dearly loved his Father and it was clearly a crushing loss for him.\n\nI spend the day with Harry listening to his tales, and I also shared stories of my life and my family in Wales. George and Percy had struck out on their own earlier, but they rejoin us for Dinner and Drinks.\n\nThe late evening comes and Harry's companions have already left and gone to bed, I beg him to stay in the lounge and we drink, talk, and laugh. Then it happens, there is a slight \"Thud\" that's felt throughout the lounge... Harry wonders what has happened and I assure him it's likely nothing. The drinking resumes and all is well until a mild chaos ensues among the patrons and staff. Harry is alarmed and wishes to rejoin his companions in the stateroom, I assure him they'll be out with us shortly and we go outside to the boat deck.\n\nGeorge and Percy immediately show up outside to locate us... I find life jackets for all of us. They're all confused and scared. The ship is listing...she's obviously taking on water. They're young, but they're not stupid... they all know the ship is sinking and they look to me for a possible answer. I tell them to put on their life jackets and they do, I lie to them and tell them that I've been on and around boats my entire life. They listen carefully as I tell them how I counted the lifeboats the day I came aboard, I tell them there aren't enough for everyone and that most of the passengers will die tonight... they believe me. We move over to watch lifeboats being launched... the situation is now frenetic and the few boats that remain are being launched.\n\nI take them aside and tell them that there is only one way we'll survive this night... we must jump into the water and one of the lifeboats will see us and that they are required to rescue us. I lie about a universal maritime law that says lifeboats must rescue people in the water. They believe me yet question how cold the water will actually be. I assure them it'll be very cold, but it's our only way to survive this sinking. I tell them we must brace ourselves and jump in before everyone else does, otherwise there's no chance of rescue or survival by a lifeboat.\n\nWe hit the water and the cold is overwhelming... it'll be over soon. I assure them all that everything is fine and not to swim after the boats that they'll send one for us. It doesn't take very long at all and they drift away one by one. Then it grows dark and again I slip into the nightly nothingness. \n\nDuring that day spent with Harry, I made my decision! I will use this as a unique opportunity to personally meet and learn about the lives of every single person aboard this ship! From the Captain all the way down to the lowest boy working in the coal bunkers. I shall know them all! I'll fill my days and evenings with their stories and their company. I'll live vicariously through the eyes of them all one day at a time.\n\nIf I must spend eternity with them, then I must get to know them all! I'll make their acquaintance and endear myself to them. We shall talk, laugh, and share stories together, and I'll be a richer man for their company. Be they Lawyer, Housewife, Stone Mason, or Carpenter! The stories they'll share will be divine, there surely are some terribly interesting people aboard this magnificent ship! I can't wait for each new day, and meeting each new friend!\n\nAnd, when the moment comes, I'll be there to comfort each one of them. Each day, I'll be there with my new friends and I'll be close by their side. No matter what their status or given fate... I'll do my very best to ease their passing as the darkness and silence closes in once again.\n\nAfter it's done and the ship is gone... when the voices in the water have silenced. The pain is yet again allayed until the dawn. \n", "I have been looking for work for 8 months and finally was called for an interview. The interview felt a little challenging but I think I sold myself with the right knowledge for the job. The day after the interview I was offered the job. I sent in my token auth and it was approved. Even in 2283 getting a job is tough. \n\nMonday I was walked through a 15 minute orientation that I had to be in early for. After that I was dropped off at my workstation. My new boss informed me that my work would come through the mail system and I could start manipulating the data for executives to review. At least I have a job. I looked at the time and it was 8:04 am, as the clock hit 8:05 my surroundings changed and I was sitting in what appeared to be a cabin on a ship. I stood up and looked at my uniform, the name tag read J Moody. I appear to be an officer on a ship. I left my cabin and walked down the hall and saw something disturbing. The sign said It was the RMS Titanic. I went to check my net connection for information but it was blank. I was no longer plugged in. I worked my way to the bridge and was asked which table I am entertaining for dinner. I don’t know was my response and the crew member directed me to the reservation list. I looked at the list and found the table James Moody was supposed to sit at. I still have no idea why I am here. I remember a titanic ship mentioned in history class but not exactly what happened. I think this ship will sink.\n\nDinner was really good but the conversation was not so great I had no idea what type of technology these people are using. I feel out of place. I think I will take a nap. I woke up to knocking on my cabin door that help was needed on deck the ship has hit an iceberg. \n\nPeople were getting on the lifeboats and I assisted for an hour. I tried to help where I could but doom seemed closer. I had been on the ship for 7 hours. I dont want to die here. The chaos started and people began to fight for a place on a lifeboat. I wanted to get on one but the other officers would not let me. The water hit my feet and at that moment I realized the end was coming as the ship began to tear I fell in the water and was not close enough to a lifeboat to get pulled in. I started to swim towards a lifeboat. The water is really cold, I cannot swim fast enough I feel myself getting weak. I went under the water, kicked my feet and hit my workstation wall. I looked around and was at work. I looked at the time and the clock hit 5pm. My boss was walking by, looked at me and said I had a great first day at the office and he looks forward to more of the same.\n\nFor 6 months from Monday to friday I go in to work and at 8:05am I am transported to the titanic. No one believes me. It has been suggested I go to a well being therapist to get help. I really need to have a job. I need to get somewhere in life I must keep going. I know now that I am on the ship for 8 hours and leave right as it breaks apart. I have met many of the people on board. I have researched what happens. I have even tried telling the crew to turn the ship early. Several times but I was locked up and told I am crazy. I have stopped trying to change what happens and just try to survive each day as James Moody without going insane.\n\nMy mid year performance review was coming up at work. My boss has asked me to come in 15 minutes early, as I have been told my work is crucial to the business. I don’t feel my contribution is making any difference. Do they even know what happens to me every day. I think not. \n\nI went in for my review. I am doing well and received a promotion to a senior data manipulation architect. He even told me my messages that I send out to the executives are exemplary. I ask him what we talk about on days and he replied with nothing. He informed me that I am one of the best workers with great focus on my job. I dont understand. I watch 1200 people go to their death every weekday. It is not fun. I ask if there are any other positions open. He said no. Back to my workstation. It is 8:03 maybe if I walk slow and get to my station at 8:07 I will miss the change. I walk by other people and they are all working very hard. I see my desk and stop. time is 8:05 am. Cabin. Again. I am going to lose my mind being on this ship as it sinks every day.\n\nI open my door to go to work just like you. When the clock hits 8:05 am no matter where I am my day changes. No one believes me. This isn’t a government conspiracy. What is my lesson to learn I do not know. I will press on because I need a job.\n\nEvery day I relive the last hours of the Titanic and do not know what my purpose is. Another 6 months has passed and I have met every single person on the titanic. I know their history and why they left england to go to the US. I am tired of this and want a new job. On weekends I have applied and sent my resume. No offers or interviews from anyone. \n\nI arrived for my 1 year review. Once again I am doing great work. I dont think I am. I ask why am I here. My boss says I am here to organize data in a way that executives can present it to the stockholders for more investment as he trails off blah blah. I see people falling in the water and dying. I am not even at my desk and I am seeing their lives flash before me. I ask again if there are any other openings in the company. He says he will look. Then he says once again how great I am doing and mentions a bonus check. I go back to my desk numb. I have lost my friends. All I have is this job. I sit down and look at my workstation. I check the time it is 8:09 am. I think I missed the titanic today. I am so relieved. I look up at the ceiling and start to smile at something different. Change is coming I cannot wait. The ceiling changes and I am in a different office. An old style L shaped desk is around me. I am not on a ship anymore. I am excited to see something new. \n\nI have walked around this office and looked out the window, I see there are lots of buildings and a nice city view. I am on the 97th floor of a large building. I found a calendar on my desk that says september 11, 2001. The clock says 7:30 am.\n\nI am so glad it is a new day to experience. ", "I woke up in my bed again. This couldn't be right, I had to be dead this time. I looked out my bedroom window, the night was still young and people were scattered all across the deck. They couldn't remember?I jumped out of my bed and dashed down the hall. I need to warn them. The ship was going to crash again and again and again if I didn't divert its course. The last few times I hadn't really noticed it, but the same event kept on occurring. The ship would hit an iceberg, it starts to sink and then those left on board die. I made my way up too the captains quarters and broke down the door. No time for knocking. He spun round and began yelling at me. \"What the bloody hell do you think your doing son!?\" he screamed. I quickly scanned the room for keys to the main cabin. He gave a weak attempt to bowl me over when I went for the keys but I easily pushed him out of the way. With keys in hand I needed to get to the flywheel and steer the ship off course. It had to be close to the front of the ship and it was probably up near the top. Unluckily for me the captain (who had now decided I was a hijacker) came around the corner up ahead with a pistol in hand. BANG\n\nLoop 29\n\nI have a strategy for this now. Run to the captains quarters. Knock then wait five seconds before kicking the door in, knocking the captain behind it out cold. Steal his pistol from his inner right jacket pocket and use a pillow to suppress the noise made by shooting him in the face. Get to the flywheel in one piece and immediately bludgeon the sailor at the wheel with the butt of the captains pistol. Spin the flywheel to the left and put the now unconscious sailor in the nearby closet after stealing his uniform. Great, now what? Truth be told I had never made it this far. I had adjusted for getting the captain unconscious as soon as possible to avoid complications, killing him to get rid of his further involvement for good. I got the sailor out of the way so he didn't get help and stole his uniform after hiding him so I didn't get made. Just great, I don't know what comes next. Suddenly a loud screech filled the air. I had fucked up.\n\nLoop 96\n\nI don't get it. I move the wheel to the left, the right, hell I spun the whole ship around and we still hit that god damn iceberg. I'm beginning to feel like this is a nightmare, or more likely, hell on earth.\n\nLoop 147\n\nOkay something is wrong. The passengers are all gone, the captains corpse is at the flywheel with a lit cigar in its mouth. Every time I turn around I get chills down my spine. The water outside is blood red. I just don't get it. Something is following me, I can only get glimpses of them before they vanish around a corner.\n\nLoop 231\n\nI saw one of the fuckers. This thing was standing in the middle of the ballroom surrounded by bodies, it must have stood three meters high and had no eyes, just a mouth with a constant smile. Its there every time I walk past, just looking at me. It doesn't even move its body, just its head.\n\nLoop 379\n\nIt moved. It fucking moved. If I don't get out of here soon I'll go insane.\n\nLoop 504\n\nI jumped on a life raft first chance I got, one of the things was watching me from a distance. When I got about 100 meters out I noticed the words 'You can't save them' written all down the side of the boat. What is this reality anymore other than a warped nightmare that gets worse and worse by the day.\n\nLoop 920\n\nIts moving while I'm looking at it now. It followed me back to my room and is breaking down the door. I just went out and grabbed the captains pistol, I'll end myself before this thing does.\n\nLoop 1000\n\nI can't take it anymore. I tried so hard to save this ship, but I guess you can't cheat death. The others died a long time ago, I stayed but why? Did I believe I could make a difference? That thing out there has been waiting patiently for me to finish up, move on. It hasn't been hunting me. Its been trying to ask why I put myself through all of this. What did I accomplish in the end by trying to stop an event that had already happened. Its standing above me right now. \"Are you done?\" It asks. \"I accept death, I tried to avoid it for as long as I could but now I realize the reality I created by trying too was one were nobody survived.\" Was my response. \n\nI didn't even hesitate to take his hand. Maybe now I could die without waking up.\n\nMaybe now I could finally rest." ]	3

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