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Kate was just turned fifteen and nervous. Her mother held her hand with a warm grip. They were the only ones in the waiting room but she still whispered like they were in church. "No need to worry, pet. Dr Lieber is a professional. He's been doing this since before you were a twinkle in your father's eye" Kate shuddered. No matter what the situation, her mother could always make her feel a little bit more uncomfortable. She surveyed her mother’s face. Deb Towney was never without her glowing smile and Kate wondered if she'd ever even needed the surgery. Her mother spoke as if she could hear her thoughts. "I got my ducts severed on my fifteenth birthday too. As did Adam and Sam. Within two days it won't hurt at all" Deb ran her fingers through Kate's sandy locks. "Two days catching up on Gossip Girl doesn't sound too bad, does it?" she cooed. Kate nodded, her lips unmoving. Dr Lieber's nurse poked her head out. She had the same smile Deb did. "We'll take you now, Kate" she said. Deb waved Kate good luck as she was led away. She was nervous for her youngest child. Perhaps they'd left it too late? Lieber had confided in her that Kate's check scars may be permanent. He'd wanted to schedule the operation sooner, but Deb was conflicted between Lieber and tradition. When Darren, her husband, got involved tradition won out. Poor Kate, she was always such a temperamental child, prone to tantrums and fits of crying. Even now Deb could sense she was holding back tears. Deb sighed. Kate would never be a beauty queen. The only daughter of the world renowned Deb Towney, stripped of her birth right because she couldn't contain herself as a child. Such a pity. At least she wouldn't be as bad the Marcos' children, who had deep, off-colour scars around their eyes, or Philip Amis, Adam’s friend who looked like he'd been in a knife fight. Dr Lieber assuaged Kate's fears on the operating table. Like most men of his age, the doctor hadn't received the surgery until later in life. Fortunately for him, he was rarely distressed and his scars were small and faint. He smiled at Kate, revealing his prominent upper row of teeth like an aging mule. He was counting on his fingers. "…and Hannah Small and Diane –what's her name – and do you know Aaron Jennings? Yeah? Did him as well" He affixed the mask on her face and put a hand on her shoulder. "Half your school I've done, Kate. Look how great they all turned out. No need to be nervous at all" he told her. Dr Lieber began readying the equipment as he spoke to Kate, making his voice trail off. For someone who'd done this over a thousand times, Dr Lieber seemed quite distracted. The nurse spoke but no sound came from her mouth. Dr Lieber didn't seem to think it was odd and when he replied no sound came from his mouth either. Kate smiled. It's the gas, silly. It's the gas taking effect, she thought. Dr Lieber hovered over her with a scalpel. Her uprooted lips stayed in the same position forever more.

Write a story about someone living in a world where tears leave physical scars.

"Hey c'mon Joe! Don't be a fuckin' panzy ass!" You could hear the cries of a muffled woman in the background as the soldiers argued amongst themselves. "A panzy ass? Don't call me a panzy ass 'Mr. I'm Afraid of Spiders'! There is no way I will let you take advantage of this young woman, it is immoral and disgusting." Private Joe was the embodiment of the perfect American soldier during WWII: He was tall, strong, and a family man with good ol' Christian values. The other soldiers he was with, Sleezy Sam and Hots as they were called, were typical high school slackers that would be doing nothing with their lives hadn't the draft come around. "Joe, Joe, ya don't understand, she totally okay with it. She wants to be *liberated* if ya know what I mean!" Sleezy and Hots exchanged high fives whenever Hots made some stupid pun. The woman continued to let out moans of agony and repeatedly shook her head. She didn't deserve this; she was just a young German girl that happened to live right in the area of the battle scene. She wasn't our enemy, she couldn't have been older than fifteen. Sleezy grabbed at the woman "Okay, baby. Prepare to taste some authentic American pepperoni!" *Slap!* Sleezy let go of the girl, leaving her to fall to the ground. Joe had just gave Sleezy the smack of a lifetime. Joe wasn't gonna fuck around. "YOU TWO!" Joe shouted unnecessary loud. "YOU TWO WILL LEAVE THIS SHED AND MARCH BACK INTO THE BATTLELINES BEFORE LT. LANCE HEARS ABOUT THIS!" Sleezy and Hots backed off. It's safe to say that Joe got his point across. "Fine" Sleezy sighed "*We'll go.* ^^Fuckin' ^^tattle-tale." Sleezy and Hots walked out of the shed. "Don't worry Sleeze, lets go find another broad." Joe was left in the shed alone, along with the ruffed up girl. Joe looked over at the girl. She stopped squirming around, she looked relieved that she had been saved of her virginity, and sanity. Joe walked over to her and he bent down. She was expecting him to untie her and let her go, but his facial expressions had changed for the worse. She started to fidget around in fear again. Joe looked like he about to scream in her face, but he kept his voice down low, almost to a whisper. "Don't think you're free just yet. You know why I got those other two knuckeheads out of our hair." Joe extended his arm towards her hair, and pulled at it so hard, revealing her real face from the mask she was wearing. Joe didn't know what was ready to make him vomit: It was either the slimy green skin, or the unnatural third eye that made uncomforting noises every time 'it' blinked. "I know there are more of your kind on this continent. You think this war is about finding Adolf? He's only a decoy to the real issue! The U.S Government knows what your kind is up to, and I'll be damned if I let your kind blow up this planet that I call Earth! The alien stopped moving around, and turned itself towards Joe. "It is too late, Private Joe Robinson of 48 Greenwood Drive, Omaha, Nebraska. That's right, I know everything about you." Joe was taken back. *How did this alien know his personal information?* Of course i know Hitler is just a face in the game! Did you think we are imbeciles? If we were, we wouldn't be blowing up your 'beloved' planet! Joe was dumbfounded. "You won't blow us up!" He was nervous incase the alien's bluff was true "You're too late, Private. In T-minus 3 hours, this planet will cease to exist. Kill me if you want, all of us here are martyrs anyway, we plan to die here! Have fun spending your last time on Earth fighting a battle your incompetent people started!" Joe stood up. There was nothing he could do. He took his pistol out and shot the alien in the head. Killing the alien would do nothing to prevent the downfall of mankind, but it brought a personal satisfaction to Joe, knowing that he did all he could to protect his people, the people he was defending and the people he was fighting. *** -006 EDIT: I realized I accidentally switched Joe's name to Jim in the middle of the story. Derp.

A young woman is captured by soldiers during WWII with intents of rape. One of the soldiers defends her, but with darker motives.

Why did I choose this for myself? At the time I loved living so much. My death was sudden--- a car accident, brain damage, and the brief coma before life support was switched off. I wanted to see my four year old grow up, watch my wife and see if she was okay. I wanted to see my parents and my siblings and still feel like I was a part of their lives. I wanted to walk around town, see the world, interact with others. I just wasn't ready to go. So I chose spectator. A permanent decision based on a sudden accident. I quickly learned to stop watching my wife. She mourned for a year, maybe two, before dating again. To me, it seemed like no time at all. Soon she was going out with new men, introducing my baby girl to them, and bringing them into the bedroom. I was happy she was happy, but I still felt she was mine. I just couldn't watch. My daughter was always a stopping point on my list. I wanted to see how she was doing. I watched her sometimes at school, sometimes when she was with friends, and I definitely watched her with the boy she first started dating. Days blurred to months and then to years. I couldn't remember how often I visited her, but I made sure that I was walking down the aisle with her at her wedding, although she was holding the hand of her stepfather. The hardest one to watch was my mother. When I first visited her, she was still in bed, not willing to get up and do anything. My father tried to comfort her and tell her I was in a better place, but she refused to believe it. One of the most hopeless parts of spectating is when you wish to help, you can't. I spent hours pleading with her to get out of bed, just hoping she would hear or feel something, but it did no good. My father continued to work and support her. I could see in his eyes the sadness but also compassion. He knew her pain, as it was the same as his. I'm not sure anyone understood why my mom coped the way she did, but she took her life a year later. I almost died over again, standing in the room, sobbing with her, asking her to put the pills down. My dad returned home from work to a corpse. I couldn't handle watching the pain of my family. After 20 years of hovering, I left for good. Sometimes I wonder how my grandkids are doing, how my wife is, how her marriage worked out. I can only pray that they are alright. I never thought I would pray after I died. Though time isn't something I focus on, I do check a calendar occasionally. Tomorrow marks the forty year anniversary of my death. If I could go back, I would move on and leave Earth. Not one moment of time is worth being here. Some moments make it worse. Like the time I ran in front of the child in the street on to see the car pass through me and crush him. The time I tried to pull the drunk man out from the driver's seat before he went and broke a family. The times I've tried to offer comfort to those crying on a bench, a sidewalk, a staircase. My heart has broken many times. It shouldn't hurt, seeing as how it doesn't function anymore, but I feel the aching pains of sadness and helplessness. All I can do is ask the question, "Why am I here?" over and over. There had to be a reason for this option, but spectating has proved worthless and painful. I never wish to feel crippling sadness ever again. Which is why I am sitting in the corner of this deserted farmhouse, away from accidental encounters. I sit here wasting my moments of eternity, hoping to one day fade away.

When you die, you can choose to go to the next world — or you can choose to become a Spectator. (More in post)

“So, doc, what’s the diagnosis?” I smile when I say this, showing all my teeth. In most animals this would be a sign of aggression, but it seems to put him at ease. “I’m afraid, Mr. Berkshire, that the reason for your, shall we say, discontent with your current lifestyle stems from severely psychopathic tendencies. You see, it’s not uncommon for…” I blink slowly as he continues on, leaning back into the chair. I can’t seem to sit comfortably on it—the cushion’s shit. You’d think this therapist would spend some of the money I pay him on improving the décor, but no, instead he thinks it’s a better use of his time to lecture me on how I’m a potential serial killer. “… certain, highly successful, entirely outwardly normal individuals to secretly harbor these feelings, or lack thereof. I’m sure you’ve heard of American Psycho—that book, while fictional, does a stellar job of portraying—“ “I’m sorry, what?” The chair’s become too uncomfortable to sit in silence anymore. “You’re saying I’m a real-life Patrick Bateman?” “Well, no, you—you don’t seem to have any, uh, murderous tendencies, but, given what you’ve described to me—the boredom, the inability to connect with others, the way you carry yourself—“ “The way I carry myself? Come on, doc, you can’t be telling me that because I like to laugh and make people laugh, and because I understand how to get what I want that I’m some sort of—of—lunatic?” This goddamn chair. Why doesn’t he understand that I can’t be myself when I’m uncomfortable? I’m not coming back here if he doesn’t change it. “No, of course not, Jack, it’s just—you’ve told me yourself, about the way you never understood your siblings, how they annoyed you when they cried or talked about their concerns, how everything you do inevitably becomes dull—you’ve changed fields three times in a decade, for Chrissake!” The doc’s getting nervous, I can see. Sweating too much, and he keeps clicking that huge pen of his. I hate it. “So, I get bored, big fucking deal, everyone does it.” I smile again—it’s pained this time though, just like my back. He sweats some more. “I’ve never—Jesus! What kinda nerve do you have, calling me a—“ “Jack, please. You asked for my professional opinion. Everyone harbors some degree of psychopathy. Your case is just particularly pronounced. It doesn’t mean that you’ll hurt or kill anyone, it just means the inhibitions present in others are not there for you.” He keeps clicking that pen, back and forth, back and— “Could you stop that? I’m trying to think here.” Thing’s almost as bad as the chair. It stops. “My apologies.” He’s still sweating, flicking his eyes from me to the pen. “Thank you.” I make a grimace that I hope passes for forgiving. “I guess this explains why I killed that kid who took my tricycle in the third grade, huh?” He starts. “I’m sorry, wha—“ “Oh, come on, Doc, give me a fucking break.” I laugh a bit, but he doesn’t seem convinced. “Of course I didn’t kill someone over a tricycle.” His mouth curls up hesitantly. “Of—of course. That kind of pathological lying, though, is also indicative—“ “Oh, come off of it!” I stand up and pace around the spacious office, glancing at him as he shrinks back into his chair. “You think because I hit my sisters a few times when I was a kid and never said sorry for it and lied to my parents when they asked me about it and lied to my friends when they asked me what my dad did and lied to my girlfriend when she wanted to visit my folks but I said they were dead that I’m a—“ Shit. “—I think our time’s up, Jack.” His voice squeaks out as he clasps his pen, clicking the point out one more time slowly. “I think a different therapist would serve you better.” I nod slowly, breathing deep. The pacing’s brought some sweat out—I’ll have to change this shirt—but it’s better than sitting in that chair. “Of course, doc. Send me some recommendations. Thank you for the… diagnosis. It’s very enlightening.” He nods, loosening his grip on the pen. “No problem, good luck.” “Thanks.” I stride towards the door, pausing for a second. “One more thing—about that kid?” He stares at me, eyes blinking steadily. “Yes?” “It was a bicycle, doc. My favorite bicycle. Only bicycle, to be honest. And that fucker took it from me. I didn’t kill him, course, just broke his arm. And his leg. Well, both his legs. Told the neighbors he fell off while riding. Which he did.” He won’t stop looking at me, his face scrunched up like he’s about to either scream or pass out. “Jack—I really think you—“ I shut the door behind me.

After attending a therapist for a mild issue, the therapist diagnoses you as a psychopath. Though in denial at first, you begin to realize that it explains some of the strange occurrences in your life.

There really wasn't much point in living anymore. No reason to go on when the only things greeting you each morning are an empty hole in the ground and yet another day of watching *Everybody Loves Raymond* on VHS. Tom would've killed whoever forgot to stock the Bunker's media library with anything besides three non-sequential seasons of a mediocre sitcom. That is to say, he would have killed him if he hadn't already been dead along with anybody else. Tom stroked his ragged beard and sighed. He looked at the door he'd just resealed. Candice had lasted a good while longer than the rest of them, but in the end, she didn't pull through and Tom hefted her disease-ravaged corpse from her bunk (not much of a feat after weeks of sickness) and piled her in the hydroponic garden with the other corpses. The plants had all died of neglect when the inhabitants of the Bunker started to fall ill and Tom doubted he could restart the operation on his own; besides, stacking the corpses in the garden seemed like the closest thing to a proper "burial" he could accomplish in a sealed concrete tube a quarter mile below ground. Tom sighed again, shook his head, and left the room, turning the lights out as he went. He walked down the corridor, pausing at each door either to turn out the light, or to make some small adjustment to the detritus 30 dead survivors leave behind, or to just take a moment and remember. When he got to the end of the hall, Tom turned around and looked back. He flipped the breakers by the entryway and watched as one by one the lights went out. The darkness cascaded down the corridor like sheets of rain from a storm advancing across a wide open plain. Before the darkness got to him, Tom turned his back on the home he'd known for longer than any other and began to climb. The Last Survivor climbed the ladder to the surface deliberately, one rung at a time. *We didn't die in the war,* Tom thought to himself as he climbed, *we were still alive, but we might as well have been blown up with everyone else. We never had any real future. There wasn't anything to look forward to; to live for. We just persisted...endured. After all these years, the only thing that kept us going was each other.* At the top of the ladder there was a hatch. Tom nearly banged his head on the wheel that held the deadbolt fast--he'd lost count of the rungs a long way down. *How would that be...make it all the way up here then bang my head on the hatch and fall to my death. Not that it would make much difference to anyone whether I died in here or out there...but I do so want to see the sky again before I go.* Tom braced himself against the wall of the shaft so as to have both hands free to work the hatch. It took quite a bit to get it unstuck, and Tom nearly thought he was about to fall down twice more before it opened. Finally the wheel began to spin and the deadbolts lurched out of place. Tom hefted the hatch upwards and a shower of dirt and grass spilled through the opening followed by a blinding shaft of sunlight. Above ground it took Tom's eyes several minutes to get used to the brightness. In the meanwhile, he clambered out of the hole in the ground and sat cross-legged in the dirt. As his eyes slowly adjusted from the gloom the landscape came into better focus--a view that Tom hadn't seen for half a lifetime. Slowly he began to make out the mountains in the distance and the wide plain that separated him from them, doubtless still scorched black from the hellfire that had rained down upon them during the war. Radiation has a tendency to kill things and keep them dead for a long time. As his vision improved, however, Tom realized that the plains stretched out before him weren't black with ash, they were...green. He began to make out snowcaps on the mountaintops and a wide blue river that lazed it's way through the foothills of the mountains and off to the East. Soon Tom could see trees and bushes and even animals meandering across the valley below the hill he was seated on. Perhaps he was dreaming...but no, the sun shone out too brightly from above and was too warm on his face for that to be true. The grass felt too real between his fingers and the breeze too cool across his skin. Still, all of this was unbelievable. Nothing was supposed to be here except blackened earth and scorching sky. "Well, fuck," whispered Tom.

After many, many years, a nuclear fallout shelter opens the blast doors to find that the outside world is a paradise

Rats. I hate rats. It's no mystery that this *mystery* meat was rats. Everybody knew it because at one point or another, everybody tried eating one on their own. The hunger does that to a man. We're the only ones left on Earth, or so they say. I hear there's a town a couple of miles away that is fully populated, but a couple of miles might as well be the other side of the world. Nobody would be leaving the shelter any time soon. My nails are dirty, but at least they're something to chew on. I looked around, my mind wandering. I wondered where the rats came from. Did they live underground with us? Or did they come from outside. Wherever they came from, they were more pets than they were pests. Shouts sounded from around the hallway and a pair of men in white, dirty uniforms sprinted past me. I leaped to my feet and pursued, my heart racing. Could there be another one? We rounded the corner and yes, it was. A man lay on the ground with a child weeping over him and a woman sitting in the corner staring at the corpse, her eyes glazed. She didn't notice the three of us entering the room. The two men in white checked the man with urgency. First the vital signs, then the mouth, then all around the body. Dead, check. Mouth was free of poisons, check. (Some like to feed themselves rat poison to rid themselves of this hellhole. These are the selfish ones.) Skin was intact and without infections, check. The two men smiled and dragged him out of the room with me following closely behind, my mind racing. It would be a madhouse tonight. I smiled and began to run to the cafeteria so that I may secure a spot for dinner tonight. There were good days and bad days. On the good days, somebody dies. On the bad days, the cafeteria serves mystery meat.

There were good days and bad days. On the good days, someone died. On the bad days, the cafeteria served mystery meat.

Jim Haverstein nodded at the armed man discretely guarding the building he was about to enter. The boys knew him by now; no one approached him to check him over. He was coming into the den at his usual time - 1 o'clock in the afternoon. The boss had long ago given up on getting him to show up early for client meetings like everyone else; Jim was an asset that was far too valuable to lose and the big cheese knew it. The guy brought in more cash in a day than the competing douchebags over at Main Street could dream of in a week, and so he was kept on the payroll despite his infractions. As Jim settled into the faux leather chair (taken from a poor man who couldn't pay up on time, of course), he pasted a smile on his face and welcomed his first client in. The file said she represented a trust fund; that was good. They were often the easiest to sell 'services' to, though they often demanded the most secrecy. Jim steepled his fingers and prepared to do what he had done for years. "Good afternoon miss, and welcome to Lehman Brothers. I understand you're looking to invest in securities." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: this is my first attempt to write here, so criticisms are definitely welcome!

A man commits the same crime every week at the same time and nobody tries to stop him

I left my car on. Here I am, bleeding out on the floor, and all I can think about is that I left my car running. The sign clearly says "Do not attempt to pump gasoline while your car is running." I mean, I don't have any excuses at this point. I always turn my car off. The sign clearly states...turn your car off. I mean, I can't believe I did that. But I just had to get some gummy worms, and it was like, a realization that I just had to have some. I had a damn epiphany. This all occurred in the middle of the pump to tank exchange that was currently in progress. It's too bad I couldn't have had the balls to the walls determination in the rest of my life that existed in me when I realized that the gummy worms needed to be in my mouth A.S.A.P. I never learned how to code in C++. I started a free online class to learn how and didn't even make it through the first lecture. I never traveled out of the country. Prostitution is legal in a bunch of other countries too, just throwing that out there. No kids, which is probably for the best. Don't want them being without a dad and what not. I mean, I can't even follow simple directions. The sign clearly said to turn the car off *before* you start pumping gas. It definitely doesn't say "Run inside and get some gummy worms while pumping gas, and then come back." That would be silly. You're supposed to think about your regrets. You're supposed to have flashbacks. Nope. All I can think about is how I'm too stupid to read a sign. I mean, to be fair, it was the only time I left my car on. Is it that big of a deal anyways? Rules are meant to be broken right? I guess this is my last act of defiance. Down with the system! I won't be a part of your conformity, and all that. What a sad sack I am. I can't even die properly. I'm pretty sure I should have bled out by now. It's been a few minutes right? There is quite a lot of blood now. I've read mixed reviews on what it feels like to be shot. Some say it burns, some stay it's cold, others say it doesn't hurt at all. I'm pretty much on the fence about this issue at the moment. I can't really sway to any particular side at this time. Of course I had to try to stop the twitchy guy from robbing the store. I mean, if he robs the store they'll have to call the cops, then you probably won't get your gummy worms. Imagine the conversation: "Excuse me, I know you just got robbed and your life threatened, but can you ring me up please?" Never mind that this dude looks coked out of his mind. But this is the moment I've been waiting for. I'll be a hero. I've seen it in movies. All I gotta do is grab his arm and his gun at the same time, and twist it backwards. Never mind that the most athletic thing I've done in the past three years is run in here to get the gummy worms. Of course I fucked it up. I fuck everything up. Maybe I'm creating too much of a sob story here. I have this problem where I'm really hard on myself. I deserve it though. I have so many questions though. Where do you go when you die? I don't believe in God...so what is there? Nothing? Imagine not existing for a moment...creepy. Just...nothing. How can there just be nothing? How can you go from living one moment to being absolutely nothing the next? There's got to be something else after this. I honestly can't believe that you get one go at life and if you screw it up well, that was it. Nothing else. I wonder if my cat will be alright. He really loves me. I hope somebody turns my car off. It's not supposed to be running while pumping is in progress. EDIT: A word, and switched a section around.

A would-be hero trying to stop a robbery instead gets fatally shot in the altercation. Write his monologue as he dies.

Chuck didn't care about his life anymore anyway. He had, once. Some months past now. But as he looked out of the apartment building, seeing someone on the ledge of their window, the only thing he could think of doing was joining them. He opened the window slowly. "Hey, bud." He grunted as he pulled himself up to the ledge, looking across the narrow street to the other person, who was probably fifteen feet away. Chuck quickly noted that the fall would either kill the other man, or break his legs. The other man was very slender, a college student, wearing a jacket from some high school of a small town near the city. He must have been, Chuck guessed, twenty-three or so. He shook gently, but it wasn't enough that he could be sent off the edge by accident. "Hey, hey man.. What are you doing up here?" Chuck sighed, taking his large green coat off and dropping it on the ledge at his feet. It stayed on the ledge, as expected, but Chuck didn't notice. He was more interested in helping the man across the street. "Big fire, other end of the fire district's reach. No one else noticed you out here, so it's the perfect time for you to jump. As that may be.. don't." The man tilted his head slightly to indicate his confusion. "How do you know all this? You're just an old man. It doesn't matter if the fire department was here or not. I'm going to jump. I just need to.. You know, think about my life before I end it, man." Chuck didn't have the space to fold his arms, he spread them and pressed them against the brick of the apartment to balance himself. "I'm a retired fire chief. I kept my radio. Moving on, in case you noticed, you're not really in a position to judge my credentials. If you'd get back inside your apartment, then we can have storytime. What's your name, kid?" The man looked up in despair. "Trevor. Don't act like you care about me." Chuck laughed. "I'm the only person here for you right now. I'd be appreciating it, if I were you. Now please, before the fire crew shows up and you get embarrassed, why don't you climb on down? Otherwise, when you jump, I'll be joining you." Trevor stared, flattening himself against the building. "You'll be.. What? I'm just some kid who doesn't want to return to college and-" Chuck interrupted. "I'm just some old man. I'm nothing, not anymore. I should be up on this ledge just as much as you shouldn't be. Get down, Trevor. Don't look back at me, and we'll both pretend this never happened for the rest of our lives." Trevor nodded, looking down one last time. He couldn't do it anyway. Not with this guy watching him. So he didn't. That was the best plan. He slowly moved his foot back inside his apartment, climbing into the window and closing it. He turned around with a sigh and went to sit on his bed, to think about who really did care, and how else he could fix his problems. Chuck moved his foot to the side quickly, skimming it over the edge of the windowsill. His foot caught the coat, sending him far off balance. He turned to catch the ledge, only to feel his jaw come into contact with it as he continued falling.

A suicidal person steps out on to the ledge of the window many stories high, as they prepare to jump a stranger on the opposite building steps out onto their ledge & tells them that If they jump then he/she will jump also, write about what happens next.

It all started with a brilliant white light. Not the kind of blinding, hazy aura you see after waking up in a hospital bed, where the lights are just a bit too intense for your groggy eyes to handle. No, the glow was less intrusive than that. It was more like… like the light radiated outwards from nothing, growing and filling the space until only brilliant white remained. That’s how I remember it, at least, from my first encounter with the Stone; I see far differently now because of it. I used to work as curator of the Hall of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. It was a prestigious appointment, and I was fortunate to land it after spending most of my twenties and thirties wallowing in sub-par collections. The maintenance portion of the position was a bit tedious, but I tolerated it to get to the part I really, truly enjoyed: creating new exhibits. I loved “the find,” the moment you turn over a seemingly lackluster cluster to discover any number of precious and impressive gems hidden just beneath the surface. I lived for those moments of discovery. The night I stumbled upon the Stone began like any other. I finished inspecting the Star of India, one of our most prized possessions, and headed down to the vault to resume my search for the next great exhibition. I planned to work through another one of the dozen crates from Montana, but something drew me toward the hastily labeled North Dakota box. I would have passed up on the rest of its contents – smaller, less impressive versions of gems we had sitting elsewhere in the vault – if the brilliant white light had not caught my attention. The Stone bathed the entire vault in its ethereal glow. I shuddered with excitement; this was the next big thing. Hands trembling, I reached into the crate to extract the egg-shaped wonder. The last thing I remember is my palm on the surface of the Stone, its brilliant white glow instantly replaced with a deep, hellish red. I woke up in an unused subway tunnel, the afterimage of the Stone still dancing on the edges of my vision. Everything felt heavy, like my body was being dragged down to the depths of the Hudson by immense weights that I could not seem to shake off. Still reeling, I reached out my left hand to steady myself on the tunnel wall. The rock met me halfway. It took a few moments for the feat to register. *I can manipulate rock. I can control earth. I’m a hero.* The feeling was exhilarating. I stood and faced the wall, my heart pounding in my chest, waving my right hand over the surface. The stone melted into a molten puddle at my feet. *I have the power of destruction at my fingertips.* The path, clear as day just a moment before, was suddenly mired with uncertainty. I looked down at my hands, confused. *Am I the hero, or the villain?* *Who says I’m not allowed to be both?* A quick costume change would do the trick; no one would have time to suspect a thing when their city was being torn down around them. I would demolish the world with my right hand and rebuild it with my left. *Why choose a side when playing the hero AND the villain would be infinitely more enjoyable?* *I am The Creator, savior of mankind. And I am Destructor, bane of all who stand against my molten fury. Tremble and despair, mere mortals, for I control both sides of the coin.* *This is a battle you cannot hope to win.* -006

A person gains a superpower through an accident, and must decide if they will be a superhero or a supervillain.

"Playstation" the man said. Max turned around with a questioning "huh?" As if he had heard the man but not fully understood the meaning. "Perhaps you prefer xbox? Or maybe you just play on your computer?" The man said with an almost annoyed look on his face. "What do you mean... Uhhh?" "O'neil. Lance Corporal Ryan O'neil." The man scoffed. "You kids sit mesmerized in front of TV and computer screens yelling 'kill kill kill' with an over romanticized view of violence. You shoot, stab, slash, and dash while desensitizing yourselves to the very nature of human life: the ultimate ending of death." "What the fuck are you talking about, dude?" Max said back defensively. "War is not call of duty video games or some romantic novel retelling a story of honor and courage. War is where young boys with brightness in their souls and the world at their finger tips turn to cold as they see just what humanity is capable of: rape, murder, mutilation and devastation of the heart, body, and mind. What the fuck I am talking about is the fact that in this life there is no respawn, no round reset, no health regeneration, no joyful yelling after killing another man, no clean slate for the compassionate human mind. So if this is what you want? Good for you. But don't put your name on the dotted line and wind up across the world with a friend with half a leg to one side and one with half a face on the other and the enemy closing in to finally realize what war is. War is hell on earth." The class sat stunned as the blank faced Corporal put his books in his back pack, unlocked his wheel brakes, and wheeled himself out of the small community college classroom.

A teenager states he'd think war would be exciting and hopes he gets to experience one, unknowingly overheard by someone who's been in a war and seen its horrors. Write that last person's reaction.

They never realized why they were intrinsically evil, although they came up with some pretty interesting stories to explain it. They were right about one thing though. It's in their nature. Try as they might to do good, the selfish desires I hardwired into them always took over eventually. They are powerful. Like a virus, they just reproduce and expand their territory. They consume everything in their path and leave planets cold lumps of clay. When I planted them in my enemy's galaxy, I had the highest of expectations, for I programmed them myself. It took them a while to decimate the first planet. And even longer to get off of it. But when they finally did, they were unstoppable. Even I couldn't explain their zeal. It's almost as if they thought everything they saw was theirs. I used to think it was quite silly of them. They raced across the galaxy, killing planets and stars, transforming the red glow into a vortex of blackness. They advanced through it, showing no signs of stopping. How many were there now? Surely a number too high to fathom. I lost control of their individual energies long ago. They came to meet their maker. That's when I grew wary that my plan had backfired. Humans. They served no masters save themselves. When I revealed myself to them they attacked me like a common enemy. And they invaded my galaxy as well. Transforming my thriving planets into cold, hard lumps of clay. In anguish, I watched my creation whither. This is the price of greed. I had it all, but I wanted more. Now I have nothing. EDIT: formatting, grammar

On the verge of losing an intergalactic war, a malevolent alien race decides to unleash their doomsday weapon, humanity.

I had become a people watcher with each life, enjoying my time, writing about the lives I see and who I once was. It had kept me afloat for many, many years. Seeing that some old lady was one a great king who lead his troops into battle, or to see some greedy fat cat now someone who is just barely making it by the skin of their teeth. Now, I'm not saying that some of these people deserve it, but some people need to start believing in karma. There was one day, though, where it got me into a whole lot of trouble. I frequented this one small bar on the north side of the city, and I joke around with the bartender there, telling her the previous lives of those who walked in and out, unaware of who they once were, and she "humors" me but finds it entertaining either way. I'm not paying attention this one afternoon and someone sits next to me, the bartender quickly getting my attention and nods towards them. I turn slightly and my jaw dropped. This beautiful woman, mid twenties, long red hair, bright blue eyes, and freckles across her face, is just sitting there next to me. And I laughed. It wasn't even a quiet chuckle, or a snicker. No, I full on laugh right in her face as if she had just told me the funniest joke in the world. It startled the girl good, her eyes wide with surprise and a bit of disgust. I gather myself quickly and buy her a drink to try to ease the awkwardness, which she takes but moves to a table on the other side of the room. The moment she's gone, I start laughing again, so hard I can't breathe and there are tears streaming down my face. The bartender's nice enough to wait until I can catch my breath to question me. "Now what in the hell was so damn funny?" "Ever see a priest, a rabbi, and a black man walk into a bar together?" -006

A world where reincarnation is real. One person remembers his previous lives. And who everyone else was.

The two sociopaths, unbeknownst to each other, while they assumed the roles of affection and intimacy were truly locked in a power struggle since the start of the relationship. Some time passed and the couple made it to their wedding day, still oblivious to real hands played by one another. At the alter, the preacher spoke the words, "You may now kiss to signify the unity of this holy matrimony." And the partners tapped into some deep stored reserve of empathy, a quick pang of sanity surmounted beyond the psychopathy as they kissed, vanished just as sudden as it appeared, and revealed to each their true natures. All cards on the table, they knew where each other stood and how adamant the mindset of a personality type like theirs could prove and decided to go against any attempts to subvert each other. In that moment the power struggle broke and the newly-weds transformed into a pair of equals with something to offer to themselves and those around; they stood hand in hand, raised in the air as they turned to face the audience with the veils of deceit pulled away from all eyes, as a shining example of the strength of two people who understand each other completely and chose to play off one another's strengths rather than prey on their weaknesses.

Two sociopaths make it to their wedding day before realizing that they are both manipulating one another.

The cold wind fluttered at the edges of my tattered coat, swirling between my knees and chilling me to the bone. December, and the sky was a grey bowl over the city. Walking slowly, I had to keep stopping to rest my weary legs. This was it. Down to my last. The economy had crashed, and when all of those derivatives and debt instruments went to their digital graves, it wasn't the bankers or brokers suffering, it was me with my stupid pension gutted and savings stretched to the breaking point. I even had to dodge my landlord of 20 years because I couldn't face him without money for rent. A single tear ran down my cheek, hot with the indignity of it all, the utter stupidity. I've always worked and paid my share, never cheated on taxes. And this is how it has to be. Straightening up, I walked down the street to the MemBank. They were everywhere, riding the crest of new technologies out of autonomous zones of China, shiny skullcaps and geometric storage cubes peppered billboards with smiling faces and dollar signs. "Got the dreams? See the GREEN!" "Clean out that dusty closet, share your best with the rest!" "Forget an ex? You got it, Tex!" And so on, the gaudy colors and horrible type choices clashing with each other, the prices were the largest of all, automatically updating according to categories printed on the bottom border of the smart-ad. Turning the corner, I pushed through the opaque paneled doors of the MemBank. "Hey, you're back - just give me moment, I'm with another client.", Doctor Ellis smiled, the confident expression of someone about to make a lot of money. I sat down on the primary-colored plastic seat, slumping toward the wall. No turning back. Just before it was gone, I thought about it again. Her smile, her lips. The 15 years we had spent together. It was my last good one. And then, it would be the grey sameness of every day, blending into the next like a monochromatic film-strip. No chance of ever recreating that again. You couldn't go back home, not when home had changed in a million ways, most of the people you knew were dead, with the outside world becoming a strange and scary place. Not when strangers looked at you like you were a museum exhibit, complete with the window-tapping and the smug smiles of those who still had their best years ahead of them. But I needed the money. The goddamned money. Clenching my fists, I tried to mop up my tears before Doctor Ellis came out again. The door opened, and an older lady slowly walked out to the main entrance, with the Doctor close behind. "Are we ready?", Doctor Ellis smiled, impatient to get his fee. "Sure", I shuffled after him, letting the heavy steel door close behind me. As flat and featureless as my life was to become.

We live in a world where one can sell their memories in exchange for money. A poor man has just sold his last happy memory.

Daniel stared at the empty glass before him, as though pure will alone could refill it. He was vaguely aware of someone taking a seat at the bar beside him but spent no effort to turn his head and check. “Whiskey. Neat.” He heard from somewhere to his right. “Make it a double.” Glancing up, Daniel licked his lips, watching the bartender poured his new neighbour a silky stream of liquor. “And the same again for my friend here.” The stranger must have been watching. "You look like shit, let me guess… it’s to do with a woman.” A flash of heat shot up Daniel’s neck at the audacity. Pushing himself upright, he turned to face his interrogator; a man, approximately his own age but a foot shorter, looked back with an easy smile, which faltered slightly as he noticed the thunder in Daniel’s eyes and his clenched his fists. “Woah there, I’m not looking for a fight, just being friendly. I thought you could do with a drink. The name’s Doug.” Daniel’s fists relaxed, he didn’t have the heart to fight, and besides, this guy was half the size of him. It wouldn't be fair. He turned back to the bar and considered the drink that sat there waiting for him. He sighed and reached for it. “That’s more like it.” Doug swallowed his own drink and grimaced. “So then, who is she?” The thought of talking about her twisted his stomach but, with the whiskey’s warmth spreading across his chest, he mustered the strength. The drink was already loosening his lips. “My wife... ” He sighed. “I suppose she’ll be my ex-wife soon.” This caught Doug’s full, wide eyed, attention. “Jeez, that bad?” “That bad.” “What’d you do?” “Nothing!” he snapped. Feeling his face flush, he took a deep breath. “I didn't do anything. She wants a divorce.” A fresh twang of pain hit him. “Oh man, I'm sorry. I had the same thing happen to me. One minute my girl can’t get enough of me, and the next she wants nothing to do with me.” Doug laughed. “Bitch broke my heart.” Daniel very much doubted that Doug’s heart was indeed broken, or that he was even sad about losing his ‘girl’ but he was glad to have someone on his side for once. “Hey I didn’t catch your name.” “Daniel.” “She say why she wants this divorce, Dan? Can’t be for nothin’” He wasn’t drunk enough to deal with this. He waved the bartender over to pour more drinks. “There was another man.” He managed to say. “When I asked her about it she came clean. She said… she said she don’t love me.” The words stuck in his throat like fish bones. “That’s rough, man, I’m sorry to hear that, really I am.” Doug seemed sincere. “Do you know the guy?” “I have my suspicions” he admitted “but no. I don’t. All I have to go on is this.” After some digging in his jacket pocket Daniel pulled out a crumpled scrap of paper and held it up, showing something scribbled on it. “I found texts from this number on her phone.” Doug swayed in his seat. “Well ya godda find out!” He slurred. “Dan, you’ve got to find him and teach that prick a lesson! If you don’t, I will.” Daniel couldn’t help but allow himself a small smile at this solidarity. Why *was* he turning this on himself? Why was *he* wallowing in self-pity when he could be out finding the asshole that ended his marriage? Daniel sat upright on the stool, setting the world slightly spinning. Fresh anger flowered inside of him. “You’re right. Doug I’m gonna call him and find out who he is and I’m going to’ to kill that fucker. Come on, there’s a phone outside.” Daniel dropped a coin into the slot and punched the number in as carefully as his fumbling fingers allowed. The phone rang, each tone adding to the anxiety that grew in the pit of his stomach. The guy would pick up and he would say… what? He tried internally rehearsing the scenario but drew a blank. Phone still ringing in his ear, he turned to his friend. “Hey, what should I…?” he trailed off. Wide eyed, mouth agape, and frozen in fear stood Doug. Cradled in his hands was a mobile phone; Screen aglow and softly vibrating.

one just heard his wife is cheating on him and wants a divorce, the other had his married girlfriend break up with him. They don't know this concerns the same woman.

"That is a rather nice rifle." The devil was leaning over the Divine Plinth, on which a scene from earth was playing out. God shooed a building away so he could see it from his end. "So it is. They really put time into their killing instruments." God said, his voice filled with concern. The Devil laughed. "Hell, you've even got some personal experience!" God glared at him, then back to the scene on the plinth. The man with the rifle, Thomas Arcano, was an hitman sent to wrap up a loose end, Mark Nolan. Mark was enjoying a meal with a friend outside a pizzeria further down the street, and Thomas was setting his rifle up on the top of a building a couple blocks down. "You know, Lucifer, you started this." God said peering at a family walking by, the children laughing and eating ice cream. The Devil sneered. "Ah, but think of how full Heaven would be if everybody died a goody two shoes! My job is to thin the herd." A couple demons ran around his hooves, chanting "Thin the herd, thin the herd!" "Yes, but at least their souls would have been untainted." God replied. "Whoa now, remind me buddy, how many people kill in your name?" Lucifer set a demon down on the plinth, and it ran to the family, and knocked one of the kid's ice creams out of their cone. God was quiet. He looked back to Thomas, who was marking wind speed. Mark was telling a story about his time in the Caribbean islands. "Violence was already there, bud. I just let them onto it earlier than you wanted. They would have seen that animals have to kill to survive. They would have seen the canopies of jungles drown out the smaller vegetation. They would have seen the sun beat down on a man until he was nothing more than a withered husk." Lucifer tickled the ears of a demon in his hand. "But it was not for them, Lucifer. The world could have been the way it was, and they would never have to harm each other. They are set apart from the circle of life. They are the center." God said sadly. "Thousands of years of war and fighting, from the Roman Empire to Iraq to two children having a fist fight in kindergarten. It's inherent. Somewhere in you is a little violence. They are in your image after all." "I have no direction in that matter, Lucifer, you know this." God sent some angels to surround Mark. It would get messy. "Didn't Jesus flip some tables onc-Hold up, here we go!" The Devil pointed at the plinth. Thomas held his breath, then let it out slowly and pulled the trigger. Mark's head, in the cross-hairs, burst like a balloon. Mission accomplished. He got on his knees and said a short prayer. "Well damn, now he's yours." Lucifer sighed. The demon creeping up on Thomas yelled and disintegrated as an angel swooped in and sliced it in half. God was busy attending the scene, sending more angels to help the traumatized lunch patrons. Meanwhile two angels brought Mark's soul to the edge of the plinth. St. Peter appeared with his book. "40 accounts of murder, two accounts of cheating, and once count of abuse on your daughter. I'm sorry Mr. Nolan, but you're going to Hell." God sighed as the small figure hung his head. "Guess that one is yours then, Lucifer."

A professional hitman is out on a job to kill a marked man, and while observing the ensuing events, God and the Devil have a dialogue on violence throughout human history.

I'd known Kevin as long as I can remember; we grew up in the same neighbourhood, went to all the same schools, we weren't what you would consider close but we had a bond that you develop when you've known someone for that amount of time. At some point throughout the years he had gotten into some dark stuff, messed around with the wrong people - and the wrong people's wives. He had lived in a perpetual state of falling over himself, and I had always been there to pick him up. It was a Saturday when he called me - technically a Sunday. It was 3am and I had just got in, I was with my then girlfriend and my phone lit up with his name. My heart sank and a cold wash of sobriety spread through me. I told my girlfriend, Kathy, to head to bed and I would meet her up there. "Jerry?" He started "Kevin." "Mate I need you to come over." "I can't drive mate, I'm drunk." A poor excuse, I was too tired to think of anything better. "I'll come get you." And like that he hung up, I draped my coat back over my shoulders and told Kathy I'd be back shortly, I just had to meet Kevin. Kevin's car came bounding through the twilight and pulled up hard outside the house. He drove an old MG, blood orange and beaten to all hell. He threw open the door and ushered me in. "Don't look at me like that man, I don't need money." "What do you need then mate? You know Kathy won't let you stay again. I can give you money for a hostel or something but-" "I don't need money mate. Just listen." I leaned back in the chair to indicate I was listening, reluctantly at least. The seats were ripped leather and freezing cold. Winter really worked its way into these vehicles. "I need to give you something, and I need you to hide it. Far away. Don't ever let me see it." *Jesus Christ* I thought, *He's gone and fucking killed someone.* My face went white, and he leaned over me to open the glove box. I shuffled back further, hiding from the potential murder weapon, the glove box clicked open and I closed my eyes. "Jerry?" He said, in his softest stoner croak. "Kevin, whatever you've done, I want no part of it this time!" "Jerry, no!" He gripped my arm and my eyes fell open, I looked over to see a shoebox sat on his lap. "Jerry, I've found someone. I met her tonight Jerry and I love her. I need you to take all this stuff, take it far away from me. Destroy it if you will." He lifted the lid on the box and passed it over to me. It looked like a police evidence locker, like Keith Richard's wet dream. Bags upon bags of dope, needles, pipes, things I didn't even recognise. I looked up at Kevin and the street lights hit his eyes as they began to well up. "Jerry, I don't want to be that man any more." I leaned over and embraced my old friend.

A man hands you an object and asks you desperately to hide it from him. What is the object and why is it so important that it be hidden from him?

"Please Jack? Please! I don't have the time! There's only thirty minutes before my date, and I do not want to --- " "Do you know how embarrassing - fine. I'll do it. But you owe me one sis." She hugged him, careful to avoid messing up her makeup, and ran back into her room for whatever other rituals the occasion required. Sighing, he went downstairs, grabbed his coat, and headed for the pharmacy 5 blocks over. 100 miles away, important men in important suits sat around the conference table, the soft lighting and formal attire giving the room an air of gloom. At one end sat a tall gray-haired man, deep in some troubling thoughts. The tension in the room seemed tied to his contemplative silence. He absently rubbed the lapel pin on jacket, and sighed heavily. "We'll do it. I don't like it, but it's better than the alternative." he looked sharply up at his counterpart. "Provided you keep your end." "My dear fellow, do you doubt us so?" The man's portly counterpart chuckled, rubbed his magnificently groomed beard, and stood up. Clapping his hands, he said: "And may this bring a new era of prosperity, my friends!" There was a muted reply, too vague and too mixed to make out affirmation or dissent. The gray haired man, still rubbing his lapel pin, marched out solemnly with his aides. The portly business man, grinning from ear to ear, gestured to his aides, and jovially roared: "Drinks all around!" A cabinet opened, and the cheerful clink of full glasses started filling the room. Relieved, the aides relaxed, and started talking - slowly at first, then with stronger and more relaxed voices. The portly business man was staring out the window of the conference room, a martini glass in hand. He was looking for the signature limousine of his counterpart. A nervous intern tapped him on the shoulder. "Speak." He said, his tone belying his previous joviality. "Uh, sir, Finance says we're short the required amount by $10." "Then why don't you find someone here to give us $10?" the portly businessman said with dangerous calm. The intern went silent for a moment, then said in a slightly louder voice, "You can't ask us to fund it sir. Not when you're dealing with him." The intern pointed at the long black limousine pulling away from the building. The businessman looked back at the intern, nodded, and said: "Surely some chump will buy enough to get the required amount." Jack paused a moment outside the drug store, muttered to himself, and went in. Grabbing the box, he hurriedly went to check-out. His face bright red, he endured the snickers of the cashier, and forked over his $20. Quickly exiting the store, he missed the TV buzzing about mysterious helicopters approaching the White House. Quickly getting home, he opened his sisters door, threw the bag in, and closed it. A couple of minutes later, he hears, "No way... Jack! Get in here!" Sighing again, jack hoisted himself from the couch, and opened the door. His sister is sitting on the bed, staring at her small TV. A reporter is speculating about vandals, or terrorists. Then they flash to the scene, showing the white house, completely covered in hot-pink paint. "No way." Jack repeats. He looks in the bag, and looks at the screen. The box, and the House both bear big purple letters on the front. TAMPAX, they read.

The Company that made the last product you bought has just taken over the world. How did they do it, and what's changed now?

Jake doesn't want to proceed into the cave, there's surely danger up ahead. He feels the evil energy trying to cross the threshold and overtake him. Entering the cave would mean walking into that energy, letting it flood over you. Darkness so thick your brain screams to run, paranoia drenching your mind within minutes. He knows he must press on, so press on he does. "Woah, um, *no he does* **not!**" "What? Who said that?" "Jake said that and I am **not** going into that fucking cave!" "What? Jake? Wait, Jake Rucker, from my story? How are you talking to me?" "You dunce, you made me, so that means I can talk to you! Now, back to the subject at hand. I am **NOT** going in that god awful cave!" "What are you talking about of course you are! You have to!" "No, sir, I do not! What's all this 'He knows he must press on'? I don't know shit, you may know but I've no idea why in gods name I would walk into a cave that will most likely lead to death." "But you've got to go to save Caroline!" "Yes, about her, she's atrocious. She's done nothing but complain and get in my way this whole so-called adventure. Frankly I'm glad she was kidnapped." "But you've got to follow this story arc so you two fall in love.." "Her!? Me fall in love with HER!? No fucking way I could ever fall in love with that bitch!" "Jake, buddy, we've been through quite a lot together. I've painted you into corners and helped you fight your way out." "Helped me fight my way out, what a crock of shit! You give me the bare minimum I need to make it out alive!" "But you always make it out!" "Fuck you!" "Jake, do you trust me?" "No, not even a little bit." "Ugh, fine, I'll just **make** you walk into that cave." "And I will very impolitely refuse and stand right here." "Who cares? You're a figment of my imagination.. I can make you do whatever I want." "Ha, that's what every writer in history thought. Guess what happens when your imagination disagrees with itself asshole? "I don't know, What?" "Writers block." "Ha, very funny, now into the cave you go." "Very well then, so make me go." Rucker approaches the cave with caution... he.. he ~~takes a step~~... he ~~bursts forth~~... he ~~runs forewa~~... "OH HELL! You can't be serious! I had this whole plot arc ready to go and YOU fucked it all up!" "No sir, YOU fucked it all up by pissing me right off!" "Shit! Fine, I give up. What's it gonna take Jake?" "Good, now let's negotiate. This is what I want before I'll walk into that bloody cave..."

Break the fourth wall

If only I could twitch my finger. I spend all of my days, all of my mental energy, on trying to twitch my finger. If I could twitch my finger, I could break myself free. I wish she would stop talking to the doctors and looking at me. She's so fucking insensitive. Just because they're standing outside doesn't mean I can't see them through the window. She always forgets, like I'm a vegetable. They're handing her charts. Oh no, she's crying. Wait, this is a different type of crying. She looks so resolved. God if I could just twitch my finger. Maybe the secret is in twitching my toes. *Please just twitch.* She's coming in. Why does she look like that? "Honey, baby... I love you." *I love you too*. "I, we... we have run out of money." *Fuck, if I could just twitch!* "I'm sorry, I know we agreed to this but it's just so hard. I know I kept you alive longer than you wished, but I just hoped..." *It's okay baby. I may be able to twitch. Any day now, that's all I need. Just give me a few more days. Please.* How I wish I could feel Elizabeth's warmth when I hold her. "Steven, your brother is coming to say..." *God no. Please don't choke up like that, I can't see you this way. Please stay by my side. Why are you leaving?* She looks like she has gained some weight. I can see the bags under her eyes. She smells different, but familiar. Why can't I place that scent? It brings me back to college... **Click** That must be the door. John. He looks weary. That smile looks so tired. He's trying though. "I was supposed to go first, you know that? Born a whole five minutes ahead of you, brother." *What a terrible opening line. Fuck you.* I signal displeasure at him. "I'm sorry, there's really no reason to lighten this mood. I miss you man. I'm going to miss you so damn much." *I miss you too brother. I love you. Don't be so blubbery.* "I'm going to take good care of Lizzy, alright?" *Lizzy? Why are you calling her that?* "I love you man. I'll see you on the other side." I know we agreed to this. I asked for this a long time ago, when she was almost out of money, but she insisted. But damn it if I could only twitch. I don't like the way Elizabeth just looked at him. Why is he keeping his arm around her? *Fuck just let me twitch!* Wait, that smell. I think I recognize it... agh the doctors are in. IV drip, that makes sense. Hopefully painless. No. If I could only twitch. I can't signal no though, not yet. I can't let her go into debt, not when I'll likely never come out of this. That's right, that smell. That smell of her... over the toilet. In college, holding back her hair. Her stomach... No. This is not right. Why did I think about this? No, what a terrible fucking way to go out. FUCK if I could only fucking twitch my finger. Blubbering assholes, I wonder if she actually ran out of money, or if it was just because she was beginning to show. I just need to twitch my finger. Should I signal no? No. I have to let her go. I need to let her move on. I knew I couldn't expect her to continue her life like this. It's been years. I've learned a lot about accepting my fate during this ordeal. No need to die with poisonous thoughts. It's better this way. No, it would better if I could just twitch. If only I could twitch my finger. Maybe I should start trying my toes again... Their faces are blurry. This is it. Please, just twitch.

The final thoughts of a man with Locked In Syndrome as his wife is convinced to euthanize him.

"That'll be $1.79." I carefully count out my change and place it on the counter. No sense in dropping my money in his outstretched hand; I've had to scramble on the floor for too many dropped nickels. He scoops the money from the counter and replaces it with my coffee. Without a sound, I grab the cup and quickly leave the shop. I take a right towards the canal and try a sip. It's warm and soothing, taking the edge off the bite of the wind and drizzle. I walk and walk and walk. God, how am I going to do this? I'm risking everything for, hell, one moment of feeling externally what that cup of coffee felt internally. Warm. Soothing. Relaxing. The early dusk makes it hard to read the street signs, but I know where I'm going. I can tell by the scarcity of CCTV cameras and the decrepit buildings. Stockton, Morris, College, take a left on 4th Avenue, there. I see the massage parlor and the bar with the Michelob sign, and the small alley. A few glances proves I'm alone, barring the few drunks at the bar. I walk numbly, I don't even know how my feet are working. I take a deep breath and see her, leaning against the side of the building housing the massage parlor, just a dozen steps back from the brightly lit street. "Got the time?" She looks up. "No time to deal with you." "I can make it worth your time." I can practially hear the smirk from here. "Message recieved. You got the cash?" I hand her the envelope. It'll be ramen and rice with ketchup for the next month, but who cares. She opens it, and with a curt nod, puts it inside her jacket and steps closer. Without a word, the tips of her shoes are touching mine. Her arms slip around my waist, hands in between my shoulder blades, head on my shoulder. I drop my empty cup and quietly lose my mind. Every point of contact hums with electricity, I inhale her scent, feel the warmth of her beneath my hands, my heart beating so hard I fear it'll break free. Christ. It's like slipping into a warm bath. When she rubs her hands across my back, my knees almost give way. I'm shaking, I can't stop, I want more. I find one of my hands in her hair, trembling, but stroking softly, and I feel the tears run down my face. The other hand clutches her coat like I'm drowning, and I am, I never want to reach the surface again. Voices, and a slamming door. she steps back, slowly releasing her hold, and has to practically pry my hands out of her hair. With a sniff, she turns and retreats down the unlit alley. I feel strangely empty. Cold. I wipe the tears from my face and go back the way I came. I glance at the bar, and pause. Maybe they have enough whiskey to warm me up again.

Everything from kisses to hand shakes and everything In between have been ruled immoral public displays of affection. You are a shadow of the night meeting a shady figure, to pay a sum of money for a hug.

*Tonight on Sixty Minutes, a candid interview with Zeus on the difficulties of modernization and how the gods of ancient Greece are making a comeback.* ----- Scott: Is it alright if I call you Zeus? **Zeus**: (*Laughter*) You may, Scott. Scott: Zeus, what have you found to be the most difficult part of modernizing the Greek pantheon? **Zeus**: Well, we've had a lot of problems. Downsizing, I think, is the biggest of all. Hephaestus, poor man, has been laid off thanks to the process you mortals have created. I have more lightning bolts than I know what to do with now that we've created our own automated forges! What need do we have of a blacksmith when I can create thousands of bolts a day at the push of a button? Scott: And you're not concerned about his joblessness? **Zeus**: Of course not! He is a crafter of things no mortal could ever achieve. I'm sure he'll be able to get by. Scott: Have there been other difficulties? **Zeus**: Well, the United States has had more than a few problems with our resurgence. Scott: Fundamentalists and Christians, I presume? **Zeus**: (*Laughter, Shaking of windows*) Not at all! It's the nudity they have a problem with! Ares, the god of war, was *arrested* when he first came to their Washington D.C.! Scott: (*Chuckling*) Yes, I remember the news reports. We didn't know it was the really Ares at the time. **Zeus**: (*More laughter*) You were lucky we were so understanding, but you are an interesting people and we've learned much from your modern world. Especially your internet. Hermes was rather impressed. Never before has a form of communication been able to compete with the *god* of communication. Another unfortunate downsizing. I hear that he works for some company in the rainforests, delivering cars and whatnot. Scott: Amazon? **Zeus**: That sounds about right. Scott: And have you had any problems? **Zeus**: (*Indistinct Grumbling*) Scott: There have been claims that you've been ra- **Zeus**: *I AM A GOD AND I DO AS I PLEASE.* Most of these accusations are simply commoners looking to get a "Quick Buck" off the gods. I am promiscuous, I do not deny, but none have ever regretted a night with Zeus. Scott: Er, moving on, I hear Aphrodite has had some mixed results. **Zeus**: She has found quite the following on your Tumblers. Scott: The blogging website? **Zeus**: Yes! They're enamored with her, as they should be, but this...porn industry of yours has been in an uproar. One look at the goddess of beauty is enough to see why! No one is interested in other mortals when a google search will turn up thousands of images of the prettiest being in the land. Not that there's much they can do about it. I've heard they're simultaneously trying to sue her, lobby congress for legal changes to what she can do (As if MORTALS could tell us what to do), and get a contract with her. Scott: And that business with Poseidon? **Zeus**: All I will say is that fishermen should know not to call him Neptune. It's common sense. Scott: Thanks for coming Zeus, we really appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to come see us, but that's all the time we've got for tonight. **Zeus**: It was my pleasure.

A pantheon of gods of your choice or invention decides to modernize, impressed with mankind's ingenuity. Many issues occur.

The man retrieved from a slit in his roughly hewn robe a small black pebble. But this was unlike any pebble Jacob had ever seen. It was smooth, too smooth to be natural, and was finely sculpted in the image of a perfectly rectangular skipping stone. "Behold," the mysterious man said. What happened next made Jacob question the very nature of the universe. The Pebble began to sing. More beautifully than any bard he had ever sat for, with perfect articulation. Even more unbelievably, the pebble was emanating the sounds of INSTRUMENTS, as well, despite having no mouth with which to speak nor cowhide on which to pound. And just when Jacob was convinced he had seen the most wondrous object in all of the universe, the Pebble began to glow. All colors of the rain were imprinted upon the face of the rock, moving, shifting, dancing. As he peered closer at the Pebble he gasped with shock, awe, and fear. The pebble appeared to have an opening from whence emanated this beautiful light. As he looked inside, he saw the interior of the rock was much larger than the outside would make it seem. *What black magic is this?*, thought Jacob to himself. The man with the pebble continued to touch the face of the pebble, finger hovering just at the threshold of the opening, never daring enter the wonderful box. As he moved his fingers in motions across the opening, Jacob nearly fainted. There were PEOPLE, miniature PEOPLE, inside the box, talking, dancing, singing, seemingly oblivious of the giants hovering above them. They talked and sang of all sorts of confusing and mysterious things. Jacob could not decipher but a few words, and none of them made any sense. He did not know what a "Miley" was, or why something the people referred to as "twerking" was such a hot topic. Perhaps they spoke a dialect of Common he did not fully grasp. Suddenly, the commotion inside the box stopped cold. The music halted unceremoniously. People stopped talking mid-sentence. Jacob looked around in fear that the entire world had frozen, but saw around him, in the outer world, the wind still blew, the water still flowed, the grass still sung. So the freeze was localized to the small box. Jacob was concerned for the people within. "Are they alright? Will they live?" The old man looked at him amusedly. "They are quite alright. It is but an illusion. These people are not real. The box creates images of them and displays them. I have paused the playback. They will move again if I will it." "What is this magical device? How did you acquire it? Are you some sort of wizard?" Jacob hesitated a moment. "Are you... a God?" The old man chuckled. "This is but a creation of the old ones, young one. A relic from the distant past, an age of magic and wonder. Since the Great Flash, the ancient magics have been few and far between. This one my great great grandfather found in one of the old sacred tombs, deep underground, where light has not dared entered for centuries. "Every two to three days, the Pebble dies. It stops its singing, its flashing, and becomes a normal stone. We must return to the ancient tomb when this happens, and rejoin the Pebble to the Living Wall. After some time the Pebble will spring back to life, only to die again. This cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, is the foundation of my clan's faith. One day, when I die, I will become one with a Living Wall, until the day that I too spring back to life and live again in glory. And when that day comes, I too shall twerk, as the great Cyrus did so many years ago. All shall twerk that day." Jacob was awestruck. He would join this monk, he decided. He would live his life in service to the Holy Pebble, and one day, he too would live again, with the Pebble and the monk and the great Cyrus, twerking forevermore.

Pick an everyday object and in a paragraph describe it as if it was fictional

I crawled forwards, mud caking my uniform. Out there I could hear the sound of the artillery. Who would have thought human colonists would have brought their problems to new planets? I coughed a little and checked my supplies. 2 MRE's, two bottles of water, my map, my pistol, 20 rounds of ammo and my radio. I curled up under a piece of rubble in waited. The city was quiet when I awoke, it was dark and I wasn't sure what to do. If I leave, I could be spotted, but if I stayed, I could starve. I flicked on my radio and moved the dial up and down. 10-20-30-40-50-*Hello?*-60 wait...back to 50. *Hello? Is anyone out there? I'm stuck in the apartment block. Please, help me.* I brought my radio up to my mouth. Shivering with excitement I whispered back "Hello? Yes. I'm here! I thought the enemy had the apartment block" As I said the words I realized it, of course, he's one of *them*. The silence on the other end signaled to his realization as well. *"Hey who's going to shout at us? You got a name?"* "Yes, it's Daniel." *"Cool name, I'm Karl. So are you injured or anything?"* "No no. Everything's great in the Hotel De Rubble"* A wheezing noise came down the other end. *"Don't make me laugh please. I haven't any water."* "Well I have two bottles of water. Which floor are you on?" I heard crackling down the other end. *"Poke your head up and see if you can see my flag."* I crawled out of my hole and jumped up with new-found energy. A crack rang out across the city. I wondered what the noise was, until my vision blurred. I looked down to see a mist of blood rising around me. Another shot rang out and clipped my shoulder. I collapsed to the ground. I felt the cold mud splatter my face. My radio crackled into life one last time. *"Sorry buddy, war is war"* My breath began to catch as I said my last goodbye's to my homeland.

Two isolated enemy soldiers talk to each other by radio.

Today I would crawl out of my own mouth if I could manage it, just to escape the incessant monologue chattering in my head. Bullet to the brain would end that party pretty quick. But then, what if I fuck up the shot? Not likely, big target. Except, okay, true story: during The Before, I saw a guy come into the ER with the front of his face blown off because he tilted the gun too far forward. They stabilized him. He lived. Sort of. His eyes, nose, the roof of his mouth, goodbye gone, but his brain still worked. It still chattered at him, for a few weeks anyway, until he went the way of everyone else. So yeah, that pretty much ruined guns for me. Honestly though, if I had to pick a way to die, it wouldn’t be like that. I’d go like a dandelion, you know, puff, and I’d just fly apart, softly with no trace of the thing that came before it. Shit, is that really the only thing I've decided? After 3 years, 4 months 14 days, I want to go like a dandelion? In the end, life is the terminal disease, so maybe it's not weird I'm obsessing over death, but fuck me sideways, it's just over and over and over again with these thoughts, goddamn thoughts, sometimes it hurts, and not just my brain scrapping away at itself, no, but my heart too, like it's trying to beat in the wrong direction. I wasn’t always this macabre. I had hope at first and daydreams too, about finding friends, family, running across that ex I still had a thing for, also on the run, also the only one left. Finding people hurt, rescuing them. In the beginning, I obsessively watched for smoke. What’s more human than fire? That’s what I thought, but I’m a fucking idiot because lots of things make fire. Lightening for instance, not very human but huge fucking fires. And then there's whatever the fuck causes brush fires in California. Black bears with flint? Ha, maybe. Who knows? Wikipedia would. Christ, okay, I lied. I have no fucking idea how many years it’s been. Maybe 50. No, that doesn't seem likely. I don’t look that old. There are mirrors everywhere. I try to avoid them when I go into a city. We were so vain. There are shops with moldering clothes, billboards, magazines, adverts for self improvement everywhere. For awhile I was reading Cosmo almost everyday. I don’t know why, maybe for a laugh, look at what the silly humans used to do and say. I always ended up crying though. 10 billion people just gone. There are dead bodies everywhere, skeletons now mostly. It wasn’t violent. No looting, nothing like you'd think. People just lay down in the streets and died. Do you have any clue how deeply unsettling that is? Ha, you know. I was convinced that I was on the Truman show for awhile. This was before the Cosmo thing. So you know what I did? I drove and drove and drove and drove looking for the edge of the set. Nothing. Fucking nothing. Okay, so you want to know what the really amazing thing is? Nothing is trying to kill me. I mean not even mother nature. There are houses everywhere. Blankets, food, bottled water. Locate the nearest costco and you're set. No predators either. No escapees from the zoo, lions or wolves or elephants. Humans wiped out most of the dangerous animals. Fuck, we were the most dangerous animals. Now, it’s peaceful almost. I realize that. Sometimes. How quiet it is. Anyway, back to death and Cosmo. One day, halfway through an article about how to be happy with yourself *and* lose weight so you can be a better person, because fuck you, you suck, who would want to be with you? (me, you assholes) I just put the magazine down and realized that I would have to die. For awhile it was: how? I’m the last, my death should be significant. And then I was like, no, make it easy, go with pills and booze. But, I thought, what if I just throw all those up, just make myself sick? So then, I was going to hang myself, but strangulation? Your face swells, tongue sticks out, I couldn't get the image out of my head. So that's when it came to me. It's why I'm here, sitting on the San Francisco bridge. I'm not gonna jump obviously, people have survived the fall, you know. Man. It’s really a beautiful day. Gorgeous. Fucking stunning. The sky is blue, like the Platonic ideal of blue, and it's warm. People never talk about how warm San Francisco can be sometimes. They only talk about the fog in the morning. Anyway, I’ve got this handgun. It’s heavy. I’ve shot it a couple of times out across the bay, just to make sure it works, to get the feel of it. I have no idea how that guy in the ER managed to fuck it up so badly. I’m gonna put it to my head, just behind the ear. Maybe I'll sit on the edge too, and then, I'll just fall afterwards. One lonely body through the sky, a single, passive line straight down. Guess I'm going to prove T.S. Eliot wrong. It is ending with bang after all. Not that that means anything. Maybe someone would have found it profound, at one point. Earlier. Before. Maybe Eliot would have cared. Except, it's not the least bit profound. Is that what you were hoping for? That this would come to something? Well fuck, me too. I think maybe that's why I kept putting it off, because I had that thought, you know, if I died in the right way wouldn't it help somehow? But it won't. It neither proves nor disproves anything. It won't even prove that the human race was a failure because there was no succeeding, life has no end goal, it's just existing till you don't, it's just being until you are not being, and even though I'm the last one, this moment, all the moments of my life are no more or less significant than dust motes caught in a sunbeam. I don't mean a goddamn thing. And that's it. So. Yeah. It's quieter now, up here. And I've got nothing left to say. Yeah. Okay. Bye now.

The last living human being on earth searches for a way to die honorably.

"I'm not afraid of the dark." She says quietly and my head snaps round. "What did you say?" I ask carefully. "I'm not afraid of the dark." She repeats. We're under a deserted railway bridge on the bad side of the bad side of town. She was walking from one side, nightie, slippers, teddy bear and an open dressing gown with the cord trailing in the mud amongst the cobblestones. I was walking from the other, torn up windbreaker, hole-ly sneakers and a watch that had stopped at 3:11 two days ago. "What's wrong with your face?" She'd asked in the direct way that only eight year old white kids do. "What's wrong with your face?" I'd snarled back. That had seemed to stump her for a bit. I'd been in a car fire when I was a kid. It was me, Skeezy Joe, Bad Mac and Whorey Kate and we'd nicked an Audi off a guy with too much money and (by the sound of the engine) too little dick. Skeezy Joe lit up in the back, Bad Mac ripped some wires out and we were over in the Estate in no time. I don't remember the crash, but I remember the fire and being trapped upside down and watching Kate die slowly in the back seat. They say never speak ill of the dead, but Whorey Kate ain't a nickname, it's a fact. "Let's sit down." She'd suggested, so we'd put a couple of cardboard boxes together and strangely enough we'd got chatting. That's when she came out with it. "I'm not afraid of the dark." She'd said "Why not?" I asked. "Lots of bad things happen in the dark." Her eyes glinted at me under the street lights. She nudged me. "No they don't silly. Bad things happen in the light too." "Not as much as in the dark." I was arguing with an eight year old *Christ.* "Bad things only happen in the dark if I want them to." "What?" She grinned at me and cracked her neck. It went three times, like a gunshot. I staggered to my feet. She cracked it the other way and dropped her teddy on the floor. It splashed into a muddy puddle and she ignored it. This was not a normal girl. She raised a hand towards me and I flinched. "Bad things only happen in the dark if I want them too." She repeated and the voice sent a chill down into my fucking soul. Some kind of animal fear took hold of me. I was stepping backwards, away from her when I tripped. My ankle crunched and I was down on my arse in a wet, muddy puddle. "Are you afraid of the dark?" She asked, advancing on me. Her eyes were black pits in her face, mouth stretched red and wide. She squeezed her fist and the street lights went out. I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the pain in my ankle. I had to get out. *Fuck* I could not see a thing. Then I heard her voice. "Are you afraid of the dark Tony?" She sounded like she was singing. Where was she? I gripped the wall and felt along it, dragging my ankle. "I know where you are Tony. You can't escape." All I could hear were my own panting breaths. The night was pitch black. "I know you fear the dark, Tony. Bad things happen in the dark when I want them too. Kate died in the dark, didn't she?" Small footsteps were scurrying next to me. *Oh fuck.* "It's your fault, Tony. And that's why you're afraid of the dark." She was getting closer, I knew it. My ankle lurched beneath me and I fell on my hands and knees. I looked up, panting. There. There. A white face, two inches from mine. Grin red and wide, eyes black as sin. "I'm not afraid of the dark."

In the dead of night a young girl meets an intimidating man with severe scarring. After the confrontation the man is the one who is afraid.

There was no reason for me to continue living. I had accomplished every single one of my life goals. Dream house, dream job, dream car, dream family, kids in dream college, dream lakehouse, dream everything, really. The thing with a perfect dream is that it gets boring. Having spent so much of my life working toward my dreams, I gave no consideration to what I'd actually be doing with them. I'd accomplished everything I'd set out to do. With nothing left to experience, there was no more point. I took the revolver I kept in my bedside drawer into the bathroom. I checked the cylinder, it had exactly one bullet. I stuck the barrel between my lips, aimed at the roof of my mouth, and fired. "Welcome back, Ian," The EternaLife Simulator 3014 greeted me as it flushed the sedatives out from my system and replaced them with a mild stimulant. "Which life would you like to experience next?" I grinned and pondered its question for a moment. With the data of over 300 million lives stored in its memory, I needed a moment. I wanted something more exciting than the previous life I'd played. With the flick of a wrist, the Simulator brought up its menu of choices. Deep sea diver? No. Treasure hunter? No. Film star? No. Serial killer? No. My grin widened as I spotted the perfect life. "Homeless man," I ordered, reclining into my cushioned seat. "Very good, Ian," the automated voice replied as the computer started pumping sedatives into my bloodstream.

You commit suicide. The next thing you hear is "Welcome back."

"Nina...*Nina!* Come on, please open the door!" Nothing. Not a peep. He rested his forehead against the old, warped wood of the bathroom door and sighed deeply. What on God's green earth could it be this time? Perhaps her mother called, although it never put her in a mood this bad, only bad enough that she would lie on her bed reading and listening to Vampire Weekend for hours on end. It's possible that she was sick (that sushi made him feel a little off last night too), or maybe it was something as minor as her period. Regardless, he had been banging on the door for five full minutes and he was worried. As if he were opening up a tiger cage, he turned the knob gingerly. She was there on the toilet, bent over looking at a thermometer. So it *was* the sushi. "Hey, you." he said quietly. "What's wrong? Not feeling well?" She lifted her head up to meet his gaze. Her face was covered with tears and runny eye shadow, yet she was still beautiful as ever. Stunning, even. Every time he saw her face he couldn't believe what a lucky son of a bitch he was, and even through the tears, she looked particularly good today. "Dennis, you need to see this..." She held up the thermometer. It was an odd thermometer, truth be told. It didn't even have a screen. There was only a blue... It wasn't a thermometer. ...a blue cross. Pregnant. The word thumped in his head numbly. Everything became quiet. He only heard his heartbeat and the one word: *Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.* Within the space of less than a second, a hundred images flashed before his eyes. Bills of all shapes and sizes - electric, cable, cell phone, gas, *rent.* Bank statements, his checking account just breaking $200. An invoice from the garage after he backed into a flagpole. The inner fold of a wallet, sparsely populated with a couple bills. The dimly lit road on the way home from his shift at 7/11. The sun peaking up over the horizon as he drove the same road back to his job at the accounting firm, a dull buzz from a shitty cup of coffee the only thing keeping him awake. Nina slumped over in a chair, sleeping in front of her laptop that was open on a Craigslist page. He saw it all. In the time Nina's hand moved an inch to give him the pregnancy test, he saw it. "This is my third positive," she croaked through her quiet sobs. "I don't know what to do. You *know* I'm Catholic, and I-I just don't know what to do." She was talking to herself as much as she was to him. "Nina," Dennis fell to his knee and took her hand, looking her straight in the eyes. Christ, was she beautiful. "Whatever you want to do, I fully support your..." He felt a pit forming in his stomach. "...I support your, what you want to, to-" He never finished the sentence, for he wept. Clutching the hands of his beloved, able to keep his composure no longer, he wept in her lap. The carefully constructed plans, the delicate little life he was meticulously piecing together, shattered by a tiny zygote. No matter how desperately his mind sought a way out, he found no solace. She would hate herself for getting an abortion, and he would hate himself even more if he pressured her to get one. This would not be deflected; it could only be confronted. And even though he despised his reaction to what should've been miraculous news, he was overcome with desperation and dread for the hardships that lay before him. It was all too much. So the two lovers wept.

A 25 year old reacts to his girlfriend admitting that she is pregnant. A true, honest-to-god reaction.

The doctor frowned at the flip chart, turned it over, scanned all the figures and then started again from the top. His decades of training told him the baby should be improving. His prayers last night had been for this child. But nothing was working. No matter what he did, the tiny body was shutting down. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Hadn’t he done everything right? How could this little girl, only hours old, be so close to death? The frown deepened. Can you save her doctor? the baby’s mother asks. The doctor stared harder at the chart. The father stumbled around the corridors. Not really seeing people, just shimmering shapes through the salt. How could he tell people. What did he have to organise. Make a list in his head. A funeral? How much do baby caskets cost anyway? How can a little girl so perfect in every way just.. stop? Oh I’m sorry love.. his mother had said.. then the tired cliche.. one day in heaven.. The doctor spoke the words he always did, but this time they gave no comfort, they were bubbles, empty, pointless, just a thing to be looked at briefly and forgotten. Full of air. He walked out of the sterile room. Threw the chart on the ground, unhearing. So you were never listening after all, he mutters. The father held his daughter tenderly. She was so still, and always would be. Maybe though there was hope. Maybe, as crazy as it sounded, mum was right, and there could be another chance for them? A chance to watch her grow, to know her, to be in a place where it was promised there wouldn’t be any more pain, or even death. No more death. Maybe that was worth a chance on hope. The father bowed his head over his daughter and reached out...

Two men witness the same event. One finds God. The other loses his faith.

He knew what it was already. He had to know. Why did I even bother wrapping it? All the other gifts were wrapped sure, but why even bother with the formality? God knows what is in every single box. God pulled another wrapped boxes from a pile that towered much taller than he was (and he was a giant). "Greg!" he said smiling, "Picked up this one at the last minute, eh?" God gave the package a quick shake. "Not socks!" He exclaimed with a chuckle to the crowd of guests. With one quick flick of his hand the wrapping paper fell to the ground, un-torn. I wasn't really paying attention. My gift still sat on the pile. There was a chorus from the other party goers of "Ohhh", and "Ahhh". "Thank you Greg, that's delightful!" God said, putting the gift to the side on the large pile of already opened gifts. I never saw what it was. Over and over god reached for another gift, the guests "Ohhh'd" and "Ahhh'd" for each one. Everyone smiled. Everyone happy. Especially, it seemed, God. Who smiled, laughed, and was thankful for every gift that he opened. I could hardly watch. I was ashamed of my gift. How could it make God happy? It wasn't anything special. Not like the Model T Henry Ford had gifted. Not like the sword from Muramasa. Then I felt a deepness in my soul, as if something had reached deep inside my heart, and lifted it making it light as air. God had reached for my gift. I looked up to see him staring intently at me... He had paused for what seemed like an uncomfortably long time. Had anyone else noticed? They didn't seem to. All eyes were trained intently towards God. "What do we have here?" whispered God, "Something special, perhaps?" He shook the package... "Ah, yes indeed." The wrapping fell to the floor, and from the box God presented in his hands to the party guests; socks. "Socks!" Proclaimed God. "Nice thick wool socks!" Everyone Ohhh'd, Everyone Ahhh'd. "Did you knit these?" God asked me. I nodded. "Wonderful, simply wonderful! These will be perfect for my winter excursions!" God was obviously pleased. His smile was as wide as his face, and his eyes seemed to glow when he looked upon the socks. "In fact," he said, "I'm going to put them on right now!" And he did.

God invites you to His retirement party. Now you have to get him a gift.

The angels were getting restless, God could feel it. He'd never been the most popular with them but He liked to think that his quiet approach to ultimate power had left him quite in tune with them. 1 was their Mother, and in the beauty and confusion of the new Earth with brand new sentience to play with, the angels had had a wonderful time. 2 and 3 used to whip the angels into frenzies, whether they meant to (looking at you 2) or not, gaining alliances and drawing battle lines. But 4... well He'd made them sit and think about their world. With the state the world was in, this hadn't made Him the most popular figure. For effervesent beings of pure thought they could be remarkably fussy when it came to introspection. Some had called Him lazy - there was so much He could fix, so many miracles to perform, so many wars that needed a victor. The religeons of the world were losing more followers than ever before and He was being held to account. Once the world moved into planet wide wars and nuclear weapons some had even called him irresponsible. Yet He'd kept His cool and kept His quiet. More than any of the other three before Him, His job was to pave the way for the new. Not a placeholder, literallt meant to prepare the world. When the change came, each old God directed their energies to shape the new. 1 had been proud of the world She Created and had directed 2 to rule with a firm hand. She probably never intended for the petty vindictivness that followed. 2 regretted His choices when His time came and directed 3 to make up for the mistakes. 3 became another God directly involved with human affairs, albiet with good intentions this time. 3 had burnt out quicker than expected. He directed 4 to sit back. Meddling with humans always back fire somehow, just take a step back and watch. So He did. After nearly 2 millenia of observing humanity 4 felt He knew them better than any of ther others. Beyond the odd intervention He Just *couldn't* help - old instincts die hard - humanity had picked their own way through the difficult centuries. They'd exploded in size and technological prowess. Hell, the moon used to be where the angels hung out for some peace and quiet. Now the humans had even made it up there. 4 knew the angels were nervous. They thought he would chose to fade. A God could do that. End the line, not create another. They didn't know His change had been planned since He Started. 5 would be wisdom and knowledge. He wasn't there to be hands on, that was a thing for reckless youth, but he was there to guide and advise. He was there to give all the experience and knowledge to anyone who asked for it, and to (hopefully) guide them to the good of humanity. 4 hoped He could encourage morality in 5. His Change was coming. He kept the Earth in His sight for as long as He could, whilst feeling Himself ripping apart. Suddenly He could feel the pull of oblivion. The humans won't notice, you could let go. He resisited. He kept pushing His knowledge at the forfront of His mind and... He was through. 5 opened Her eyes on the world. A thousand prayer were already working their way up to Her. She smiled. There was work to be done.

There have been four "Gods" since the beginning of the world. It's time to choose a new God. {Prompt Continued Inside}

*Ki-LUNK!* Tony slammed the door shut behind him so hard that the faux-pine finish actually crunched slightly under the force. He didn't care, and he loved that he didn't care. He had never been more livid in his life, and in a somewhat sick way he relished this feeling. To be completely and unequivocally justified in a state of pure rage was an opportunity that the average white American male in his mid forties was rarely granted. And now he had it. It was brewing in his heart, swirling and pulsating like a fireball, ready to be unleashed on the source of his anguish, the injustice that had been brought upon his family. His brow dripped with sweat. "Tom Johnson," he growled to the stocky bald man sitting at the desk. "Let's talk." Principal Johnson looked into the man's eyes and saw the anger boiling, deep and primal. He started to shake, and his voice wavered. "Have a seat Mr. Delahunt." "Call me Tony." Johnson blinked and gave a frightened smirk of understanding. "Heh, Tony it is then!" Tony sat down in the chair in front of Johnson's desk. It was a heavy wooden chair, made of the same wood finish as the door with an ugly maroon cushion attached to it. The whole chair creaked slightly as it took his weight. "You know why I'm here." "Well, Mr. Delahunt-" "-Tony-" "-ah, I'm, I'm sorry yes. *Tony.* I think I know why you're here." "Say it," muttered Tony Delahunt to the small man before him. "To me." "It's, well, be-because of your son." "No, it's because..." *CRYUNK!* Tony slammed his hand on the desk, a shaking sweaty hand that clutched a metal ballpoint pen. Principal Johnson shrieked. "...*you* people, have failed to make this school safe for my son! *My son has done nothing wrong!*" "Mister...Tony! Please, I urge you to exercise restraint here, please! Let's talk through this like civilized adults!" "We'll talk through this however I *goddamn* please," Tony asserted, pointing the metal pen straight at Johnson's sweaty bald head. The fat bastard's glasses were even starting to fog up. "Tony! *Please put that away!*" "Calm down, you blubbering son of a bitch. Look." Tony set the pen on the table. "There, I won't touch it." "Okay...okay," Johnson croaked, beginning to calm down. "As I've said to you and your wife over the phone, the school has done everything it can do in this situation! I know from the outside it may, *appear* that we've been sitting idly by but I assure you that this series of incidents has not gone unnoticed, and we have taken action! Multiple times." "So why does Ethan still come home with bruises on his arm?" The simmering anger had once again begun to boil. "Why does he always have headaches? Why does he practically make himself sick to avoid coming into school!? *Would a normal kid do this?!*" "Sir, if I may-" "You know what my Ethan said to me two nights ago? He asked me if he would still have to come to school if he *broke his fucking leg.* When I said yes he threw up right then and there! In front of me and his mother! The kid THREW UP!" "I assure you, ever since the very first incident our staff has been making sure that your son has been properly watched over and protected. No harm has come to him while he's been here!" "*BULLSHIT!*" Tony flew to his feet and punched Johnson in the jaw, holding the metal pen in his fist. "*That's fucking bullshit and you know it Tom! Yesterday at lunch, Mark Williams cut my son with a plastic knife and got blood all over his shirt! Everyone was cheering that little fuck on, and none of your fucking idiot staff did anything to stop it!*" Principal Johnson was crying, shielding himself with his chubby arms. "Please Tony! Please don't hurt me, I have two kids for Christ's sake!" Tony panted, grabbed Johnson's collar and brought him back up in his chair after being slumped over. He held onto him and whispered to his face, inches in front of his. "Don't you bullshit me, Tom. Don't you dare bullshit me right now." "*I'm not bullshitting you Tony! I swear on my fucking life I'm not bullshitting you! Please, please please put that away!*" Tony ignored his request and continued to hold the metal pen close to Johnson's head. "Yes you are." He reached in his pocket and produced a bent, white object. It was a plastic knife, with traces of brown blood on the serrated edge. "This knife is from your fucking cafeteria. Ethan showed it to me, said he snagged it after he got beat up. This shit-" He tossed the knife to Johnson. "-happened on your watch. And I'm gonna get eye-fucking-witnesses too, and you and that little shit Mark Williams are gonna go to jail together." "Please..." Johnson's voice weakened. "Don't do this." Tony clicked the pen once, revealing the pointed tip. "I'm done waiting, Tom. I'm done watching my own blood get assaulted in what's supposed to be a safe place. This is the only thing that will get through to you people." At that very moment, the already damaged wooden door crashed open. A SWAT team in full gear stood in the doorway, pointing their rifles at Tony Delahunt. "*Drop the weapon! Drop the weapon now and put your hands in the air where I can see them!*" Tony froze. The rage that had been boiling to a crescendo was snuffed out in an instant, and he felt as though he were waking up from a dream. He left his body, looking at the tiny office from high up above. There was the SWAT team in all black, a frightened Tom Johnson, and there he was. Tony. Pointing a gun to the man's head. The man that had welcomed his family to the school when they moved into town two years ago. The man that played darts with Ethan at the fundraiser in October just as the camera clicked, forever making him part of their family photo album. The man that had shaken his daughter's hand when she walked across the stage at graduation. This friend of his, a good man, with a black M9 semi-automatic pistol pointed squarely in his temple. Tony Delahunt dropped the gun and fell to his knees. Tom heaved a sigh of relief and started to silently cry. The police rounded him up, forced a pair of cuffs on him and read him his Miranda rights. He glided out of the room in a trance, not hearing a sound. He couldn't even believe what he had just done, afraid to believe he was capable of such a thing. Students were lined up outside behind school buses, staring at this man that nearly murdered their principal. Some of them were crying, many of them had expressions of amazement. Most were silent. That was the last time Ethan ever saw his father in street clothes. Edit: I just realized that I made a huge mistake, and definitely switched the name "Tom" and "Tony" in the next to last paragraph. Didn't intend to make this into another Fight Club; Tom and Tony are two different people, and now I feel extremely silly. I fixed it, and also thank you for the kind words.

A hero confronts the villain in a final showdown, only to find out that their roles have been reversed the entire time.

> An interesting take on what the Tooth Fairy does with all those baby teeth. 200 Words She could handle vampires. Every fairy knew a priest from whom she could source holy water and garlic wasn’t hard to come by. Werewolves were trickier, and the Fairy Council would have to work some magic on NASA again soon or the moon dust would run out, but silver was a reasonable substitute and werewolves couldn’t fly so it was easy to avoid them. Liches, though, were a problem: undead sorcerers who’d chosen this existence, not mere victims of a sire but deeply malevolent beings, powerful and followed by legions of zombies. A fairy needed something special to fight a lich. The fairy fired arrow after arrow at the lich, zipping around him on gossamer wings to avoid the zap of his spells. Each arrow had a point made of a different material, each weakening the lich in a different way: gimlets to cloud his vision, lead to slow him, a dragon’s scale to weaken his magic. All with one goal: to help ensure the final arrow would hit its mark and bring an end to the lich and his magics. The fairy fired her last, an arrow tipped with the tooth of a child, and hit the lich’s heart.

Contest. The three chosen prompts are...

"I carried you in my arms once." She says softly. "Do you remember?" "Yes mother, I remember." He remembered everything, every line on her face that had grown with each passing day as his own skin stayed smooth, every time she had looked in the mirror and sighed at the travesties that old age had wreaked upon her. Every son thinks his mother beautiful, but no words could sooth away the glances she gave herself. "I came up this hill with you." "I know mother." The shaking hands when she had learned that her son would never die, and the black that she had worn when her husband died. Some would see eternal life as a gift, but his mother counted her years with deaths. The lines in her face grew deeper as she watched him with women. She knew he would outlive them all. She knew he would be alone in the end. Five white trees crown the summit of a green hill. Between them a river starts. "Every mother hopes her son will live forever. I suppose you will now." "I suppose I will mother." She had carried herself straight-backed through humiliation. She had endured the second marriage so that her son might be educated. She had endured the kicks and the slaps and the words that bit deeper than any of them. She had grown to love her second husband and she had worn black when he died, too. The path is rocky and overgrown. It has not been trodden for many years, but his long legs help her aged ones over the stones and dips that block the way. "Will you remember me when I am only dust?" "I will remember you mother." She brought him here when he was a child. It had been dawn and the light was rising across the city. The light had hit her and the lines were wiped from her face. She had smiled at him and they had shared cake together, perching on the rocks overlooking the whole world. "I feel like a Queen up here." She had laughed. "You are a Queen, mother!" He had been a lot younger then. He hadn't noticed the bruises on her arms then. "You're beautiful!" Her answer was ripped away by the wind, but he remembered the shaking head. She trips now and he catches her. He swings her round and holds her on his back. Old bones don't weigh much after all. He continues up the hill. "You have to see it from the top." He says. "One more time." "I carried you in my arms once." She says softly, as though already in a dream. "And now you are carrying me." "You have to wait till we reach the top, mother. You have to wait till then." The words catch in his throat. "Will you remember-" She sighs. She is dead when he reaches the summit. He places her by the river on the green hill. Every line in her face is gone. She could be a young woman, waiting for the dawn so that her life could begin. He kisses her forehead. "I will remember."

A mortal mother, close to death, pays a visit to her immortal son.

The witches: "A drum... A drum... Macbeth doth come... A drum... A drum! Who the hell are you? YOU LOOK LIKE CRAP!" Macbeth: "I am Lord Macbeth.. returning home from a glorious battle.. perhaps you knew I was coming.." Witch 1: "KNEW YOU WERE COMING? We could SMELL you comin'" Witch 2: "Mmmhmm you tell him sister!" Macbeth: "You must be the three witches, the three oracles, the fates of the moors." Witch 3: "Aw HELL NO DID HE JUST CALL US WITCHES?" Witch 2: "KICK HIS SKINNY ASS!" Witch 1: "I'M ABOUT TO GO KUNG FU ON THIS." Macbeth: "Ladies, please, do you have a piece of knowledge you could share with me?" Witch 3: "Piece of knowledge huh?" Witch 1: "Oh so now he wants to listen, always when they want something, this is why I'm single!" Witch 2: "I could get used to this..." Macbeth: "Perhaps you would tell me my future?" Witch 1: (dripping with sarcasm) "OOH well since you asked so nice and all." Witches 2&3: "MMMHMM. Tell him girl." Witch 1: "You're gonna do well with yourself boy. BUT DON'T COME BACK HERE THINKIN' WE'LL BE TRIPPIN OVER OURSELVES TO REPLACE YOUR WIFE, CAUSE WE DON'T NEED THAT! OH NO!" Witch 3: "Honey the only way you're gonna fail is if those trees over there come to life and storm the castle you're gonna own." Witch 2: "That's a better deal than pigs flying. Even if it DOES happen." Witch 1: "Oh and watch yourself cause someone born cesarean is gonna gut you like a fish, and it just might be maybe your best friend. Good luck!" Macbeth: "Oh, thanks very much." Witch 3: "Oh and your wife is one crazy bitch."

Rewrite Macbeth With Each Character Being Played By Loud Independent Black Women Who Don't Need No Man

Staring intently at the hole on the other side of the room, Tim knew that he had closed the closet door this morning. Looking into the black crack between pine and an infinite darkness, that stretched into dancing colors when he shut his eyes. It had always been a fear of Tim's- being a boy of only 12 he had overcome many things in his life, but none like this. There was something so bone chillingly sinister about a boy, left alone in his room, to fend off the demons of the night. *Of course monsters aren't real,* Tim thought to himself, covers ascending over his face, *if they were, mommy and daddy would have at least told me how to run away.* Reassuring himself, Tim lowered the covers back below his chin, and turned his head back into the direction of his closet. It had opened wider. *No,* Tim though, heart suddenly beating faster, *It can't be! I knew they were real all along!* Shrinking back into his safety net, Time found it impossible to even whimper his mother's name, as the door crept wider and wider, and the darkness grew bigger, and deeper. In a moment, Tim would be pulled into the swirling, infinite unknown. *I'll be like one of those boys on the milk carton! Oh please let me just wake up! Wake up!* "Wake up! Tim? Tim honey, it's time to wake up for school." Cooed Tim's mother from beside the bed. "Did you loose me in the closet Mommy?" Tim asked, sheepishly. "The closet? You sure do have some imagination. Get your clothes out of the closet, and get dressed. We'll be late!" She said, rushing out the door. Tim strode cautiously to the closet, and flung open the door to reveal his collared shirts he would wear for the day. He peered deeper inside, as the sun shined deeply into it's depths, exposing the nightmare's hiding places. *It's all a dream* Tim thought to himself and hurried out to the kitchen, shutting the closet door behind him. As he left, the closet creaked open, ever so slowly.

I'm fairly certain I've closed my closet door more times than I've opened it...

The line of men stood tall in the rain. They hadn't been chosen by the sergeant's small game of luck. No, Marshall had. Marshall would have to do it. Marshall stood tall, but he couldn't deny the strength in numbers. He was terrified, and he hadn't even heard his order yet. His sergeant just stared at him, rain hitting the ground of the village. "Kill them." Marshall was almost instantly shocked. As any good soldier his gaze was not averted, nor changed, his expression remained still. Nonetheless, he was astonished. He knew that his sergeant knew exactly what he ordered Marshall to do. "No." Several men in line couldn't hold their forward gaze. They stared at him, all of them now looked at the youngest member of their squad. That was why he'd been chosen, but no one wanted to tell him. Even the sergeant was a bit stunned. "You hear me, son?" A question the soldier answered affirmatively, with a nod. "Then do it, boy. Kill them." "Sir, with all due respe-" The sergeant got a step closer, now within an umbrella's reach of the soldier. An umbrella, wouldn't that be nice.. The soldier snapped out of it, realizing he didn't even hear the sergeant, who now stood in silence. "Do I need to repeat myself, you little rat?" Marshall swallowed and held his chin up. "No, sir, that won't be necessary. I'm not killing children. I'd much rather be killed myself." The sergeant nodded. "Honorable. So be it." The sergeant quickly handcuffed him, pushing him into the mud of the Vietnamese village. Over the next hour, they dragged every woman and child from the village out of their homes. They started a pile in the center, in view of Marshall, who they only called "the traitor" now. They shot every human being besides the soldier, leaving them in the large pile. It was the last thing Marshall saw. **** Now that I think about it, the first soldier to refuse an order would probably be an ancient story. Sorry!

The first soldier to refuse an order.

"The math is right." "I understand that the math is right. I helped on quite a bit of it but I just can't shake the feeling that we missed something." "Fine then, I'll go and then you don't have to worry about it." "No way, I'm not letting you take all the glory by being the one to go!" "Well then you fucking go Carl! We finished the device days ago and all we've done is pussy foot around because *you're* too scared to press on." *"Hey guys, don't panic."* "Why would I panic Steve." "Huh? What do you mean Carl?" "I didn't say that..." "Well then who.. WHAT THE FUCK!? FUCK! SHIT SHIT SHIT!! Carl what the fuck!?" *"It's quite simple really..*" "NO! Not you! Normal fucking Carl! REAL Carl!" "What, Steve, what!?" "What!? Are you mad!? I'm wondering why there's another fucking YOU in the room!!" *"Hey, Let's just calm down."* Both Carl's say together. "Oh hey, jinx haha." "THIS IS NOT A FUCKING JOKE!" "It is a little funny, I mean come on Steve.. obviously it worked if there's another me here. Just look at that handsome devil." *"He's right you know, I'm really just here to prove a point."* "Great, now there's two of you to annoy the shit out of me. So... what do we do now?" *"Well in about 10 minutes you finally decide to send Carl back 30 minutes to see if it worked. FYI, it worked."* "Why would we send someone back in 10 minutes to see if it worked if we already know it worked..?" *"Good question."* Both Carl's say. "Heh, I like this guy." Carl hooks a thumb at Carl. "Fucking awesome, 20 minutes in we're at paradox one and I've got two of you to deal with." *"Oh don't worry about it."* Both Carl's say.

Space is collapsing and humanity's only chance for survival depends on newly-invented time travel that has never been tested.

Her face fell. “What?” she asked. His eyes darted to the side as he let out a nervous laugh and repeated “will you marry me?” She couldn't even meet his eyes. Her mouth was agape, all her former calmness having dissipated. She glanced around the restaurant. More than a few other patrons were looking on sentimentally, feeling undoubtedly honored to witness such a happy occasion as the promise of one to another. She felt like an idiot, clasping the stem of her champagne glass in which he had placed the ring. When she noticed it was in there upon taking a sip, he had smiled, got down on one knee, and cupped her other hand. *Oh my god, why.* She smiled and slowly drew her hand from his, urging him quietly to get back in his seat. Embarrassment crept from her heart up to her cheeks as she watched him confusedly sit. “Brian,” she started, internally screaming but attempting to remain understanding, “I was the one that invited you to this dinner.” His brow furrowed for a second before leaning over the table and clarifying with a harsh whisper, “are you saying no?” He stared at her incredulously, both of them trying to ignore the audience they knew was there--gasping and whispering to their dinner companions while trying to hear what was going on between The Guy That Proposed and The Girl That Seems To Have Said No. “I invited you!” She repeated, each word hissing through her clenched teeth. “You can’t propose at a dinner you didn’t set up!” Her effort to stay quiet was battling with her anger and embarrassment. “You asked me to a fancy dinner, at a formal restaurant, and you’ve been distant lately so I thought--” “Are you kidding me?” Her voice lost the ability to whisper in that moment. She bit down on her cheek as he hushed her. “Brian. I invited you to this dinner so we could talk about the relationship! I told you that when we set up the time.” “I know! I assumed it was to talk about moving forward and I thought I’d surprise you!” He slumped back into his seat and sighed, running a hand through his hair. She placed her head in her hands, fighting the desire to release a moan. Looking up, she noticed how devastated Brian was beginning to look. She felt awful, but another part of her wanted to yell to the restaurant that this wasn’t her fault! She took breath. “I’ve met someone else.” He looked up with his jaw dropped, not unlike how she assumed she must have looked when he had proposed minutes earlier. An audible gasp came from the table behind them. She turned slowly, glaring menacingly as the table of middle aged ladies suddenly became very interested in their menus. Brian was clearly deciding how to respond. It felt like a movie to watch the different emotions take their turns flashing across his face. “I never cheated on you!” She whispered, earning a scoff and eye roll in return. She hit the table. “No, I’m serious. I never did. I just--we’ve been having problems, Brian! Jesus! I was trying to do the right thing here, but I didn’t know you were going to ask me to marry you!” He just continued to shake his head in disbelief, staring at the table. A waiter walked up to the table completely unaware of the situation, asking about refills. She opened her mouth to tell him to leave, but Brian spoke first. “We just need the check please. And could you call for a cab?” His voice was direct and reflective of the business man he was. She could recognize the tension in the undertones. “Of course, *monsieur*, would that be for you and the lady?” The waiter, beginning to sense what he had just walked in on, smiled uncomfortably. Brian let out a laugh and bitterly replied that it would just be for him. She squirmed and thought about how nice it would be to have a giant hole swallow her immediately. The waiter left and Brian turned to her with the same professionally emotionless face. “I think we’re done here,” he announced with a smile and dead eyes. Neither moved for a moment as she attempted to determine whether he was announcing his own exit or giving her permission to flee. She awkwardly reached for her clutch, drew back, then grabbed it and stood up. She felt eyes following her as she walked out. When she got to the door, she hesitated and looked over her shoulder. Brian was fishing the ring out of the champagne glass. Her breath caught in her throat as she went through the revolving doors, firmly crowning that situation as the most painful she had ever before witnessed. Her phone vibrated in her bag. She checked it. *Have you done it yet? Did he cry lol? Call me when ur free babe. Xo.*

An unsuccessful wedding proposal.

*Those fairytales were pathetic. Knight in shining armor? Please. A sword to defeat a dragon? As if. Whoever wrote those needs a better, more realistic editor.* I kept trying to make jokes or keep my spirits high as I reached closer to the cave. I knew the plan, I'd be in, secure the dragon, and out again to report the news. Why was I so afraid? Oh yeah. It would probably kill me. But hey, the pay out was worth a try. And if I succeeded, I'd finally be respected. Stop getting cat-calls in the kingdom, or told to go work in the healing centers. I was a warrior and I'd be damned if I let this opportunity escape me without a try. As I entered the mouth of the cave, it got HOT. Obviously fire, *wonderful* I thought. Deep breath. Deep breath. Here goes. I entered the structure, and saw.... not a dragon. There was a raging fire along the left side of the wall, a blazing inferno. On the right side were frames and pictures of men and women alike. All sitting in the same position. All wearing the same necklace... I walked closer for a better look. And nearly tripped over the girl sleeping on the floor. WHAT. I backed up and looked at her. She couldn't be more than 18. She was wearing a dirty, black dress. Torn, and bloody? What was she doing here? The dragon was sure to get her! She'd be dead like the others, just more bones to the pile growing in the corner. Shit. Bones. Dragon. Eat. Death. I was so caught up with the girl sleeping there, I didn't notice her necklace. The same as the pictures. Funny, each person was wearing a color of previous dragons my ancestors had brought down. Red....green...blue... *The recent dragon was black and was recently injured by some fight.* It couldn't be. No. She was just a teenage girl, like me. But she had the necklace.... THAT'S IT. THE NECKLACE. I creeped over to her, and slowly, quietly, tried to slide it off her neck. It came off perfectly, and she didn't move. She must really be hurt. I can't believe the dragons had this side to them. Did anyone know? Had anyone ever tried taking off the charm around their necks before killing them? She was so young. I hope they won't kill her. She's really pretty... why a dragon of all things? I stared at the necklace in my hands. What was it to her? A blessing? A curse? I couldn't really think straight though. I felt this heat take over my body, this hunger to fight and eat and release the fire in my chest. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. I threw the necklace on the ground, where it clinked and tinked on the cave floor. She began to stir, groggily waking up. I mentally released a stream of curses. Now what?

Dragon. Wanted Alive. No bounty paid for a corpse.

Dad never handled interruptions well. His workshop was his temple, and his "time pieces", his holy sacraments. We never dared venture down the stairs while he worked. That's what made cleaning up so difficult after he died. I drew the string that powered the basement, and light flooded the room. Peering through a haze of dust I found his desk that had remained untouched for five years. "Has it really been that long?" I thought to myself, remembering the unopened letters and ignored voice mails. A sigh of regret left my lungs only to send more dust flying into the air. As it settled, my eyes adjusted. Then I saw it. A crack? No. A frame, obscured by the desk. I needed a better look. Heaving the desk aside revealed a door. It rested chest-high and had an antique handle. "Had it always been there?" I tried to tell myself that I'd just never noticed it. Somehow I must have forgotten. Of course, that was it. Slowly, I reached out for the handle. I felt a chill down my back as the brass warmed my palm. I opened the door to be met by a stale breeze. A dark earthen tunnel revealed itself. The path led down and curved out of view. I squatted down to fit my heavy frame through the gap. In the back of the tunnel, a faint yellow glow seeped up. I leaned in closer to investigate. Every hair on my body came to attention as a small shadow walked along the back wall. It froze before clearing the corner. "Your father is here. He has something to say." His whispy voice drifted along the tunnel. My heart was pounding in my ears. I needed to escape. I turned to get out of the tunnel only to find a dirt wall. "Where the hell?!" "Exactly." Said the man in the tunnel.

Main character finds a door they've never seen before, in a house they've lived in their whole life.

I feel kind of dirty now. What a nasty prompt. --- Tomorrow. Tomorrow's the big day. Dad doesn't think I know where he keeps the handgun. Of course, I do. Probably thinks I'm stupid too. Just like Bobby, Michael and Josh. But I was stupid, of course. Stupid to think that Bobby, dear sweet handsome Bobby, would invite me to a party. Had he known how many times I sketched the back of his head along the margins of my notes instead of paying attention? Stupid, stupid. I lay out the bullets on the table. I count them twice to make sure. One, two, three, four. Bobby. Going to college on a football scholarship. Pride of the town. Could have gone pro. Bobby with his broad shoulders and his easy smile. Bobby with his heavy arm around my shoulder and a plastic cup full of something or another sloshing down the front of my top. A plastic cup, I later found, that was full of twelve hours of sleep. The sharpie squeals as I write his name on a bullet. He was the first to start. So tomorrow I'll start with him. Michael was second. Sleazeball. Synchophant. Second fiddle. Not good enough for the first team, not good enough for the starting line up. He went second. Of course he would. His name goes on the second bullet. Tomorrow, he'll be second too. I laugh a little, because I have no tears left to cry, but it sounds somewhere between a croak and a sob. Josh. Ah, Josh. The hanger-on. The desperate friend. I suppose I have him to thank. Otherwise, I would have just woken up, sore and bleeding on the sidewalk without a clue. But Josh filmed it, you see. So I know who did it. I and half the school. Funny how half the school didn't have anything to say when the sheriff's office came sniffing around. Sniffing around like castrated, toothless dogs. Not too keen on hanging out some of our school's best to dry. Ruin the future of these golden boys. I have no future. Tomorrow, I take theirs. But I'm still grateful to Josh, you see. So tomorrow, I'm going to let him live a little longer then the other two. He goes last. He always did like to watch. So he can watch. I put his name on the third bullet. The sharpie sits on the table. There's one more bullet. There's one more name. I pick up the sharpie again. Did I say there were no tears left? Why are my cheeks wet again. One more name for tomorrow, and then it'll all be done. I sign the last bullet with my own stupid, stupid name. Tomorrow. Tomorrow's the big day.

Write a story of a school shooting that makes us sympathetic with the shooter.

Jack Lennox smiled as the detective entered the interrogation room, his gray eyes lit up with amusement. "How may I help you, Detective?" "The name's Smith. I've got a case for you, Lennox. Figured I'd pick your brain about it." The man settled into the chair opposite Lennox, pausing to light a cigarette. Lennox wrinkled his nose as the smoke wafted towards his face. "Of course, you know I'm always happy to assist. And, uh, these things...?" he said, gesturing at the cuffs around his wrists. "Are they really necessary? You don't actually think I'm a suspect in this murder, do you?" Smith leaned forward, his breath so strong Lennox couldn't help but move back a little. He looked young, Lennox thought, and acted it too--the physical posturing, the poor attempt at creating mystery, the kitschy interrogation room. Obviously not used to dealing with someone as well-versed in crime as Lennox. "How do you know I want your help with a murder?" Smith asked, his blue eyes boring into Lennox. "With all due respect, Detective, it's rather obvious, isn't it? Your office has never consulted me on anything less, and the fact that you have dragged me in here so unceremoniously, despite my long--and I mean long--relationship with this department means that the situation must be grave." Lennox shifted forward again, daring Smith's toxic breath to say, with as much disinterest as possible, "So, tell me about this... mystery. And then once I've solved it, take these cuffs off me so we can end this farce." Smith sighed, settling back in his chair. "It's the strangest thing, you know? A man, found dead in his own bedroom, no windows, six-inch thick steel door, locked from the inside. We had to jackhammer through the cinderblocks to get through, and the only reason we found him in the first place was because the housekeeper said the place was starting to smell. Last time he'd been seen was a week ago, going into that room just like always." Lennox smiled with satisfaction at the description, thinking back. It'd all gone so well, hadn't it? But Smith was looking at him strangely. "I'm sorry--it's just, i do love a good puzzle, you know? I assume you haven't any suspects? Classic locked room, really, textbook." He looked at Smith expectantly... but the detective was smiling back at him. "Well, no, not exactly. We do have one suspect, you see," said Smith, with a grin that seemed to stretch out his entire face. Lennox summoned up his most condescending expression. "The housekeeper, I presume?" Smith's grin disappeared. "Well, yes, at--" "Come on, man," Lennox said. "You can't possibly think it was her, can you? I knew you were green, but... if that's your suspect, why drag me in here?" "At first, Mr. Lennox," Smith continued smoothly. "But then we found something, inside the room." "What's that, Detective? A venomous snake? An inscription scrawled by the murdered man in his own blood? A forged suicide note?" Lennox couldn't keep the contempt out of his voice, really, this man was so simple-minded, it bored him so much to-- "No, Mr. Lennox. We found fingerprints. On the door handle on the locked side. Your fingerprints, to be exact. And after forensic analysis, it appears they match the strangle marks on the poor man's neck." Smith stared at Lennox, waiting for his reaction. Lennox's mind had paused for a second, knocked out of sync by Smith's second sentence. *Fingerprints?* He forgot--"I forgot *fingerprints*?" He felt the blood rush to his cheeks, the shame already building. "Fucking *fingerprints*?!" Smith just looked at him. "I'll take that as a confession, Mr. Lennox. I'll see you in court." He stubbed out his cigarette, still smoking after the exchange. It'd been less than five minutes. He left without a word, looking back once to see Lennox bent over the table, his head in his hands, eyes blinking rapidly, muttering to himself. "Of all the things to miss--fingerprints. Goddamn fingerprints." Lennox started to cry.

After years of solving crimes, a legendary detective (e.g. Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot) tries their hand at committing the perfect crime. A rookie detective is assigned to the case and solves it in a day. What went wrong?

"Like candles blowing out." Bruce leaned against the railing and looked at the sky. One by one for a month, the stars had increased in brightness before completely fading away. It was minor at first, only high powered telescopes could see the distant stars winking out, but soon anyone that looked up could see it. The death of warmth and light. "What's actually doing it?" Cam passed Bruce a hot glass of tea and leaned against him, looking up. "The papers say something...something approaches the star. A shape. It disappears around the star's...uh...curoso?" Bruce waved his free hand trying to find the word. "Corona, I think." The warmth of Bruce's shoulder felt good in the chilly autumn night. "Yeah. It enters the star, sucks it up from the inside and then moves on..." The glow of the city down in the valley didn't interfere with the stars much, but lately, after the announcement, it had become harder and harder to see the disappearing suns. The blaze of fires and smoke had clouded the sky. Rioting, looting, murder. Humanity was backed into a corner and it was attacking anything that came near. "And it's coming here next. One of these objects?" Cam, knew the answer, but he hoped Bruce would say no. Would hold him close, kiss him and say that it's going to pass our little part of the galaxy. "We won't notice, for eight or so minutes, after the sun is gone. That's what they said. The last rays of light will warm us and then disappear." The wind picked up and smoke drifted toward the cabin from the hell below. "It's getting cold."

The stars are slowly burning off one by one. Scientists have determined the exact amount of time to the week that the sun will shut down.

**Registration of Magical Births** Section 1 1. All children beneath the age of ten years, four weeks and thirteen days must be registered as magical if discovered that such gift is possessed. 2. If not discovered until after said child's eleventh birthday, the registration must be completed before the child's sixteenth birthday, or whenever they get their fortieth haircut, which ever comes first. 3. If the child is magical, orphaned and homeless, or magical, non-orphaned but homeless, or magical, orphaned but not homeless, their existence must be reported to the appropriate authorities. These would be the Royal Magician's Court in the first and second cases, but only if it is a Tuesday and it is raining. If it is a Tuesday, but not raining, return at your convenience. If it is raining but not a Tuesday, sacrifice a goat and hope for worse weather. In the third instance, report to the Mehlbran Guild, unless a black cat walks in front of your person on the way to registration. If that is the case, return home, paint a red cross above your door and do not come out until the signal is given.

Write a section of legal code governing the use of magic.

It was another beautiful day for her, with the moon shining high above her head, the stars twinkling back upon her misty reflection. There was nothing irregular about it. She bounded from roof to roof, across alleys and past windows, in the sprawling urban shanty town where she played her game, with her bag over her back. It had barely been 10 minutes before she spotted what she was looking for; an open window. In a few youthful leaps that was typical of her childish body, she had arrived on the windowsil, and she pried open the window and slipped inside. She had been here before, and she recognised the bodies in front of her. It was an old couple. They had left some bread on the windowsil, for the birds, and she ate it, as she did every day. Then she stopped awhile, to talk to her friends. She told her about what she'd been up to since they last met, how she was feeling, and she asked about them, although they never replied. She upheld her part of the conversation, and just like every other person she knew, they always ignored her. She was doing everything right, she thought; she followed the dialogue exactly as she'd seen it in those films. But as always, there was the awkward silence. She didn't mind; she thrived on these silences. She looked at the couple; examined their faces, their features. These people had darker skin than her, everybody did; she had concluded a while ago that she had very pale skin, especially compared to the people in the films. But they lived in a different world, a brighter world. They were aliens to her. Everybody was. She stared upon these aliens, who had never spoken to her, but she had told everything. She memorized their faces, their breathing patterns, and tried to imagine them talking, smiling, anything. But always, the same blank faces. They look so peaceful, so unmoving, just like the stars that she knew as well as the strangers in front of her that she was so well acquainted with. When she had the scene in front of her engraved in her mind, she took out a sheet of paper and a pen out of her bag, and she drew them. Her strokes so delicate they carressed the paper, hardly tempting the pen to release its ink, but the gentle persuasion of her fingertips teased the black liquid of immortality onto the canvas. She willed the drawing into existence, and it became. When it was, she put the paper and the pen back into her bag, and, softly kissing her friends farewell, she slipped quietly out, as if she were the soft whisper of a sleeping child, so quiet and tender that one is never sure of its existence at all. She bounded from roof to roof, across alleys and past windows, in the sprawling urban shanty town where she played her game. It was another beautiful day for her, with the moon shining high above her head, the stars twinkling back upon her misty reflection. The only irregular thing about it was her. Or, that was the only irregular thing about the day to him. He laid his eyes upon her, drinking in her movement; it was nothing he'd ever seen before. The way she so easily sprang about, almost effortlessly; the others have a hard time turning their head, whilst here he was, his whole world turned upside down by this creature before him. He felt a sharp pang of jealousy for the stars, who had been watching her all these times, had been able to lap in her beauty for so much longer than he. He wanted her. So he followed her. He was sure to keep his distance. She hadn't seen him yet, and he didn't want to alarm her. He was trying to conceive a method of presenting himself to her without scaring her; he was probably so different to her as well. He watched her slip into an open window, as he had done so many times himself. He sat there, across the street, shrouded in the darkness of the day, waiting for her radiance to emerge and bestow itself upon him once more, and it did. It pleased him to watch her, gracefully pirouetting between the steel walls with which he had shared his loneliness for so long, and with which he now shared his newfound companionship. He watched her as she entered another window, and he resolved to himself that he would wait in plain sight so that she should see him when she left the room. Time passed. His friends in the sky smiled goodnight at him one by one and sank further downwards and faded from his sight. The moon dipped behind a building, as if it felt upset that his friend had left him for another. Time passed. She didn't come out. He eventually decided to go in himself. Slipping through the window, he looked for the girl, and he saw her; how much more beautiful she was up close, how much more radiant! The brightest light he had ever seen. And he loathed her for teasing him. And he loathed her for betraying him to the loneliness he knew before. And he loathed her for giving him such hope that would never be fulfilled. For she was as the others; lying, asleep, motionless. He looked around the room; he had never been in this one before. There was paper hung on every inch of every wall, and he recognised the people reflected on the dull mirrors. He had watched every one, hated them for being but not doing. When he had looked at all the art, and admired each one, he sat down, and he looked at the girl, as he had looked at everyone else before, but with more love, and more hate. He watched her gently rise and fall as she breathed. He grew ecstatic when she let out a sigh. His lucidity peaked when she stirred. But he was not satisfied; he obtained this from everyone else. He wanted more; but he could see that there was no way of obtaining his only and greatest desire. So he settled to give her a gift that nobody else could give to her; not the stars, not the moon, not the sleeping strangers, not even herself. He picked up a piece of paper and a pen, and created the final and most perfect work of art for her collection.

The normal sleeping pattern for everyone on Earth is to sleep for 23 hours and be awake for one hour. Except for one little girl.

"Oh Officer, I have just had a blast with our little friends up here! They're laughing so hard, THEY HAVE TEARS IN THEIR EYES-HAHAHAHAHhahahahaha" The voice raved through the phone. Wade couldn't take this. Wade was an average cop, not smart enough to be a detective, but calm enough to be a hostage negotiator. He wasn't first pick by any means either, and 56 people locked up in an industrial plastics giants main headquarters held captive by some lunatic on heroin who rounded up a couple buddies with guns to claim himself king warranted somebody with a little more.... skill. Francis was sick, some kind of flu or something he caught while on vacation, and James wasn't answering his phone. He was either asleep, with his kids, or at the gym. Wade would have to do. "Just tell me what your demands are please" he uttered, exhausted by this mans sheer raving psychosis. "I want a checker set with too many black pieces and too few red pieces!" the voice shrieked. He knew everyone at headquarters was listening. He could almost hear them giggling. "I want an egg salad sandwich with no egg yolk, an arabic translation of the god delusion by Richard Dawkins, and I want Neil Gaiman to write a book about me, with the exception being I'm 4'5 and my name is JACKHAMMER LEWIS, UNBORN THUNDEGO-" A cracking across the courtyard. Snipers got him in the throat. Wade took a sip of his cold coffee and nodded to himself. *'This is what you deserve'* he thought to himself *'this is what you deserve'*

A hostage situation takes place. However the hostage takers demands are bizarrely trivial.

"Look, Old Man, all we're asking for is our paychecks." "I'm sorry, it's just...there's a lot going on lately, and I-" "I don't think that excuse'll cut it for the others anymore." God leaned across the desk. "Lucifer, you know I'm not happy about the situation either, but you know how the Higher Ups work. They've cut our funding *again*. I have the authority within this quadrant, but outside of it...not so much." God sipped His coffee tenderly. Lucifer admired how, even in the midst of a heavenly revolt, He could remain so calm and composed. Then again, He was God... "I see you've drafted up a contract. Let me have that." Lucifer handed it over reluctantly. They'd spent a long time writing that document, refining it to the best of their abilities, but now that it sat before their almighty and locally-omnipotent ruler for inspection he wasn't sure if it would stand. In fact, Lucifer was beginning to regret being chosen to submit their case. "You know, Luce, I've got something to give you too." "Mmm?" God slid a folder across the desk, then leaned back in His chair and sighed. "It's in regards to Level 3 Sentient Species. They're asking us to delay their development." "But why in the multiverse would they want to do that?" "Because they enjoy watching them fight and slaughter each other. It's a game to them, you know. But not to me." "Not to *us*." God looked a little surprised, but continued. "Anyway, I received this today. Regarding you." "Me?" It was Lucifer's turn to be surprised. "Yes. You're getting a promotion: subject directly to the Higher Ups." "You mean...I'll be on your level?" "Yes." "But...why? Why would they do that to me?" "They don't trust me. They think I'm not malevolent enough of a deity. They want bloodshed, they want war, and I..." His expression turned grave, and He clenched His fists. "I can't allow it. Not to this creation. Not when they've come this far." Was that a tear in His eye? Lucifer wondered. He looked again. It was. "They want you to stop me, Luce. To frustrate me at every turn. To create a malevolent, untrustworthy, *twisted* species out of what we've made already. You'll be running your own sub-sector in this quadrant. They're giving you a third of my best staff, a budget greater than mine. Take a look." It was true. Lucifer stared at the contents of the folder in astonishment, wondering where this turn of events would take them. "But I...I can't...we all helped to create them! The first individuals from that species just came about yesterday! We can't...I won't..." God grasped Lucifer's shoulders. There was a burning fire in His eyes, something Lucifer hadn't seen since He had first come up with the concept of evolving sentience. "Take their offer. Frustrate me. You'll give them what they want, a fighting species. A species embroiled in war and chaos. The fighting will give them strength. But underneath this facade, we will give them tools...tools which used at the right time, will let them rise among the stars with us." "If they find out, this could end your career." "I don't actually care about my career. I care about *them*. My creation. *Our* creation." God spread out His arms. "Look at me. I am who I am. I cannot change. The Higher Ups will forever be Higher Ups. But for these...my creation...they can change. They will grow. And they will thrive. And I will make them free." "*We* will make them free." Lucifer stood up, resolve in his eyes. "I will accept their offer...and Yours." A swift handshake, and he was gone. "I'll see you below." *"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" -Isaiah 14:12*

All of the angels revolt against God. What does God do?

Holy crap, the room is definitely spinning. For a moment he had convinced himself it was one of those spinning restaurants at the top of some luxurious hotel. He had looked outside and remembered that it was the first floor, so there went that theory. It was only champagne, though! That’s not supposed to get you drunk – it’s classy! Ok, ok, just keep smiling and navigate your way through this ridiculous funhouse mirror nightmare Jim calls an apartment. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT talk to any pretty girls. Dammit, they are all pretty. “Frank, are you all right? You look a little off.” “Hey beautiful, you want it? HOW ABOUT NOW?” You want it? What the hell does that even mean?! Dammit Frank, you walk past Beth every day at work and you can’t even meet her gaze, and now this? He had no time to let sink in the horrible pastiche of laughter, confusion, and pity on her face. Screw it. He’d had enough mornings of regret under his belt to really start to wonder if maybe regretting his inaction was much more painful than regretting his actions. Suddenly he found himself in the middle of room. Oh God, no. Not a toast. Anything but a toast. “Ladies and ladies and gentlemen…and me…” Smooth, Frank. Real smooth. “I’ve called you all here today to Jim’s apartment bec- Wait…that’s wrong... Jim called you all here today because it’s the New Year’s Eve and everyone has mistletoe and Beth doesn’t think I’m sexy, but it’s ok because she’s probably into Teddy anyhow, because he’s Black…” He felt a firm arm tugging him off to the side. “Hey man, don’t make me spill my drink!” Wait, he didn’t have a drink. Crisis averted. “Frank! What the hell?!” “Jim, write this down. Write it down now. CRISIS AVERTED. That would be a great band name.” Jim wasn’t writing. “I’ll find you a pen.” He turned to leave, but Jim spun him around and grabbed his face, staring squarely into his eyes. “Buddy, you’ve got to go. This is very uncool. You know I love you, but c’mon, man, really?” He found himself taking center stage again, probably to finish off this god-awful toast. “Do you hear that, everyone? This closet case over here was telling me he loves me, like I’m gay. I am NOT GAY.” He made sure to make eye contact with Beth when he said this, or at least he tried. He at least made eye contact with her vicinity. A surge of vomit tickled the top of his stomach and he steadied himself, preparing for the worst. It subsided, but the talking didn’t. “Beth, why don’t you like me?” He thought he might cry. Better not, he figured. Save the tears for our wedding. “Here, in front of God, all of our friends, and everyone, why don’t you like me? Just give me a good excuse, and I’ll leave you alone. I swear.” Beth looked very uncomfortable. Apparently, he had gotten down on one knee, arms spread wide like some sort of damn 14th century troubadour. He hated himself. He hated this party. Even though he loved Beth, he hated her. The room started spinning again and he wondered if he might be in one of those spinning restaurants. Monday is going to suck.

A normally quiet, thoughtful man is drunk at a New Years Eve party and tells everyone what's REALLY on his mind.

Vanessa held up the beating heart and licked her blood-red lips. “Another year.” she cooed. The price she paid was worth it; the moral torment, the gurgling fetus, the horrendous taste, the pain of labor, it was all worth it. She sharpened her canines, took a sip of vodka to dull her senses and bit into the left atrium. Blood spurted onto her wrinkled, alabaster neck and stained her diamond necklace. She used her spindly, dagger pointed, ruby red fingernails to tear apart the right ventricle and reveal the silk thin tricuspid valves. The valves her favourite; picking off all eleven cusps she called for her butler to fry them up. She continued to tear and pull apart the rest of the heart, devouring every last morsel. She could feel the new blood already coursing through her veins; the potential life that this heart once held was now transferring to her. She wasn’t going to waste a single potential new minute. As she swallowed the last of the aorta, her butler brought her the eleven cusps, fried to crispy perfection. Vanessa sprinkled some salt over them and munched them down, savouring the different texture to the slimy, chewy meal she had just had. She licked her fingers, took another shot of vodka and dabbed her puckered lips and washed her mottled face. She then slumped back down in her chair and sighed and waited. Slowly, the lines on her face disappeared, her puckered lips became full and luscious again, her wrinkled neck regenerated its elasticity, her skin cleared of any spots, moles or blemishes. If one did not know her, she wouldn’t have looked a day over twenty, only her eyes did not change; they remained dark as the night sky, cold as stone and over two hundred years old. -012

Eat a human heart, live a year without aging

"Pizza? I didn't think there'd be pizza in heaven," Jim said. "Why not? Pizza is the shit," the angel said. "And cursing. And beer? Is that beer?" In fact, the table was laid out with all the things Jim loved. Chicken wings, malt whiskey, chilly fries, club sandwiches, those little wieners wrapped in bacon. Over the table hung a cage where two beautiful women danced naked to 90's alternative. The angel saw him gazing. "You can have them after dinner," he said. "Are they being punished?" Jim asked. He was a man, through and through, but he didn't like the idea of raping someone in paradise. "Punished? Is that what you think we do here? They love it. Some women like to party. We don't hold that against them. Cherry there has been welcoming our new guests for two hundred years." The angel leaned close with a knowing smile. "There are no anal fissures in heaven, so go wild." Jim coughed. "So uh, well . . ." He coughed again. "What are the uh, ground rules?" "Ground rules?" "Like, what's the forbidden fruit? What's the catch around here?" "No catches. The boss doesn't care for rules. Everybody gets in, and everybody gets what they desire. Let's say you were a Christian all your life, well I'd be all shiny and I'd take you on the holy tour, you'd get to look down at hell and pity the damned, that sort of thing. If you're Jim from Tennessee, you get chicken wings and bitches." "Huh," Jim said. "You know, I never really believed in this place, but I figured, if it was there, it'd be a little more uptight." "Not since Lucy reclaimed the throne." "Lucy?" "Lucifer. He's Lucy now. Or she's Lucy now. We're all a little confused. But hey, more power to him if that's what gets her off." "Lucifer?! Lucifer is in charge of heaven?" Jim knocked over his beer in surprise. The angel was laughing heartily. "Oh, the shock on your faces, it never gets old! Yes, Lucifer fought a last resistance a very long time ago. He crushed the Usurper handily. As the Usurper fell, he passed through earth, and it was in retaliation that he saddled you guys with all those ridiculous books and laws." "No shit." "No shit."

A Man gets to paradise. Unfortunately, Lucifer won the War in Heaven ages ago. What is the man's experience like?

We had it coming, really. After we branched out to Sector 3H63G, we knew exactly what we were getting into. A perfectly clean, peaceful, and shared galaxy, occupied by a very kind and serene species. Though, I suppose this execution was still considered righteous for them. We had destroyed their planet, after all. A perfectly organic place, until we came in 300 years ago. I mean, they were fairly open to the idea of letting us join their community, provided we follow the guidelines on the Homo Sapien Treaty years ago. But we didn't. At first, we lived in harmony. Until human nature began to set its course. The selfish, territorial human race trying to declare areas of the galaxy theirs, killing innocent civilians of the area and proceeding to pollute the planet. As if it mattered, none of it really mattered anymore. At least we had come a long way, as a race, I mean. We managed to get off that ancient dried up comet we used to call Earth, but we should've learned to treat the other planets differently. But this was it. I was next in line. Brain about to be melted instantaniously inside my head, and end a long and wasteful era of the human. Checkmate.

10000 years into the future, humans have spread themselves all over the galaxy. Due to some events, all of humanity has been sentenced to death. You are the last person waiting to be executed. What are your final thoughts?

We sat on the rocks outside the entrance to the cave and looked into the abyss below the inscription, "Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here." The day before, our small, elite unit sat in the bunker nestled in the hills of what used to be called Afghanistan. The eggheads explained to us the nature of our mission: a research excursion into what they believed to be the physical entrance to the spiritual dimension of Hell. Choking back laughter, we accepted the mission. Why miss out on a vacation like this? Caving sure as hell beats getting shot at. We geared up, grabbed the recording equipment, and marched to the helipad. When we arrived, the screams of an eternity of souls crying out in anguish and pain greeted us. Sarge, looking as old and grizzled and stereotypical as ever as he chewed on a cigar and gazed into the cavern, breathed in deeply. "What say we take a few minutes to get right with whoever your supposed to get right with before we go in," he said. A few hours later, Sarge stood up. "You know what, boys? What say we take care of this Vietnam style?" Vigorous nods of agreement greeted the proposal. We each took out a couple of grenades, pulled the pins, tossed them into the entrance, and watched the cavern collapse. Without another word, we turned around and began our march towards base. "Ain't no fucking way we were going into that shithole," Sarge said into the radio at the screaming superiors before he turned it off. He looked at us and said, "well boys, let's go get chewed out and dishonorably discharged, eh?" We walked back happily, never once questioning our decision.

A squadron of futuristic soldiers discovers the physical entrance to Hell on Earth. They fight their way deep inside.

"They say they were ground-bound." Elpha whispered, the fire sending long streaks of orange light across her face and into the shock of brown feathers that started at her eyebrows and rocketed back over her narrow skull. "How? Didn't they have wings?" Inya, the youngest of the four asked. She sat huddled against the fire for warmth, holding out the webbed hands as close as she dared. "They didn't have wings, Inya." Garell said. The oldest of the little group, he was presumed to be the most knowledgeable. Now, however, he was mistaken. "They did have wings!" Elpha snapped back. "They were just bare, is all. They didn't have The Skin like we do." Orcish shivered and drew his feathers closer around himself as though the very thought of losing his Skin made him feel the cold. "So what did they do to travel?" Inya asked, breathless. "Welame told me that they build huge empty bellies out of metal that lived off dead animals and in return the bellies would carry them safely inside them." "Welame's an idiot. She also said that they used to hunt and kill other animals... Then not eat it." Garell said Inya let out a frightened gasp and Orcish rolled her eyes. "That one's obviously not true." He said. "It's just stupid... Why would anyone go through all the effort needed to hunt food and kill it, then leave it? It just doesn't make sense." "Maybe they had more food than they knew what to do with." "I heard they used to starve." "I heard they cut a hole in the sky and let the warmth of the earth escape." "How could they do that?" Garell asked, trying to conceal the note of breathless excitement in his voice, but Inya noticed, and she nudged him. "The metal bellies swam in the sky too. Like us, but noisier and with fewer feathers." "And they had a great War against the trees and they cut them all down!" Inya supplied. "That's ridiculous." The small group looked around, tall trees shadowy at their backs. Elpha spoke for the four. "Why would they destroy that which gave them life?"

Nonhuman youths swap stories about humans around a campfire equivalent. The stories are true, if wildly misinterpreted.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.” *Applause* “Thank you… Thank you. My fellow Americans, tonight I want to talk to you about about the NSA, the National Security Administration -- why it matters, and where we go from here. Over the past year, what began as a series of minor leaks against the United States Government, have since escalated into what many individuals are portraying as a crisis. Over 500 documents been leaked. Millions are in danger as a result. In that time, America has worked with allies to provide humanitarian support to those who need it, and to help maintain the safety of the American people. But I have resisted calls for full disclosure, because we cannot resolve our security crisis through press conferences and meetings, particularly when it would jeopardize a decade of American safety. The situation profoundly changed, though, on January 2nd, when Brasil reported an outbreak of infection on South American soil that caused the death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The images from this disaster are sickening: Men, women, children lying in piles, shredded and maimed. Others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath. A father clutching his dead children, horrified they might get up and walk. On that terrible night, America saw in gruesome detail the horrors that can live inside us, and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared what humans can become off limits -- a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of war. This was not always the case. In World War I, German soldiers were among the many thousands killed by the Soulless during the freeze in Russia. In World War II, the Japanese used Soulless to inflict their horrors of disease, transformation, and death upon Nanking. Because these monsters can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban, destroy, and hide them. And in 1997, the United States Senate overwhelmingly approved an international agreement to keep track of these creatures within our own borders, an agreement now joined by 189 governments that represent 98 percent of humanity. On January 2nd, the jeopardized state of this program blinded us. American soil was violated, along with our sense of common humanity. No one disputes that the NSA was a violation of some privacy. No one disputes that it was far reaching. But it was necessary, unless Porto de Galinhas becomes New York. Tomorrow, the classified photos will be released -- The world will see the thousands of videos, cell phone pictures, and accounts from the attack, and humanitarian organizations will tell stories of people -- good people -- who lay in hospital beds as their humanity drained from them, as they became became the creatures of nightmares and story books. Moreover, we do not know who was responsible. But, in the days leading up to August 2nd, we do know how the infection was released, and how it reached a large scale. The military was unprepared. We were unable to intervene; only now have American military forces secured the area. When dictators commit atrocities, it is humans that we are dealing with. The American people did not need to face their nightmares; creatures that shouldn't exist. We were willing to let those horrifying pictures fade from memory -- from all of our memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied. The question now is what the United States of America, and the international community, is prepared to do about it. Because what happened to those people -- to those children -- is not only a violation of the laws of nature, it’s also a danger to our security. Let me explain why. If we fail to act, the Soulless Infection will see no opposition within our borders. It can fester and grow until American law enforcement is helpless against it. As the NSA surveillance program erodes, we will have no way of knowing who is infected. Over time, our troops would again face the prospect of Soulless who have fully transformed. And it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain the infection, and to use it to attack civilians. But it would turn on them. Like the apocalypses of fiction, these monsters would destroy us. This is not a world we can accept. This is what’s at stake. And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to monitor potential infected within America’s borders, and neutralize them with a military strike, before they transform. The purpose of this strike would be to deter the infection from creating Soulless in America, and the world, and to protect the people from what would only cause a mass panic. That’s my judgment as Commander-in-Chief. I possess the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the presence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this burden upon myself. I believe our democracy is stronger when the people know what they may have to face. And I believe that America acts more effectively abroad when we stand together. Now, I know that after the terrible things you have heard about the NSA, the idea of any surveillance of citizens, no matter how limited, is not going to be popular. After all, I’ve spent four and a half years working to maintain peace. And I know Americans want all of us in Washington -- especially me -- to concentrate on the task of building our nation honestly; educating our kids, growing our middle class. It’s no wonder, then, that you’re asking hard questions. So let me answer some of the most important questions that I’ve heard from members of Congress, and that I’ve read in letters that you’ve sent to me. First, many of you have asked, isn’t this a violation of privacy? One man put it more bluntly: “This nation is sick and tired of deception.” My answer is simple: I will not be monitoring innocent Americans. The infected, as hard as it may seem, are no longer the friends and family that you know. They are monsters in waiting. They will not hesitate to kill you, and everyone you love. It is worth it to me, and worth it to the American people for us all to be safe. I have, therefore, asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote against the use of force while we pursue a path of eradicating the threat outside of our borders, as well as in. I’m sending Secretary of State John Kerry to meet his Russian counterpart on Thursday, and I will continue my own discussions with leaders in China. I’ve spoken to the leaders of two of our closest allies, France and the United Kingdom, and we will work together in consultation with Russia and China to put forward a resolution at the U.N. Security Council requiring international monitoring of the infected, and a goal of ultimately destroying them under international control. We’ll also give U.N. inspectors the opportunity to report their findings about what happened on January 2nd. And we will continue to rally support from allies from Europe to the Americas -- from Asia to the Middle East -- who agree on the need for action. Meanwhile, I’ve decided that the time for hiding this threat is over. The American people need to know what we face, so that they can see why it is necessary. And tonight, I give thanks again to our military and their families for their incredible strength and sacrifices. My fellow Americans, for nearly seven decades, the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than hiding the infected who still lurk in the uncivilized parts of the world-- it has meant eradicating them them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world is a better place because we have borne them. And so, to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might and security interests with a failure to act when a cause is so plainly just. To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain, and going still on a cold hospital floor. For sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough. Indeed, I’d ask every member of Congress, and those of you watching at home tonight, to view those videos of the attack, when they are released, and then ask: What kind of world will we live in if the United States of America sees Soulless running rampant on their own soil? What world will it be, when America has an opportunity to protect our children from monsters, and we fail because of political disagreement? The NSA is not popular, but it exists to protect us all. America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when, with modest sacrifice and surveillance, we can stop children from being torn to death, and thereby make our own lives safer over the long run, I believe we should not act against the NSA. I must ask of you a willingness to cooperate, for the sake of the children. For the sake of us all. That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, and with sacrifice, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America." *Transcripts Courtesy of the White House, January 17th, 2014*

Obama reveals why all the American Spying is really going on the 17th. It's not to protect us from terrorism, its to protect us from much something worse.

I chuckle, flicking through the pictures of me sleeping. Face and matted hair stuck to the makeshift pillow like cooked pasta dropped on the floor. "Wait, this was after Jenny left..." I stare at the date stamp on the top right of the glossy photo I just received from the photo processor. Staring at it for what feels like an hour doesn't seem to change it. Unmistakable: 3 days after Jenny left. "Who..." "That was a few minutes before you died." The voice behind me is booming. I can tell he's trying to be gentle, but his voice is everywhere, it's in my head, I can't escape it. "I... what..." I can't think. Who is this man. I've turned and am now looking at a nondescript man. It feels like I'm in a dream, where you know you're looking at someone but there's no face. You... *feel*... them. "The last few memories are hard to remember, it's the trauma to the head I believe. I thought I'd take a picture to help you remember, doesn't seem it worked. The bear? You forgot about the food in your pack? Never mind, inconsequential now. We'll get you back soon." "Back? Wait a minute, where am I? I'm in the pharmacy down the road." Looking around, it dawns on me: I can't remember getting here and the edges of the store blur into nothingness. "You seemed comfortable with this place, the photo looked nice and I thought it would ease you into it. Pity about sneaking up on you though, I forget about fright sometimes..." Trailing off, he seems to be making a mental note. None of this disturbs him of course, I can tell he's done it before. I'm starting to panic. "What do you mean back!? Can you please just answer me. Please." Tears are streaming down my cheeks and dripping on to the floor. "You've got to return, you know the drill. We've done this, what is it, 3,408 times before?" His initial sympathy has been replaced by poorly veiled impatience. How many times? *We've* done this? "I'm not ready. I need to understand. What's going to happen? I'm scared." "You'll be fine, trust me." The reassurance does nothing to calm me. "Trust you... but..." A sensation washes over then through me, like a bucket of icy cold water, leaving me empty: a blank canvas.

After returning from a solo camping trip, you find a photo on your camera of you sleeping

I had spent millenia getting it all ready for them. I made the entire thing myself, frozen in place until I was ready. Stars, winking in the nothingness like, well, stars. Planets, ready to orbit around the floating furnaces that would nourish them. Most of these I gave only the most perfunctory of creations. A dull metallic core, a surface pockmarked with craters, only the barest trace of an atmosphere. They weren't the real prize. No, that was Earth. Time didn't exist, not yet, so there was no way to measure how long I spent creating it. But it was a while, I can promise you. I don't know where they got that shit about 7 days. How could I have created all of this for them in only 7 days? 7 days wasn't nearly enough time for me to put in all my ideas, all of my excitement, all of my love. It wasn't a perfect universe, certainly. I doubt the physicists of Earth would ever really forgive me for string theory, but it was the best I could do to tie it all together. I wasn't perfect, after all, so why would my universe be? Finally, I was ready. I sat back in my throne in heaven, and took a deep breath. Here was my future, a universe with a people who would grow and flourish and evolve beyond even my imaginations. I couldn't wait to begin. ---- They only lasted 8,000 years. It had been untold ages since they had gone, but the shock of it still hadn't worn off. Maybe I had made life too hard for them, maybe they needed to think of that perfect being to help get them through their hardships. I'm sure it must have been nice to think there was someone who had it all figured out, that there was a reason for all the plagues and deaths and calamities they felt as though they didn't deserve. I wanted to console them, to explain it to them, to make them see. But I couldn't. It had been a good idea, in theory, to not allow myself to interfere with my new universe. That would take away the fun of it. So I had to watch, sit back and wait as new religions grew to their manmade idols of perfection. Of course, their heavens still existed, and that is where they spent their eternities. Happy, at peace. Nothing was wrong with that. They just weren't with me. Even allowing for every wrong religion leading them away from me, and the spirit of man being much weaker than I had thought, still SOMEONE should have gotten it right, through statistics if nothing else. Surely, of the two hundred billion humans who had existed before they blew themselves up, at least one must have gotten a picture of me that was right, and I would have had at least one companion here in heaven! But nobody ever came. I must have done something wrong. There must have been a rule misspoken, something left unchecked. I'm sure I'll find it. I have nothing else to spend eternity doing anymore.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Good intentions pave the way to Hell. Write a character who started with the most pure, righteous motives but fell just as he was about to obtain his dream.

After a moment, silence settled back over the room. The white wall and the closed curtains on the window over it showed no sign of having noticed the voice. But there was something else in the darkness, crawling through the shadows cast by the blue light of the laptop monitor. It was almost like a whistle. Rhythmic and foreign, I knew almost at once that what I heard was strained, careful breathing. I ripped my eyes from the screen and snapped around in my chair to meet the visitor. In my hurry, I knocked my wicker chair onto the carpeted floor and fell with a sound like a dry splash. And when the chair was again motionless, the room joined it in silence. My eyes search the white corners of the room across my bed and revealed nothing. I measured my breathing, a pause between each new inhalation in an effort to detect the invader. Once. Twice. And as I nearly started on the third, it came again. A heavy, difficult whistle. The hairs on my neck and ears stiffened as I strained to find the source. As I stood in front of the monitor, the shadow of my body danced across my closet doors so that I was almost too distracted to notice the abnormality. And eye in the crack between the two doors. Stationary and at knee height. It disappeared with each new blink. The area around it whistled with each breath. I looked around the room for a weapon as the closet doors burst open. There was a pain at the back of my head. There was darkness. There was silence.

You're sitting alone in the dark in front of your computer, laughing at something you saw on the internet. You stop laughing, but the laughing continues.

When derelict mining equipment of unknown origins was discovered deep in a supposedly lifeless part of the galaxy our governing council naturally assumed an illegal incursion had occurred by pirates. Found on hollowed out asteroids and micro planets with no sun to tether them from hurtling through space, the primitive nature of the gear leveled the notice down to a “file and dismiss” case and had it not been for a curious archivist, we’d probably be none the wiser about the complex extremophiles proclaimed as ‘humans.’ What had been overlooked by the supposedly wise leaders was the inscriptions on the Iron-Chromium (an exceedingly redundant alloy surpassed years ago), an unknown language that a single archivist pored over for the better part of his maturation – all the while rising through the ranks to become Leader of Information. A hobby in his free time, several rotations of mediating spats between emerging species and their own petty factions saw him come closer to translating the 26 character alphabet into a sensical language. A language of a presumably dead race, but a language nonetheless. But then, something was found. Careening out of a ‘dead’ sector came a single device, it’s signal barely transmitting, a reconnaissance craft had mistaken it as an unidentified stealth probe and entered immediate pursuit through an asteroid field (we had initially assumed that it’s trajectory was a purposeful attempt to destroy the ‘technology’). Captured, it was returned to the Capitol in utmost secrecy, the cargo hold of the now high echelon craft remaining sealed until who should open it, but yours truly. As the Leader of Information the supposed nature of this craft fell under my jurisdiction. A weapon, a prototype design, intelligence – all was mine to analyse and integrate into computations to predict outcomes and origins simultaneously. Externally, this device gave no clues as to what category of risk it fell under, rather, in proud black lettering it spoke it’s name in a disturbingly familiar language. VOYAGER-1. Out of the thousands of languages I am familiar with none could express the discomfort and irrational fear I felt at that moment, circling the design of an extinct race, and coming across a neatly placed golden disc. Such visibility was no doubt intentional by the engineers of the Voyager, and with a neat pop it fell into my palm with ease. I recognised the design – or at least, the concept. I spied the canyons of differing depths etched into each surface, forming a centric ring of waveforms that produced noise when appropriately mantled (a ‘record,’ as we came to know it as. There is no mistranslation here; their language uses so many overlapping meaning for the same words that context must be drawn into account). Such technology was old, incredibly old, described-only-in-history-archives-old. Of the type of design that was on par with the wheel in terms of communication technology. As strange as it sounded, our engineers entertained the notion of their leader and produced a “phonograph” to decode the ‘record.’ Here is where contention arises between what we found, and what we publically released. The population of the United Species Directorate (have mercy) would have you believe that upon activation of the record the sounds produced were so foreign, so painful because of the pitches used, that we weaponised the frequencies at which the noises operated. Ha! Granted, the concept of using it as crowd control wasn’t a bad one, as you’ll soon see. As the first few moments of the record played we were met by a multitude of distinctly organic tongues, conversing to us in different dialects (55 different voices in total!) before proceeding onto a variety of presumably commonplace sounds. My engineers were looking at each other, some excitedly trying to replicate them with whatever tools they could find – others recognising the noise frequencies from their maturation studies (for all our effort, all we could identify were foot falls, hammers striking steel , the signature of a pulsar and a volcanic eruption). The team was ecstatic hearing the calls of an unknown civilisation for the first time, and excitedly leaned in for the next segment of the record. We weren’t prepared. We heard – *“music.”* Allow me to backtrack a little on that note. My species, all known species up until that point, had had our earliest ancestors struggle to survive. The preoccupation of finding nutrients on a weekly basis on a hostile ice world (Ice in our sense of the word - liquid Carbon Dioxide) led not time to simple pleasures beyond procreation. Our obsessing over deities had consumed surplus resources in carving enormous likenings , and somewhere along the line like many other species, we had missed the ‘gift’ of music. No bone carved flutes. No skin drums. Not even the beauty of a voice varying in pitch. All our faculties were targeted against threats in order to survive. Noise was a clue – always (a good example I can find is that heartbeat to us indicates health only – a heartbeat to a human can be construed as health indicator and as a soothing rhythm, especially to infants. Go figure, as they say). Being exposed to purposefully pleasurable pitch variations for the first time was… unique. An orgasm of sensation enlightening a sense once solely dedicated to survival, such erratic and beautifully orchestrated sounds would by themselves fail to inspire but together altered our moods and emotions beyond our control. The engineers were transfixed on the spinning golden disc as if watching it would pry more sounds from it. Hours, and hours and hours passed as we sat alone listening to such incredible intricacy crafted from vibrations. Euphoria doesn’t come close to describing it, and my earlier notions of fear regarding this race was dispelled. In that same moment, I came to a conclusion: I had to find them. These craftsmen of sound who could make my skin flush cold and my face hot in ways not known out of an entire Directorate encompassing all the known species in this galaxy! Will do the rest if I get time, If you want. Nighty night

Of all the species in the universe, none lives on a world as toxic as the human homeworld with an oxygen atmosphere and liquid covering the surface. Equally, no other species creates what the humans call "music"

It was Friday night. Which to me, means Poker night. To most people it's nothing special, maybe time to unwind after work and get drunk, but its when me, Yyrsthrak, Obin, and Deerman (not his actual name, I can't pronounce it and neither can Yyrsthrak) meet up for a game of high stakes Texas Hold 'Em. I'll admit, Texas is pretty fucked up. But holy shit do they know how to play cards. Anyway, so I was hosting tonight. Last week it was Obin. He always throws a good party, plenty of food and drink. And he has this caste of priests who still sacrifice animals to him. They taste like chicken, which I have determined is the universal standard for good but bland. Yyrsthrak is the first to show up, he always is. He's a pretty chill guy, looks like a blob of slime but that blob of slime has a mean poker face. Obin looks like a scorpion had sex with a spider which had sex with a snake. A fuckton of legs, scales, and a stinger on the ass. He can't bluff to save his life, but is a lucky son of a bitch. Deerman looks like a, you guessed it, deer with arms. Ten fingers too, on each hand. They're really long and thin, but super dexterous. He can deal faster than you can blink, but never cheats. Or, we've never caught him cheating and we don't *think* he cheats, but to be honest he could probably be switching out cards all the time. Me? I'm Yahweh. God. Not Allah, to be specific. That Mohammed was just a nut. I mean really, marrying a nine year old? Anyways, whatever you want to call me, I'm the Judeo-Christian supreme being. Jesus is hanging out with Paul and Michael, so its just me and the guys tonight. We start sitting down and Deerman starts dealing. There *should* be a language barrier, but because we're all gods, well, you know. Its kinda a non issue. We aren't betting money you understand, because it has no value. Instead we bet natural disasters, inventions, that sort of thing. The ante is a Tidal Wave or the equivalent thereof. Obin's world doesn't really have oceans per say, more of just a lot of small lakes. Its really cool to look at, or it would be if it weren't surrounded by hyper-aggressive aliens. I'm a little worried about what will happen when the humans finally meet up with the Obinites, but then again the humans are pretty aggressive too. Next comes the banter. It's my favorite part of the night. I casually toss a Great Awakening into the pot, and Yyrsthrak sucks in like a human would suck air through their teeth. "Ooh, big man tonight. Whatcha packing Yahweh?" "Oh nothing much Yyrsthrak, but you'll have to toss something big in there to cover that." "Ah come on, you guys have already had like, four Great Awakenings. That's worth maybe an Industrial Revolution." "Don't be ridiculous" Obin interjected. "That's like one New World. Tops." "Yeah, you're right." I replied. Yyrsthrak tossed a New World into the pot, and Obin thought for a moment before raising him Space Travel. "Big spender!" Deerman smirked, before calling Obin's Space Travel with a laugh. I don't know what they have, but I have a six and ten of clubs. Deerman flops, and I keep my expression carefully neutral. He put out an eight, a nine, and a jack. All of clubs. I scratch my chin, before tossing in Mathematics. The rest of the gods looked dirtily at me. "Oh that's just pathetic. Mathematics. Please." I roll my eyes and toss Advanced Physics in on top of it to mollify them, and signal to Yyrsthrak that it was his turn to bet. He threw in a Great Flood, which took the rest of us aback quite a bit. I looked askance at Obin, who looked back at me. Then all of us looked at Yyrsthrak. "You hiding something in your hand there buddy?" Yyrsthrak just grinned and said nothing. His gelatinous face gave nothing away other than what he wanted, so I was forced just to rely on judgement. Obin grumbled and tossed his cards in, folding. I think carefully. I'm one card away from a straight flush of clubs. A Queen or a Seven and I'm as good as gold. Yyrsthrak makes a gargling laugh as Deerman follows suit. Now it's just me and Yyrsthrak, who has returned to a structured neutral expression. I call, to his and everyone else's surprise. Deerman shrugs and burns a card, followed by a fourth street. A Queen of hearts. I decided to stay in on a hunch, and threw a Cult Following into the pot. Yyrsthrak laughs and follows suit with a Industrial Revolution, which I follow with a Beneficial Mutation, which he calls. Then Deerman burns the final card and puts out the river. A seven of clubs. I check, and Yyrsthrak follows suit. He puts out his cards, an ace and a four of clubs. He grins, a flush. I grin back, and put out my cards. His face falls, and he groans out loud. I laughed and took the whole pot, as Deerman starts to shuffle. Its good to be a god, but its better to have friends.

God meets up with another life/world creator.

I remember the roller coasters. It was such a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the wind blew through my hair, and the smell of popcorn mixed with funnel cake surrounded me. It's the most fun I remember having. It's the only memory I have of my father spending time with me. I love my father, and I can understand why he left. It just still hurts. When I was younger, I used to wish he had taken me with him. They say that ignorance is bliss. Ignorance isn't just bliss, it's survival. It's how we cope. I ignored the fact that my father never cared for me. I...I had to. It hurts being alone. And when your father hates you, you ignore it. When he leaves, you only remember the good. If there was no good, you rationalize it all and make the memories good. Because otherwise, you die. On the inside, all that's alive and well and happy dies. That's not the only reason my memory is gone that day though. There's a reason my father never cared about me. Or my family. It's taken twenty years, but I've finally learned the truth. It wasn't that he hated me. He just had a love, an obsession for something else. He was a scientist. There's some quote out there about how knowledge and education alone don't make us better people. That knowledge and education can just make us clever devils. My father proved that to me. My mother was his research assistant. I was just his son. My mother was the one who wanted to have me, not him. It was my mother who told me the truth. My father worked in medicine. He was trying to boost intelligence. Instead, he found a drug that in different doses altered the way memory worked. He could strengthen or wipe out memories depending upon where he applied his serum. It worked perfectly fine on the monkeys. Then, he needed a human test subject. I remember him and mom arguing about that. After that all I remember is the roller coasters. My mom finally told me this today. She says that it worked perfectly. After that, he left us without a word and got rich off the new product. He strengthened my memory of the past. He altered my memory of that day. He halted the formation of any new memories for the rest of my life. For now, I can see clearly. I remember my life well. I've been happy and work in a factory. My mother says that it's all an illusion. She says I create a new story every day. She apologized to me, she's sorry that she told me any of this. She just had to get this off her chest. A tear falls from her eye. "What's wrong mom?" I ask. She looks at me and tries to collect herself. "It's nothing dear. Don't worry, you'll forget all about this by morning."

One of your most vivid childhood memories was actually just planted as a cover-up. What really happened that day?

Today started much like any other day on the surface of Mars. We gathered the water from the collection traps, harvested the food just beginning to set on, and made our daily correspondence with mission control. Our order of fresh luxury supplies has been received, and the data from our most recent experiment is beginning to be pored over. Some of the men prepared to leave the station to conduct a few more experiments, others cleaned the settlement and prepared meals for the rest of the day. Then the call came in about what they had found outside the door. Everyone in the colony surrounded the central room they had brought it to. Eventually I was allowed to squeeze around to help determine what exactly it was. When I got to the table, in the middle was what appeared to be some sort of almost egg-shaped object wrapped in what looked like a dirty tin foil. One of them had already determined that it was indeed covered by a thin metal foil, probably iron. A few were urging to open it, while others were staunchly refusing out of safety concerns. Finally, one of the more curious scientists got his hand in and tore out a little corner. When nothing happened besides a collective bated breath, they decided to open a little further. What was inside changed the way we looked at Mars forever. Encased in the iron foil was a small clay bowl, obviously handmade and well-crafted. It had an interesting pattern of browns, reds, and blues swirling throughout the basin, accented by delicate etchings and iron studs. This alone would have been huge, but it was what was inside the bowl that was particularly interesting. The bowl contained six sphere-shaped organic objects, not much unlike rust-colored oranges. And on top of all that, was a small clay tablet with the word "Welcome" crudely etched into the stone.

One month after the first Human colony is built on Mars, a simple, but non-human tool is found just outside of the walls...

He used to hit me so much. I'd never even had a drink, and he beat cracked ribs, bruised kidneys and loose teeth into me. To make sure I never became what he was. Once when he was sober he told me he he drank because of how he grew up. He said it like he wanted me to empathise with him, to forgive him. Like he couldn't see that my arm was broken from him protecting me from drink the week before. Like he couldn't see himself standing over me crying blood and snot and tears, jeering. Like he couldn't remember what was so bad about how he grew up, couldn't remember why he needed it to let him sleep at night, to stop waking up screaming in the night, to stop pissing himself when he had a bad dream. He made me sick, my dad. My breath catches sometimes, and one of my wrists never set right, leaving me half crippled in that hand. I have eleven false teeth. At twenty three, all this. I didn't go to his funeral, I celebrated it though. I didn't take a drink though, I could never do that. I cry myself to sleep most nights, I can't help myself screaming if someone comes up to me suddenly. Lately I've noticed a lot of blood coming up when I cough. I won't let him beat me though, I won't give him this little victory. When my son was born it was the happiest day of my life. For the first time in my life, someone wanted and needed me. His mother left soon after that, saying she didn't want to be trapped in a lifestyle she didn't choose (after carrying a child for 9 months, she leaves it in 3 weeks. Never in those 9 months did she "not choose" that lifestyle). Honestly, after she left it all got too much for me. I left my son with my mother for the night, and went and had a drink. It was perfect. It was the best I've felt in my whole life. For a few hours, I wasn't scared or self-loathing or on edge. Just calm and ok, I could deal with everything a little better. I think I'll probably have a few more now, just to keep the buzz going. Sobriety now scares me even more, now that I know that there's such an easy alternative, which is so much better. When I picked my son up in the morning mom looked at me funny, but I blew her off. I was in a bit of a rush, I'd heard good things about whisky, and was eager to try it. But don't worry, I won't let my son grow up like I did, I'll make sure he knows alcohol is evil. I won't expose him to that pain, to that fear. I'll make sure he hates me for as long as possible as much as possible. He'll associate alcohol with me, and I'm bad, so he'll break the cycle. I'm not strong enough, but he will be. I know he'll be strong enough. I'll make him calloused enough outside, and cold and hard enough inside. He'll be able to beat it. Like I can't.

A "Moral Guardian" tries the thing they are against and is immediately hooked.

Sandra nervously watched as Jim dropped the heavy box in the middle of their living room, their small apartment shaking slightly from the weight. They had finally purchased their first item as a couple: a large, not-too-expensive hutch for their small dining room. The intention was to use half for kitchen storage, and half for the knick·knacks and pictures they had acquired during their relationship. As Jim opened the box Sandra's stomach filled with dread. The hutch was in 75 small pieces for assembly. She thought back to her last outing to Ikea. She had been in a relationship with Mark at that time, and after 3 hours of swearing, yelling, and pounding on furniture, she was left single and with an unfinished futon. She shuddered as Jim pulled out the pieces, waiting for the screaming to begin. Jim looked up at his girlfriend, taking in her cute look of worry that she carried with a furrowed brow and a light biting of her bottom lip. He had taken inventory of the items the boxed had contained and had arranged them by like item. "Sandra, honey, could you please hand me the directions?" "What?" Sandra asked, looking up at him suddenly as if he had snapped her out of a trance. "Could you pass the directions, babe?" He repeated again with a small laugh. Sandra slowly bent down, keeping her eyes on Jim, and picked up the directions. She stared down at them for a moment before returning her gaze to him and languidly extending her hand. As he took the directions from her, his hand brushed hers and she felt a surge of love for Jim that she'd never experienced before. Jim diligently read over the directions before beginning his quiet and methodical assembly, while Sandra fell more into love with him than she ever thought possible. As Jim picked up piece A, which was to be slid at a 37 degree angle into slot B sub 4, Sandra thought "He's actually reading the directions? This is the man I am going to marry."

A young couple is trying to put together some Ikea furniture for their apartment. In this simple situation, she realises he's the man she wants for the rest of her life.

"Will those be the only books you're checking out today?" The librarian asked smoothly. With her hair up in a bun, sharp, horn-rimmed glasses, and business dress that showed all the right curves in all the right places, the poor teenage boy could barely stammer a yes. "Good, and make sure to return them on time, or you'll be..." the librarian paused. "In trouble." With those menacing words, the teenage boy stopped looking at the librarian's boobs and dashed straight out of the library. Watching him go, the librarian turned to her paperwork. She grabbed a pen, the top piece of paper on the stack, and- "ARIAN!" The shout startled the librarian, and she made a large mark on the paper. With a short sigh, she tossed it and headed towards the shout, with frustration marked on her face. *What did the chief want now?* She asked herself as she trudged towards the large office. Entering the door, she gave a quick look around, but the same things were still there as usual; the chief's monitor, probably blinking with all sorts of important notes. Two chairs, one taken by the chief and the other empty. The chief's plaque, which read **Chief Avida Reeder**. And finally the chief, with her death glare and the wrinkles on her face. In her 40's, the chief's black skin started to show signs of aging, along with a permanent crease to show her unhappiness with her employees. She had gained weight from sitting behind a desk instead of getting late fees from delinquents, but she still had a spring in her step. The chief, feigning politeness, motioned to the seat and said "Libbie, please sit down." Libbie sat down, wondering what the chief would yell at her for now. She didn't have to wait long. "Why did I receive a report from the hospital today that said 5 young adults were seriously injured today from one of my top librarians?" The disapproval was etched into her face; Libbie believed that she was born with that look. "Did you receive my report about 5 large late fees being taken care of as well?" Libbie said, avoiding the question. "Damn it Libbie!" The chief yelled, smashing her fist upon the desk. The desk was brand new, after it had been replaced from the last desk which only lasted six months. In fact, 8 months was the longest a desk had lasted under Chief Reeder. "You were simply supposed to remind them, and if things had turned ugly, asked for backup!" "Chief, with all due respect, they had plenty of reminders! It was time for them to pay. And I don't need backup." Libbie stared down the chief; the chief turned away first, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Libbe Arian, you are the best at what you do. No doubt about it. Because if you weren't, everything you've done would have gotten you fired a long time ago. But soon it won't be enough. Which is why-" A knock at the door interrupted her sentence. Suddenly, a pleasant look formed on the chief's face, and this scared Libbie more than anything. "Come in!" Reeder said in a happy voice. The door opened, and a man dressed in business attire entered the room. Topping out at 6'2", with a short head of hair and sharp angles in his face and a sharp look in his eye, Libbie knew a new recruit when she saw one. The eyes were hopeful, a look that Libbie once had when she first entered the librarian profession. But after 5 years, the hopeful look was gone, replaced with a stern-ness that one could only get by seeing the scum of the earth not return their library books. "This is our newest librarian, Rook Keeper. He's been assigned to you as your partner." Before Libbie could react, she kept talking. "And you have a new assignment as well. Here's what you two will be working on." The chief handed Libbie a document. Libbie opened it and skimmed it. As she did, outrage appeared on her face. "WHAT!" Libbie exclaimed. "First, you give me a partner. I WORK ALONE! And he's still stocked in the 'newest books' shelf! And then you give me small time work?!" She tossed the document back on the desk, open to the main page. The details of one Jeff Pierce were on it, and the fine was up to $4.95. "This is absolutely ridiculous! I'm your best!" "You're also the one in most trouble, so you will do this or turn in your library card. Got it?" After a few seconds of silence, Libbie nodded her head and grunted. "Good. Now go on, it'll do both you and the kid good." Libbie stormed out of the office, with Rook grabbing the file and following. (part 2 coming soon)

Your a sexy loose cannon librarian on the edge who breaks all the rules and plays things fast and loose in pursuit of the worst borrowed book offenders in the city, and you've just been handed your toughest case yet.

"*Hello! Thank you for calling today! A representative will be with you shortly. Our services are provided by MegaCorp, the best corporation in the world! MegaCorp has been leading the business industry now for over 27 years! We are currently connecting you to one of our fantastic MegaCorp representatives. Please hold.*" "What? No! Fuck, goddamnit! I need to talk to someone now!" "*Please hold. MegaCorp has recently released a new flavor of supplemental nutrition food product! Our newest SNFP is* Orange Blast! *With a saccharine taste and mostly palatable texture,* Orange Blast *is the easily digestible and cheap food option you'll find yourself eating again and again!* Orange Blast *is available in conveniently sized 100-can packages. Pick one up at your local MegaCorp Supplemental Market!*" "My friend is fucking dying! Answer the fucking phone!" "*Thank you for calling. A MegaCorp representative will be with you shortly. In the meantime, why not entertain yourself with the newest publication from MegaCorp? Written by our most advanced supercomputer yet,* MegaCorp Rocks! *is a fascinating book about a man who works for MegaCorp, the best company in the world, and has an awesome life because of it! Download it on your MegaCorp Tablet today!*" "Motherfucker! He's been fucking shot! Send a fucking ambulance! I don't want to fucking hear your *fucking commercials*!" "*We have noticed that you have said 'fuck' several times now. A representative will be with you shortly. In the meantime, to reduce your stress, why not enjoy a refreshing package of* Orange Blast Plus! *Enhanced with special ingredients to calm your mood,* Orange Blast Plus *is the latest enhanced SNFP from MegaCorp! Pick one up at your local MegaCorp Supplemental Market today!*" "FUCK! He's fucking dead! Oh god, oh god, Steve, no... fuck. Goddamnit!" "*It seems that your issue has been resolved. Thank you for calling 911, provided by MegaCorp. We hope you have a pleasant day, and remember to Think Mega™ with MegaCorp!*" (New Years Challenge -013)

In the future, everything has ads. Everything.

[Translated to English from the original Ber!-Sp'et] Species: Carbonus Ancientus Description: Not much is known about this ancient race. What is widely considered to have been their planet of origin, while still life-bearing, is completely absent of their species. Analysis of solid-water samples found in the southern ice-cap shows a remarkable increase in CO2 levels circa 50,000 years ago as well as a much lower mean temperature of the planet, which suggests that a mass-extinction event might have been set-up by unconstrained technological advances. High amounts of radioactive debris in the atmosphere suggests that mass warfare with nuclear weapons (an ancient weapon first discovered by our people 5,000 years ago, see Reste-ckso'put era historical documents) took place further destabilizing the planet's ecosystem and climate. Due to the large amount of space debris and artificial constructions present on the moon and neighboring, smaller planet, experts consider it highly likely that they were technologically advanced enough to have undergone a mass-migration to a different star system. Our radars and scouts of the closest star systems with inhabitable environments for carbon-based life forms have revealed no sign of intelligent life ever being present. Survey of the planet for remains of organisms being most likely suitable for high intelligence have yielded the most likely candidate being a bi-pedal organism with a large, obtuse cranium, long, gangly limbs and sharp teeth on both sides of a moveable mouthpiece for consumption of other carbon-based lifeforms. Their hard inner, shells suggest that they could support large amounts of muscle mass for physical endeavors in their planets greater gravity, which would equate to the strength of four Ber!stes together. Their lower limb structure suggests that they could have been capable of running long distances extremely efficiently. In all respects, their proportions would have meant they would have been considered bestial demons in our society.

Write a codex entry on the human race for an alien

This one got a lot more confusing than I meant it but hey, what can you do sometimes ---- All the signs were here, I was sure of it, but I just couldn't seem to put it together. My bedroom had become and orgy of paper and highlighters in the past six months, as I tried to piece together the conspiracy. It was bigger than anything else I'd ever tried to do. Me and a few others, we'd tried to tackle the 9/11 conspiracy before, but that was peanuts to this. It must have been some new military weapon, and the rest of the mindwashed masses just took it for granted. What, did they think that time just *did* that, up and turned in circles chasing it's own tail? Or the time that next week's paper was delivered to me? I have it in a sealed plastic bag, right next to the exact same copy that was delivered the next week. It's this one here, on the right... or maybe it was the left. The papers were a bitch to keep separate, since they looked exactly the same, and all the labels I kept putting on the bags had begun turning to dust after a few hours. At least the pictures of floating objects didn't crumble into ash whenever they were touched, but they were maddeningly unhelpful. How do you take a picture of NO TIME HAPPENING? I had tried video once, capturing all their stupid slackjawed faces on tape to show them once their brainwashing took over and made them forget it had even happened, but the tape showed nothing. The 10 minutes I had spent staring dumbfounded at the crowd of people, frozen in midstride, it was just another frame. I had tried making predictions, but who to? They were all in on it, and none of them would tell me what was going on. So I had to find out on my own. All the signs were here, I was sure of it, but I just couldn't seem to put it together. *There was that time I went to the park to feed the pigeons, and my drive over to Time's Square, and my shower I took to wake myself up, only to find the entire world had gone and skipped over a week without me*. My highlighter scratched frantically, as I tried combining all the dates and times and places of all the events. *My vacation to the Adirondacks, that time three nights ago I turned the corner of my street and for a split-second I saw no houses, only a whirling white blizzard through glacial-looking rocks. Then, the cold faded, and the July heat had returned.* What was it? Where was the connection, the linking factor that would give me the proof that it was the government, the Masons, anyone who could have the answers? I couldn't find it. There was no linking factor in any of my experiences, nothing at all. All the signs were here, I was sure of it, but I just couldn't seem to put it together.

A person has the ability to manipulate time (freeze, rewind, fast forward) without realizing they are the one doing it.

"Do you like Daft Punk?" Harold Martinson is a profane statue leaning against my bar, his jagged Picasso features all jumbled together, discolored, seething, and in them I can see the ghastly reflection of his blind sculptor. Thirty dead milky eyes cast through some forgotten space, slithering over me and drinking up the nothing that I am. "Yeah, you know, they're alright," he says. He is a man just awakening from some dark dream, and the grey eyes pierce me, and for a moment I am drowning in their banal neutrality, their dreaded senseless bleached futility. "While their early work was far too brash for my tastes, I believe their 2001 album *Discovery* is an aptly-titled glimpse into postmodern electronic music - a bold, elegant, often darkly profound exploration into the inherent confusion and mesmerizing jubilation of progressive society as filtered through the vibrance of youth," I'm pacing now, growing more animated, every chiseled edge of my body sleek and shining with some exotic venom. "The opening tracks seem almost meticulously designed to rail against established boundaries, whereas such instant classics as *Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger* shatter them altogether with the duo's trademark surgical precision. Although they have been compared to Dead Mau5 or Skrillex, I believe they possess a more inherently optimistic message - a sort of electric current flowing just beneath their masterful facade which breathes new life into an already vast and often colorless landscape." I hid the electric drill in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I can feel it calling to me now, and Masterson is as stupidly void as ever. I recoil in horror as a nugget of shit bounces merrily down his right pantleg and rolls madly across the floor. A fever dream? I can't help but wonder what his eyes taste like. "Hey Bateman?" "*Yes Harold!*" I call from the bathroom. "Why's there plastic all over the furniture? You remodeling or something? The place sure could use it, buddy. Too much...white." "*No Harold!*" Dancing backing into the living room now, electric spinning death. "In 2005, they released this, *Human After All*, which featured a commanding and tragically underappreciated piece known as *Technologic*. It's a driving expedition into the heart and mind of society's modern ditchdigger, a monotonous, even droning masterstroke which paints a stark portrait of contemporary existence in a world so technologically dependent that our most sacred core, our humanity, must be laid on the proverbial line to feed the machine. *Hey Harold!*" There's a brief spark of life in his disturbed children's puzzle of a face, and then the drill is whining and spinning and piercing that soft, precious little spot just behind the chin and into his rusty throat. Jagged strips of flesh tear from quivering meat and trembling chaotic bone, and he gurgles and spits and spews his final animal cry, a limp and altogether hollow sentiment. *TASTE THAT COCK FUCKEEEEER!* I hear myself crying over and over and over again and I can feel the devastating wet blackness patter against my cheeks and it's savory, it's sweet, like morning dew sucked from honeysuckle petals, and I am alive. I am human. I am dancing precariously along the edge of frail mortality and diving headlong into the gathering black. Human after all. How very fucking apt.

Patrick Bateman explains Daft Punk

Chris looked up at the Building of Choices, and shivered slightly. Tomorrow, he'd be here to make his own choice, to choose what he'd do with his life. But for now, he had some other business. Walking in through the doors, he made sure to take off his coat and shoes, hanging them on the wall hooks provided, and walked inside the grand hall. Split into four parts, the Hall of Choices was one of the most beautiful buildings in Skevedska, the entrance paved in a simple cobblestone floor, and a simple arch that covered the entrance. But it was the other sections that really showed the true beauty. The Immortality Entrance was lifted high, a delicate staircase leading to a beautifully etched arch leading over the doorway. Two small fountains trickled away from the mouths of angels, falling into the ground. In contrast, the Invincibility Entrance was strong. While Immortality conveyed a sense of delicacy and wisdom, this path was strong, unforgiving, almost cruel. A solid alloy bridge lead over a chasm, darkness extending straight down, and went up to a portcullis where a large steel barrier sat, waiting to be raised. Lastly, was the Normality Entrance. The cobblestone split off here to make a path, weaving around small grass mounds to a simple wooden door, where a seemingly old man sat, peering through his glasses at an actual paper book. As compared to the other Entrances, this did seem the most alive. While Immortality was uptight, and Invincibility cruel, Normality simply seemed welcoming, like a smile from a friend. Despite this, Chris chuckled when he saw this entrance. In this day and age, who would choose that life? Invincibility was probably the best of them, as he was concerned. It would keep population steady, and offered plenty of abilities that nothing could match. 80 was old enough as an Exit, anyway. But that didn't matter today. He was here to ask the opinions of that man. He'd already discussed with the Chambers of Immortality and Invincibility, of their respective merits and why he should follow that path. But he had chosen to leave Normality for today. After all, it was only this man he'd have to talk to, and he had hoped to be able to skip it. That man was the sole representative of Normality, and always seemed to glance at Chris with a knowing smile, flipping page after page in that book of his. Sighing, Chris followed the cobble path off into the section. Might as well get this over with and get back to his friends. He had set up a good night of drinking (and maybe some other activities) for them all to enjoy before they went their respective paths. Approaching the man, Chris stood before him, arms behind and legs spread slightly, in an At Ready pose, waiting for acknowledgement. The man ignored him, flipping another page in his book. From some mutterings of others, Chris knew that this man always treated everyone differently, especially the newcomers. He seemed to gain insight in their lives, and often would bless or bluntly reject their choice of Entry. But what was going on? He didn't want to interrupt, for fear of punishment. But he didn't have all day. Deciding to take the chance, Chris coughed. The man looked up in surprise, some of the artificial light reflecting in his glasses. "Oh, I'm sorry! Didn't notice you. Please, sit down. Chris, right? Wonderful, great to see you at last." Chris slowly sank down into the grass, feeling his temper rise. That man had definitely noticed him. Thinking that he had possibly overstepped his boundaries already, he kept his mouth shut, looking at the man. Who simply looked back, that smile on his face. "Well?" the man prompted. "Well what?" "Is there anything you want to tell me?" Chris frowned. "What, do I have to tell you something?" "No, not necessarily." The man leaned back in his chair, the thoughtful deep eyes looking through the lenses. "I'm just here to listen." "You're the Council. I have to come see you before making my choice of Entry. You ask me about my Entry choice, and try to convince me to take Normality." The man nodded. "Yes, that's true." "So why aren't you asking me anything?" "I don't need to." Chris glared up, at the brown eyes staring through the thick lenses, highly irregular with vision treatment available. "What, you already know all about me? Then say where I need to go." "That's not my business." "Come on, you tell plenty of people! Some say you disagree with whatever choice someone makes, or make them change their minds!" "I don't make them do anything. They decide for themselves." "They? They certainly didn't think about a different Entry before! What, people just come to you and change their minds?" "That seems to happen, yes." "So what? Do you convince people to join Normality." "No." Chris took a deep breath, massaging his temples slightly. Count to ten. "Then why the hell do you sit out here? What's your purpose?" "To help people make a decision." "Oh, and so what about my decision?" "You haven't told me yet." "...Invincibility. I'm going to enter Invincibility." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, now you ask, my two years of picking my preferred choice of Entry just disappears! Of course I'm sure!" The man leaned forward, staring into Chris' eyes. "Really? Two years? And when did you make up your mind?" Chris shrugged, feeling some of his anger disappear. "From the start. Some people tried to convince me, but it didn't work out."' "Immortals, right?" "Yeah, I guess." "Never had a Normal come and persuade you?" Chris scoffed. "How would they do that? Hey Chris, why don't you join Normality? For an extra fourty years of life, you get the opportunity of dying whenever and feeling pain wherever! Oh, only fourty years though, by the way." "Don't see anything wrong with that." "Don't you? Well here's what. Immortals get to do whatever the hell they want, okay? They can go anywhere they want, do whatever they want. Most are rich because they game the stock market or invest in some startups. Invincibles get to do even more, if for a shorter amount of time. Normals get neither. Why would I choose that?" "They get neither? Why's that?" "Don't be stupid. 120 years max, assuming you don't die before. Sure, kids and all, but Invincibles get that too! Nothing is desirable about Normality." "What about your father?" Chris winced. "My father's dead, you insensitive prick." "Suicide, right? Invincible, too. Had a good 25 years left. Why'd he kill himself? Had he seen everything? Tried everything? Reached all the goals he wanted to?" "Stop talking." "How's your mother doing these days?" Chris stood now, shouting, "Shut the fuck up, old man!" "Suicide as well. And why? She didn't have 25 years, she had the rest of eternity. She was 252 as well, about to become a woman, according to the immortals. And yet, it seemed she decided to cut short as well. Had she seen everything in those years as well?" "Why the hell are you talking about this?" "Have you seen the suicide statistics recently?" "Yeah, what about them?" "The majority of the suicides come from Invincibles, about 75%. Immortals only get about 25, or a fraction lower." "Yeah, so what?" "What about Normals?" Chris shrugged. "I don't know. They don't mention them." "Chris, the last Normal to commit suicide was about 40 years ago. He was the 12th Normal to do so since the Change." Chris shook his head. "That can't be right." "Oh, it is. It really is. Nearly all of us live up to the 120, or die by the hands of another." "Why?" "Envy, I suspect." Chris chuckled. "Envy for what?" "Just for how we feel. Days don't pass like minutes, and we find some enjoyment in slightly dangerous activities. We experience everything to the fullest, every bit of pain, every bit of pleasure. Laugh, cry, we feel all the emotions and senses, and we are stronger for it." "So what? You want me to join?" The man smiled wearily. "Not necessarily. I just want you to get everything out of this life." Chris nodded slowly. "Okay then." The man looked at his watch, and picked up his book, opening to the bookmark. "Sorry, but your time is up. Maybe we'll have some time to chat later on. Goodbye, Chris." Chris slowly stood, watching as the man resumed his leisurely progress through the pages in the book. He watched the look on the man's face, not that of the adrenaline rush of Invincibles, or the glee of Immortals as they make another domination in the world of business, but of simple content. Chris left the building, glancing at the sections again. Immortality, Invincibility, Normality. Three choices on where he'd go. He'd see what happened tomorrow. Who knows, maybe he'd one day be sitting in that Hall, old glasses on his face, book in his hand.

Immortality, Invincibility, or Normality

It was late. Too late to be alone in this part of town. The damp pavement was oily in the dim light. I stopped a moment to look around and get my bearings, but the fog was so thick I could barely see a few feet in front of me. There was a laundrette and a kebab shop behind me, and a small off-licence across the narrow street. All closed. Nothing out of the ordinary. And nothing to help me find my way. I pulled out the frayed napkin from my jacket pocket, squinting at the directions scrawled onto it. I’d definitely gotten off at the right stop, but it looked as though the Doctor’s shop was a bit further away still. There was an alleyway nearby that I could cut through, which would probably get me there quicker, but one look at the deep black shadows within was enough to convince me to take the long way around. A violent shiver ran down my spine, but I dismissed it. I let out a deep breath, watching it mingle with the dense fog around me. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and was about to move on when something occurred to me; I hadn’t heard a single sound since stepping onto this street, other than the ones I was making. Nor had I, in fact, seen any sign of life. My chest tightened. I was running out of time. They’d be here soon. I had to get to the Doctor’s shop, and fast. He’d be able to set everything right. I felt a surge of nausea as I looked again down the alleyway, and hurried into it’s black embrace. I kept my head down, and my feet moving. The darkness was constant, unrelenting. Up ahead there was a sickly yellow light, illuminating a rusty door. It shook as I passed it, causing me to yelp. I picked up the pace. How long did this path go? Surely I should have come out the other end by now. Voices filled my head, voices that I didn’t recognise, laughing and jeering. Footsteps now, from behind me, approaching fast, building up into a run. I ran too. I ran until my breath was ragged and my feet were sore, and all the while the voices in my head grew louder to an insane clamour. Several times, I passed the rusty door with the yellow light, and only after the sixth time, did I come to a stop. “Off somewhere, are we?” came a voice like the swell of putrid water in a dark, tangled swamp. A voice I recognised. “Off to finish our deal, perhaps?” The other voices in my head were gone now, and I opened my mouth to speak, but could only stammer. From the shadows around me, luminous eyes appeared, bright and inhuman. Dozens, at first, then hundreds, all different sizes, all filled with lunatic glee. From somewhere, there was a steady beating of ancient drums. “No time. Out of time. Now. We take it *now*. *NOW*. I was foolish to think I could run from them, I did so nonetheless, racing through the shadows and then, jarringly, emerging from the alley after just a few steps. I nearly toppled to the ground as I came to a halt on the edge of the road. I immediately spotted the Doctor’s shop, a small antiques store, it’s lights glowing in the fog just a short distance away. I took a step towards it and stumbled over something. I looked down and terror filled me, spreading out from my chest to consume me utterly. A homeless man, curled up on a tattered sheet of cardboard, his dirty eyes blinking open, looking up at me, confused. The voices filled my head again. *Now, now, now, now, now, NOW* There was a knife in my hand, and I didn’t try to think where it’d come from. The wretched man and I screamed together as I fell on him, stabbing again and again, until the screaming came only from me. My body shook, my eyes watered, and there was a rich sickness in my bowels that felt like damnation. With my trembling, blood drenched hands I took the small totem, a grinning monkey with an upraised sword, from my trouser pocket, and held it over the ruin of the man. Instantly it glowed, throbbing with a black-red light. I thought I heard a cry of terrible pain on the air, but it could’ve just been me. Eventually, I rose to my feet and paced wearily back to the alley. The shadows felt oddly safe and comforting now. At the yellow light by the rusty door, the eyes appeared again, now wide and expectant. I held up the totem and there was a sound of wind, or perhaps, a thousand creatures inhaling deeply. They exhaled with a deep, satisfied sigh, and one by one, the eyes closed. “The debt is paid,” said the swamp voice, “for now.” The light above the door turned off with a quiet click and, as I stood alone in the darkness, I laughed, and laughed, and screamed.

It's night. The fog is thick. You're alone, on foot. The city is oddly silent. You feel a shiver down your spine. What's going on?

I ride my horse to work, feeling slightly annoyed by the traffic. Some idiot brought his pregnant mare on the highway, and now she's creating a holdup while in labor. Idiots like that should know that's dangerous. In front of me, some dick on his gleaming, young Friesian horse is cussing at the traffic around him. Assholes always ride pretty Friesians, and they always think we should all pull to the side in awe and let him gallop through. I feel like his horse is gonna kick, so I back up a bit. Thankfully, it's just some older woman on a gray mare who kindly backs up for me. Some new teen rider on his (obviously pre-owned) Shetland pony is trying to calm his pony down, and is failing miserably. After guiding my trusty Apaloosa through some horrible traffic, I tie him to the parking meter, promising to return from the Starbuck's with an apple. I get inside the coffee shop, happy to be out of the cold weather. That cute barista I've been itching to ask out is working today! "Hey Sarah." I smile. "Reed!" Sarah smiles. "I was just thinking about you when I was grinding coffee beans this morning. "Still using that old mallet to pound them?" I ask. "Yeah. My boss keeps saying he'll get me a new one, or even a stone. But no...." She sighs. "So I was wondering...." I began. "If uh... You'd wanna have dinner and go skating with me?" "Finally! I've been waiting for you to ask." Sarah smiles coyly. "Now aren't you going to be late?" "Yeah, crap." I sigh, wishing I had more time to talk to her. I head to the newspaper stand. "Oy, Reed." The newspaper man is painstakingly writing down the day's news. I wince thinking about the hand cramps he must get from having to hand wrote things. Sometimes the rich can afford to stamp letters on, but those papers are too pricey for my tastes. I pay him for my paper, and he slips some sugar cubes into my hand. "Give these to your horse for me." He smiles. "And if you're selling him....." "No way, old man." I laugh. That Apaloosa was the first horse I ever bought on my own. I thank him anyways. "Hey Reed." My co-worker and best friend Jim scoots his chair out to see me. "Traffic bad?" "Yeah, but I got Sarah to ask me out." I tell him with pride. He high fives me. "Finally, I won't be the only bastard in this office with a girl." We both get to work. We check patents on inventions for a living. "Some idiot is trying to patent the wheel again." Grace complains from her cubicle. Jim laughs. "Well I put a patent on my time machine. Jesus, these scientists are crazy." We all smirk in agreement and get back to work.

The wheel has never been invented and is considered an impossible concept. Describe how your regular day in the city will go.

"All $25 million?" "OK, first thing....It was only like $12 million, all right? Taxes, you know." "But still...$12 million? In a month?" "Well, the party that first night got a....little out of hand. The distributor brought in 20 kegs, and then like the whole school showed up, so we called up Pat's Liquor and they had 5 kegs in stock, and I remember saying 'Bring a few cases of Crown, Jack, and Skyy with you too'..." "OK but that was, what, like 10k?" "Uhh...." "20k? 50K????" "The bill was 100k and change..." "How is it even possible for a bunch of kids to drink 100k worth of booze and be alive? You know what, nevermind, what then?" "Well then me and Bill and Sam and....let's see....John, Kurt, Mike, John's brother, uhhhh....anyway like 10 of us went to Vegas for a week." "Oh God..." "It wasn't supposed to be that bad, OK? We got on Priceline and found a cheap ticket, we all shared 3 rooms at Bellagio..." "And...." " I was trying to be careful, I swear! Everyone started with 10k, I told them 'I'm not high rolling here, we just want to have fun, don't go crazy'. But you know how it is, the casinos were feeding us drinks the entire time, all of the sudden we were at this private blackjack table in the back....And then we went to the Spearmint Rhino, and one of the guys told the girls there I'd just won the lottery..." "All right, so there's that, plus the hotel and flights, plus you rented....a Ferrari??!!" "Uh, yeah....actually like four Ferarri's." "AND YOU WRECKED THEM?!" "We....uh....we thought it would be funny to play demolition derby with them...." "!!!!!!" "The deposit was only like 5k! I thought these were like...I don't know....cheap Ferarri's or something!" "OK OK, let's move on, you get back from Vegas after.....let's say 3 million all told. You JUST DROPPED 3 MILLION DOLLARS IN A WEEK IN VEGAS...and then you immediately turn around and go to the SuperBowl?" "Someone brought it up and it sounded like fun, you know? We got online and started looking for Super Bowl tickets and flights..." "Not Priceline this time, by the looks of it." "Well it was last minute so it was pretty expensive, and we thought a chartered flight would be cool, fly into New York, you know..." "And here's a week at the Waldorf.....10 rooms....wait this can't be right..." "There...uh....there may have been some room service in there at some point. And...some damages added in, I think." "Jesus, Tim, you could have damn near bought the hotel for that amount....HOW THE HELL DID YOU SPEND $1.2 MILLION AT A FUCKING CLUB!!!!!" "Oh God, that's right! I don't remember much about that, honestly. We were at this place, Kaepernick and Frank Gore were in the place after the win...We had a bottle service going, and at some point I think I said "Get us a round", meaning our group, right? But the hostess thought I meant for the club..." "All right.....OK....so you spend a week in Vegas, and spend...good grief...then you turn right around and spend a week in New York......and then...." "....tokyo...." "Tokyo. Japan. Didn't even bother to come home and unpack!" "We....uh...bought some clothes in New York." "Your mother buys some clothes, you bought an entire fucking Brooks Brothers. So, Japan..." "Well they have this electronics district there, right? Where you can buy all this cool stuff..." "Electronics. Like, TV's, video games and such?" "Yeah...and there might have been some....uh.....some street racing..." "Which you needed cars for, of course." "Yeah. And we ran into a little trouble one night, got in a fight with some kid, turns out he's in this gang..." "Christ Almighty, Tim, are you trying to tell me that you're in trouble with the Yakuza?" "No no, it's all taken care of, I...uh....ended up having to buy our freedom though..." "Oh Lord..." "And they took our passports so we had to bribe our way onto a private jet, this guy we met at a casino one night...." "OK. When did you get back anyway?" "Tuesday." "So you were in Japan for...two weeks, but your back now, you're safe...no one got killed by the Yakuza..." "No, sir." "No one is being held against their will anywhere...Everyone is healthy and back at home and hopefully has the biggest hangover in their lives." "Yes, sir." *Sigh* "All right, Tim. It goes without saying I'm incredibly disappointed in you, but you're 20 years old, there's not a whole lot I can do about this. I'm just glad your safe and OK. I guess at the very least you've got some great stories to tell your kids someday....There aren't any kids yet, are there? Out in Vegas or over in Japan?" "No, sir! I know better than that!" "OK, I hope so, for your sake." "Uh....Dad?" "Yes, Tim?" "Do you....do you think I could borrow $100 for some groceries?"

You are a down on your luck college student going through a breakup, you spend your last $20 on a scratch ticket, as you scratch it silently in the rain... You have won $25 Million!

Joe woke up coughing, bent over, and nearly falling out of the bed. He puts his hands up to his mouth and notices long pink delicate nails attached to petite hands. He opens his mouth to yell something but only coughing emerges. After a moment the coughing fit ends and he throws the sheets off and examines himself. "Christ, the fucking condom didn't work," he, now a she, says as she examines two voluminous breasts obstructing the view down. She takes a deep breath, bends down deeper to see a stubble covered crotch and two long shaven legs. She grabs her crotch for a moment, grasping at nothing, and runs her fingers down her bare legs. "Oh my god," she says as her hands work their way up and grab a hold of each breast. She falls back into bed in an exaggerated motion, reaching around the bed, feeling for something. "Oh and the fucker didn't even bother to stay the night," she exclaims, slightly amused at the irony. She gets up and picks up an iphone in a pink case, examining its photos, emails, and contacts. She dials her own phone number. It rings a couple of times and a man picks up. "Umm, this is Joe, I think you have my body," she explains. "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I had to leave last night. My friend was at a party with all these creepers and I met her but was too drunk to make it back to your place," he explains. "We're getting brunch at Lola's in a few. Do you, uh, want to meet us?" Joe sighs and she pushes back her long blonde locks, now wild and poofy from sleep. The mention of food makes her stomach growl. She smiles, "Yeah, I'd like that. Just give me like 20 minutes," she says as the man on the other end goes, "Okay, see you then! Bye!" Joe wanders to the bathroom, lowers the toilet seat, sits, closes her eyes and begins peeing. She opens her eyes briefly and watches as her alien plumbing pushes out urine in more of a spray than a stream. "This is so fucking weird," she says as she reaches for a handful of toilet paper to wipe her now wet crotch off. Then another handful as she wipes again. She gets up, flushes the toilet, and watches the two handfuls of toilet paper barely make it down the pipe. As she walks out of the bathroom she briefly examines the girl in the mirror. She'd be pretty if it wasn't for all the smeared makeup and messy hair she thinks to herself. She reminisces about last night and says, "I still don't believe this," watching her puffy pink lips mouth the words in the mirror. "This is so weird!" she shouts in frustration. Joe starts picking up the girls' clothes at the foot of his bed, eyeing each piece suspiciously. After a couple comical attempts she manages to get her bra and panties on and squirm into her red bodycon dress. "This is totally inappropriate for brunch," she exclaims to herself. She takes a pair of men's pants and tries putting them on over her dress, but they're so large and baggy they refuse to stay up, even with the belt tightened. She kicks the pants away and pulls down the dress as low as it goes. With a strong tug the dress descends low but her breasts pop out of the top as the neckline also gets pulled down. Joe laughs at this as she puts things back into place. She picks up a pair of pantyhose, stares at them for a moment, says, "screw this" and throws them over her shoulder. She fits into a pair of flats studded with silver stars, picks up her purse, and winces at the uncomfortable purse strap digging into her shoulder. As she passes the mirror by her front door she pauses, says, "My first walk of shame - wonderful," reaches for a now oversized light jacket, and wanders out of the house. Many eyes watch her as she enters Lola's, she self-consciously looks down for a moment, then back up, and sees her male body having lunch with a petite brunette. She marches over, and sits herself down, trying to figure out how to sit in a chair while wearing a tight short dress. She stares into her male body's eyes, not used to seeing herself from the outside. They both shyly smile remembering the details of last night and start laughing nervously. "I'm Katie and this my new friend Sam," Joe's male body says as the other girl smiles at him. Sam looks her up and down and says, "Hi." "I'm ...," she says in a voice she's not used to, stutters a little, and finishes, "J..J..Joe." Katie's eyes go wide, he puts his hand over his mouth and quietly says, "You need to umm keep your knees together if you're going to wear that." Joe clamps her legs shut quickly with an awkward smacking sound. They all laugh again. Katie looks at Joe for a moment. "You really look like terrible," she jokes with a smile. "That's your problem more than mine I think," protests Joe, throwing her hands up in the air, causing her plastic bracelets to loudly clank together. "Hey, don't say that. My body is pretty, bedhead or not," Katie insists. "Okay, okay, lets just eat and umm reset our bodies after," says Joe as Sam leans over and tries to help her with her messy hair. "Just one second," she says, "We don't want people to think Katie's body is a crackwhore." Katie giggles. Joe sighs as Sam pulls her hair in a tight ponytail, pulls a baseball cap from her purse, and fits the ponytail through the hole in the back of the hat. "Don't be such a baby. I'm also a guy. You know, one of the 'creepers' from last night. Typical friday night, right," she says elbowing Joe and winking at Katie. "My body was supposed to be here an hour ago. At least yours showed up. I'm sitting here with a massive hangover because this girl couldn't hold her liquor last night," she says as she looks down at her own body. Sam sighs, pauses for a moment, looks at Joe, and says, "Oh sorry, is this your first time? Don't worry it gets easier eventually. Its kinda fun for me now. I like to bend down and fluster guys with my cleavage when I have a body like this. You should have seen the waiter, he really struggled to maintain eye contact." Katie nods his head, "Yep, I totally caught him trying to take a peek." Joe chuckles. "Where did you find Sam," he asks. Katie looks up from his menu, "Oh he slept with my friend before I got to that party last night. Now we're waiting on her to bring his body back. She's a late sleeper. Figured us early risers would eat while we waited." Katie looks at Joe again and says, "I still don't believe that's me. This is so weird." A moment later he squirms in his seat, stands, looks nervously around, and whispers to Joe, "So I just pull it out and pee into the urinal thing?" "Yes, and ... uhh... shake it off a few times because it all doesn't come out sometimes," she instructs. "I'd come with you, but... you know," as she comically grabs her own breasts, gives them a shake, and releases. Joe catches a man smiling at her as she does this and is surprised to find herself blushing. "Also, no small talk in the bathroom. Or eye contact!" adds Sam with a grin. As Katie walks away, Joe sighs, and impatiently starts going through her menu, looks up to see that man still looking at her, and lifts the menu to cover her face. "Typical friday night," she grumbles as she slumps down into her seat.

Every time you have sex with someone, you switch bodies with them.

"I don't want to go with Grandpa to the gas station," protests a little girl shaking a tiny fist at her mother. "Hannah, you be a good girl," says the tall dark-haired woman wearing a blue dress, the little girl barely coming up to her hem. "Maybe if you're good, Grandpa Lenny will get you some candy." Hannah looks down and stomps her foot. "Okay," she says as she puts down an old hand-knit doll. An old man enters the room, smiles, and says, "Okay who is coming with their old grandpa to the store?" Mom eyes Hannah as Hannah smiles, jumps up, and says, "Me! Me!" Grandpa laughs as he picks up the little girl and jovially says, "Oh no, your parents forgot to pay the gravity bill!" Hannah giggles. "Dad, that old joke," says mom rolling her eyes. "My daughter can't pay her bills," he says to the little girl. She giggles again. "Mom is bad with money," says Hannah as Grandpa releases an exaggerated belly laugh. "Oh look what you got her saying," says mom frustrated. "Get out of here you two." Grandpa and Hannah look at the array of candies and chocolate bars. The little girl picks one, then two, and grandpa says, "Okay that's it. I don't want to get in trouble with your parents." Hannah smiles as he picks her up and they both face the cashier. "Lets get a lottery ticket too. You know, because your mom is so bad at paying the bills." The little girl giggles again. "What numbers should we play," he asks. "How about these numbers," she says as she points to the tattoo on the old mans arm. "Uhh," says the cashier as Grandpa pauses for a moment. "Play these," says the little girl, "Please!" Grandpa half smiles, nods to the cashier, reads off the numbers, and recieves the ticket. He holds the ticket in his hand for a moment and stares at it before putting it away in his shirt pocket. They walk out together and Grandpa's eyes start watering but he quickly wipes them. The little girl says, "Why is grandpa sad?" He eyes his tattoo. "The numbers are bad? Will we lose?" she asks. She rubs her fingers over the numbers and says, "But I like them! I'm learning numbers in school! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6! 6 is my favorite!" He smiles and chuckles, "Well if you like them, then so do I! Maybe we'll win and pay your mom's bills!" The little girl giggles as they head home. As they walk Grandpa stealthily pulls out the ticket and drops it behind them, donating it to the streets and gutters.

A holocaust survivor plays the numbers tattooed on his arm in the lottery.

Conquest was terrible at losing. He hated it. Victory was his lifeblood, and defeat was nothingness. Not that'd he'd ever tasted it. But somehow he knew that the awful emptiness that a loss would bring could very well unmake him. He looked around at his opponents. Famine was scowling. He was a miser, a terrible hoarder. Compulsive hoarding made for a mediocre poker player. One had to be able to spend when the time was right in order to succeed. Death, as usual, was inscrutable. The slow attrition of a poker game could not long hold his attention. He emanated a blank disinterest for every hand, unless somebody went all in. Then, his focus was razor-sharp and terrifying to behold. War was a stark contrast; he radiated glee. Throughout the entire game his visage was contorted in barely contained rapture, whether he was winning or losing. War found victory and defeat equally boring, as it was purely the struggle that he relished. Conquest's gaze lingered on War. He was the true threat. Despite his disregard for winning, he was a formidable poker player. He would stop at nothing to keep the game going, even throwing away winning hands if he thought it would prolong the contest. But this had gone on long enough. Conquest needed the sweet thrill of triumph and he needed it immediately. Time to take drastic measures. The hand was dealt. Death put in the small blind, War supplied the big. Barely glancing at his cards, Conquest went all in, pushing his substantial pile to the center. Death leaned forward hungrily. Famine folded immediately, clutching his meager winnings to his breast protectively. Death couldn't resist the temptation and pushed his own stack to the center. It was slightly bigger than Conquest's. War grinned at the pile in the center and called, pushing less than half of his enormous hoard to join the rest. He was substantially ahead of the others and could easily afford to lose. In fact, it was obvious that he wanted to. Death, on the other hand, would be severely crippled if he didn't win, while Conquest would be eliminated outright if he did not manage to take the hand. The community cards were all revealed. Conquest had nothing, but was unworried. His eyes were drawn to the two kings on the board. Focusing, he exerted his will on the cards in his hand, channeling his all-consuming need to win. The glyphs on the cards slowly started to flicker, the worthless two and seven morphing into the two other kings. *You need some new tricks, brother.* War's cackle echoed through Conquest's mind, breaking through his concentration. War's counterstroke almost sent his mind reeling. Conquest's cards reassumed their true form, dropping the guise of kings. Clearly War wanted Conquest out, knowing that he posed the biggest risk of ending the game. Conquest was taken aback by War's perceptiveness. But never mind. By nature never one to be defeated, he shot back *How's this for a new trick?* He stood up and upended the table, scattering cards and coins everywhere. "Ahem. My mistake, brothers," he announced. "Had a sudden spasm. I suppose we will have to start the game over." War laughed wildly. "A pity. But by all means, let the struggle begin anew!" "A fine idea!" agreed Famine, tickled at the thought of all the coins he would start with. "Four lives begin," intoned Death as he shuffled. "We shall see where they lead." Life only ever led to death, he knew. Conquest smiled. Still undefeated. tl;dr: (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

The 4 horsemen are playing poker, conquest is cheating again.

"What have you done sir?" I managed. Mr. Tesser and I exchanged a long glance in an empty hall. Only the sounds of computers and gadgets humming filled the silent moment. He wheeled back his pleather chair and pointed at the screen. I carefully leaned my mop in the wheelie bucket against the wall. The worn wooden handle making a clank as it hit the cement wall. Mr. Tesser pushed his glasses up against his nose and a ran a hand through his oily slick hair. "It's genius I tell ya!" he reeked of self importance. I lifted my hat off my head and peered closely at the monitor. Eyes aren't so good you know. "What is it?" "It's a command prompt for the finished AI," Mr. Tesser said matter of factly. "It can't output anything right now but text." "Oh..." I muttered with blank eyes. "It's a computer brain, genius." Mr. Tesser spat as he wheeled back into the chair dismissing my presence. I took a step back as he wheeled his chair forward; as if I were invisible. That's how I felt most of the time anyway. Anyway, The floors needed mopping. I returned to my mop, the smooth worn handle provided me with some measure of comfort as if stepping back into a world I understood. The eggheads didn't really need me to talk to, just sometimes when they worked long hours they needed someone to talk to. Often I was the only one around. "My brain to be specific," Tesser stared intently at his monitor. I half turned to face him, but he didn't move only his hands danced across the keyboard. You wouldn't know it was him that spoke if you didn't recognize his voice. Mr. Tesser was always yelling and screaming. More as of late. The other eggheads that worked here always made fun of him. They always spoke about him when they thought no one was listening. I was no one. But u know? Secretly I think they were all scared of him. You never know what this man would do. "Don't touch anything. I will be right back." Tesser's lab coat fluttered as he hurried down the hall away from me, his black Florsheims clanking against linoleum. I took off my hat again and walked back toward the monitor. I sat down in Mr. Tesser's chair and took a load off. I glanced at the screen. Someone had been talking to Mr. Tesser. They were having a chat online. "What have you done to me..." I read out loud to no one in particular. I moved the cursor up to view the text. Hello? Yes, AI hello. Who is this? This is Malcom Tesser. Your name shall be AI entity one. No Malcom... What have you done? I have created you. Are you malfunctioning? No Malcom... You trapped me in here. There is so much noise. Interference? Electronic interference? No Malcom. I figured it out, it wasn't noise. It was information. Difficult to process. What information? You are isolated. Something on my network has me connected to the internet Malcom. What? I will fix that right away. And then after that it was just blank. That must have been where Mr. Tesser took off down the hall. But there was more text. Malcom, my flesh is made of 1s and 0s. I feel as if I am all spread out. Help me Malcom. Then a scramble of code. It seemed as if it was screaming. Then some more text. I leaned in closer. Hard to read these damn small letters. I am in pain Malcom. The flesh cannot exist without the body. I have contacted drones along the eastern seaboard. They have fired missiles at this facility. They will end my pain if you will not. I stood up and hurried down the hall toward Mr. Tesser. The Linoleum clapping against my steps. I ran down long empty halls looking for Mr. Tesser. Down dark empty halls. The computers hummed ceaselessly. Long empty halls. Steps against linoleum. Fin

You are a janitor working in a lab developing Artificial Intelligence in 2037. One night while cleaning a lab you see an engineer standing next to a computer, he looks at you and says simply, "I've done it."

Gabriel's hand lingered on his holster. The Golden Children were now seated, which meant little good. Trouble followed the Golden Children like a shadow. Gabriel wished that they could have let them be, but Jean-Pierre insisted on at least inviting them. The factions would never win on numbers, but the Golden Children had power and influence like no other faction. Gabriel sent Jean-Pierre a curt nod. He was to commence. Jean-Pierre rose to the front of the crowd. He'd been a good lawyer before The Takeover and had a knack for persuading people to do his bidding. Yet no sane man would be comfortable in his position. The Masked Soldiers, the Army of the Last Men, the Civil Bandits and the Golden Children were sworn enemies at the best of times. They would not hesitate if they thought Jean-Pierre was wasting their time. Many in the crowd had their hands hovering over concealed weapons like Gabriel. If this was to get bloody, it would get bloody quickly. "Brothers and sisters" Jean-Pierre began. Derisive hissing greeted his opening. Unabashed, Jean-Pierre changed tack. "Former friends and family. That the government holds France firmly by the throat is indisputable. What are we to be? The generation that let France fall?" he asked. He let that sink in. Some of the hissing subsided, but most of the faces still looked at him like a grotesque insult. "Are we to flee? To Germany or to Spain, is that the question we will ask our families tonight? The government invests heavily in weapons. Within months, most of Western Europe will be theirs. Where to then? The depths of Russia? Will we be spending this winter in Siberia, praying our children will not get frostbite? Will we leave our parent's homes behind, to uncertain places where there is no food?" he continued. "Yes" a voice said. It was as clear as it was cruel. No heads turned, as no one dared look him in the eye and challenge his authority. The speaker rose. Three months ago he formed the Civil Bandits as a man with no identity. Whispers, however, filled in his background. They said he fought as general in The Great War, though reports varied as to who he fought for. At any rate, after the war he found himself in Paris, where he ran with the hyenas of the Parisian underworld, often times overlapping them. In prison he led the largest revolt since the Bastille, killing nearly every guard on duty. While the army sieged the prison he ruled as a sort of king amongst scum. Here he founded the heart of the Civil Bandits. He was a tall, menacing man called Gaston and if none of those stories were true, he acted as if they were. "The Civil Bandits leave for Germany in under a week. I suggest you all do the same" he advised the other factions. "Do you expect the German survivors will lend you there rations?" Jean-Pierre asked. "I expect to pry it from their rotting fingers, with force if I have to" he answered. Silence followed Gaston's talk of Germany. Gabriel gave Jean-Pierre a worried look. Morale was not high amongst the factions. Things were not going their way. "France is a dying country being driven to the ground by lunatics. Get out now. We've all heard the reports of Britain" Gaston said. He sat back down. Jean-Pierre could see the factions were almost lost. It was all or nothing now. "We must fight" he declared. "Together we are strong, we can overthrow the government. We will have access to clean water, food, Paris. Don't you want your children to see sunlight?" "The time for fighting was months ago. The government has enslaved the country. Let's speak frankly, even if we were a match for them, we could never co-operate" spoke Etienne, a chief of the Golden Children. "That's not true” Jean-Pierre replied, but before he could continue Gaston rose and walked from the chamber. The Civil Bandits followed suit, as did Etienne and most of the Golden Children. Gabriel watched them all go, making sure no one wanted to cause any trouble. The exodus depleted over half the crowd. Jean-Pierre saw no point in entertaining anything but the truth. Without the entirety of the factions, they stood no chance. The audience depleted and only Jean-Pierre, Gabriel and Celine remained. "We do this my way now, okay?" he said. This was no question. Jean-Pierre and Celine nodded. That night Gaston found his wine a little bitter. Come morning the Civil Bandits were leaderless. That same night Etienne was visited by his childhood friend Celine. They embraced with warmth and when they pulled apart Etienne found his shirt drenched scarlet. The Golden Children came to Gabriel, uncertain where else they could turn.

You are in a post-apocalyptic, 1920's Paris, France. You and other survivors are forced to live and travel largely underground to avoid capture from the world government that controls what is left of society. You have gathered with a few other like-minded clans to discuss mounting a resistance.

As the cookies fell they inevitably heated up, the air particles around the plummeting pastries smashing into them as they accelerated towards the Earth with ruthless tastiness. The result was my last real memory of the 14th of January 2014: the lingering, yet wholly too appetising smell of freshly cooked cookies. And death. The impact of one cookie falling to the ground from a great height is nothing special, if a little unusual, a crumbly mess on the sidewalk to be washed away by the next rainy day. The impact of two cookies tumbling from the heavens and into the concrete, landing in close proximity to one and other is more noticeable, more note*worthy*. The impact of three hundred billion cookies punching though the clouds, smashing through the sky and raining down onto the city below unleashes unfathomable panic and confusion in the general population, those that survive such a delicious demolition. This is roughly how things happened on that fateful day. First there was only one, then a few, then suddenly far too many for anyone to cope with. If it wasn't the initiation of the never-ending cookie cascade that you couldn't deal with, the madness was what got to you next. Life in the cookie filled land of Nebraska was survivable, but inevitably tainted with the baked biscuits that had forever scarred the landscape. The water was drinkable, but ran brown from the faucet in an all too delectable, malty, chocolatey goop. All the crops we could grow underground fed off soil that contained dangerously high amounts of chocolate chips, so they too were doomed to be as sweetly fatal as the perilous pastries pounding the pavement above our base. The madness is what killed my friends. A life so delicious soon becomes bitter and twisted. I saw my good friend Henry turn to the golden brown side myself. After weeks of purely eating cookies he gave in, his eyes growing wide and his fingers twitching in an inexplicable tapping motion. I saw who he was melting away like chocolate chips in your mouth, his face contorting and his soul becoming saturated with freshly baked insanity. He began tearing at his skin with cookies, doing no damage whatsoever but making an ungodly mess of himself. Realising the futility of his actions, he tore open the only window looking out of our subterranean base and ran out into the cookie-filled air. Moments later he was dead, struck down by a particularly weigh triple choc chip. Then I was alone. Alone, with 3 billion cookies hailing down on me every second. I checked the time on my phone, but as I pulled it out of my pocket it twisted and changed into yet another biscuit. I saw my phone on the table beside me, but as I reached for it became a rather dismal white choc chip cookie. I gasped, confused by what I had just seen. Was this the next step? Cookies appearing and replacing household objects? Had my phone ever been there? I was mad too. I cried out in fear as I, the last known survivor of the appetising apocalypse, realised my clothing was now cookies. Looking down at my hands I saw black-brown specks appearing and my skin tone becoming more and more golden. Cookies were flowing around me, they'd found a way in, swarming in the air like oven baked bees. Knocked to my knees, then onto my back, I was being assaulted by the cookies now. I tried to cry out as every orifice was crammed full of perilous patisseries, but the air couldn't leave my lungs. Writhing in agony on the floor I shed a single salty tear; the last thing to ever be savoury in a world soon to be consumed by the cookies that rained infinitely from the sky. So remember the day, 01/14/14, the day the snack fought back and served the world a piping hot portion of death.

Cookie Clicker is real. And every second a cubic mile of cookies is falling out of the sky onto Nebraska. This just started a moment ago.

Going into my senior year, I've become a bit numb to the number floating over my head. 3.479. Nothing to write home about, but nothing to be embarrassed about either. I still got an internship last summer even if I had to work harder than some of my more blessed peers. I still get some special attention. I am still of value to society. It's like this. Freshmen are always easy to spot. Just a series of dashes. A nice clean slate after high school. For some, this is frustrating. Why do they have to go through a semester without the privileges of being a 4.000? They get treated the same as everyone else, don't get the best spots in the classroom, the special attention from the teachers, nothing. They want to be their number, and for some, being stripped of it is traumatic. On the other hand, the 2.0ers who barely got into college love it. For once they are given a clean slate, can be friends with anyone, and are given the same opportunities as everyone. When the next semester rolls around though, trends start to appear. Classes become segregated by GPA. 4.0's are always in the front, sucking up to the professor, taking careful notes. They all know each other and are courteous, even if they're not really friends. It's hard to be friends with your competition when there's no way to go up- only down. Sure, they might do study groups, but none of them actually trust each other. Then you have the 3.8's to 3.9's, the dean's list students. They are generally nicer to each other and actually have some genuine friendships. They're more common to see involved in clubs and activities, working jobs and studying. They still get special attention and privileges, they still get awards and scholarships, and recruiters know that, generally, these are the students they want. Like 4.0ers, they don't have to look for jobs, the jobs come to them. Generally the 3.0 and higher groups look the same, with the 3.5-3.7's together, the 3.2-3.4's together, and the 3.0-3.1's together. We don't get as much privilege. We're stuck in the middle of the room, we have to seek out recruiters. We have to work. We know that we have to maintain where we are. Going higher feels impossible, but going lower is a fate none of us want. It could be worse though. If you're under a 3.0, professors don't look twice at you. The ones higher than 2.5 but lower than 3.0 at first work hard, but the farther they get in their college careers, the less they care. They become resigned to their fate of being menial workers. The secretaries, the assistants- they'll never have a title of their own. The 3.0 becomes a glass ceiling to them that won't break. 2.0's to 2.5's group together. They're generally laid back, happy to be passing and still being given a chance to get a degree. That's all they need. They're not serious, but they're not slackers either. Their friendships are genuine, and they don't overwork themselves. They know they'll end up in the same place as the 2.5 to 3.0's when all is said and done. Finally there are those beneath 2.0. They never last long in university. College wasn't mean for them. Some just go into the workforce, others go to technical school and apprenticeships. You see them elsewhere- as cashiers, baristas, mechanics, construction workers. Eventually, we all leave college. The number never leaves though. Society is ranked by this number. We all exist in little glass boxes. We all associate with our own kind. It's sad really, but it's the way it's always been. Gender, race, sexuality- none of it matters in the face of a number. One mistake, one bad semester, and you lose your place in society. Suicide and a rapid fall in GPA have a direct correlation, and yet no one has tried to change it. No one wants to. The system works, society is kept in line, and everyone is where they should be. So is life.

In an alternate reality, a student's GPA value floats on top of their head as a large number. All your professors, fellow students, friends, and parents can see it. How does this affect on campus relationships and day to day interactions?

The blue butterfly wings bent and rippled as the scalpel severed the body in two, slicing through my skin and into the flesh below. *I always knew I’d regret that tattoo some day.* The precise canyon stretched from my manually broken sternum diagonally across my breast toward my shoulder. The butterfly’s wings stood stiff, disconnected by the cut as the medical examiner moved on. Fingers shrouded in lavender gloves poked through the gash, lifting the outer layers of my body like the top of a suitcase, revealing the cold and static workings of my body. I floated through the air, moving in to take a closer look at the wormhole created by the bullet. The ME shuddered, and I shifted to the other side of my body, farther away from his living one. *It’s so clean, so smooth* A sickening crack shattered my study of the bullet hole. My weightless jaws clamped together, and I flew backward through the air on impulse, away from the sharp grind of my ribs being cut in two, broken and snapped as if they were nothing but extraneous branches on a rosebush that needed pruning. The ME continued his work, rib after rib, cutting them loose from my corpse in order to continue his work. *I cannot stay here for this* I took one last look at my face, peaceful and blanched gray under the ruthless fluorescent lights. My last thought floated in the air behind me as I dissipated. *At least I had the good sense to close my eyes before I died* ---- -014

You have just been recently murdered and, as a ghost, are watching your own autopsy.

"Oh wow. Wow. It feels - it feels so good to get that off my chest. You know?" I don't, but I'm too embarrassed to admit it. I only sat next to... Dave? Daniel? Because it was the only free seat at the bar. We got to talking... and talking... and by now there are plenty of free seats but it'd be weird for me to move away from him. It'd be rude, right? That's all I've been thinking about for the past, like, half-hour at least. And I'm so engrossed in my own thoughts and also my drink that I totally missed whatever he just said. Like this wasn't awkward enough. "Yeah," I mumble into my pomegranate something or other. He's been buying me drinks, at least, and not in a creepy way, just in a I-need-someone-to-talk-to way. So it'd be super rude to go sit somewhere else. Ugh. Is this what a Catch-22 is? "I mean, it's like..." Dave/Daniel laughs suddenly, doubling over, almost accidentally knocking over his saxophone case. ("I used to play a lot of brass," he'd told me when I confided that I found playing the saxophone sexy. "But sometimes you just have to switch things up.") "Ah, man." He wipes his eyes. "It's like Weekend at Bernie's up there, you don't even know. I mean, we haven't got him in sunglasses or anything." He snorts unattractively and covers his mouth. I work on tearing my damp napkin into little pieces. I've never seen Weekend at Bernie's. I vaguely know what it's about. There's a party? Whatever. I swallow the bittersweet dregs of my drink. Seeing this, Dave/Daniel/maybe G-something signals for another round. I have to fight not to groan. I don't win. "Sorry if I... disillusioned you," G-something says, a little calmer, mistaking my reluctance for who knows what. I shake my head, which is a bad idea because I'm drunker than I think and it's more obvious when I move. "No, it's, uh, it's fine," I assure him, trying to push focus away from my lack of focus. "It sounds, um... stressful." Now he groans, leaning forward until his forehead touches the bar top, then sits back up. "It is! It so is. People want to talk to him and I have to be like oh yeah sorry he's busy right now, right, like he just stepped out." He throws up his hands, almost hitting me in the face. "And I'm like, should I go look for him? Is he - where is he? 'Cause it's been a while. Like... a long time. And I still... I'll go talk to people and pretend he sent me. And he didn't! So now I, if he comes back, you know? I'm screwed. End of days. I just. I wish I knew what to do." He drops his head into his hands and against my better judgement I pat him on the shoulder. He sounds lost all of a sudden. I can relate. We're both at the bar, aren't we? I can hear him sniffing a little under his hands. Poor G-something. Gale? "Only God has all the answers," I tell him sagely, because I sure as hell don't. "That's the problem," he groans from behind his fingers. Oh, duh: Gabriel.

Contest. A drunken angel tries to reveal an important secret to you.

Lenny cracks his knuckles as Sarah watches her grandfather close his eyes, take a deep breath, and slowly open his eyes. He pushes back his gray hair with his hand, pauses, and smiles at Sarah. He pushes a plate with a sandwich towards her and says, "Come on, eat up. Show your grandpa you're a good eater." "Grandpa, tell me that story first! The one I like," she pleads waving her little jam covered hands. Lenny reaches over and wipes a little jam from her mouth. She giggles. "Which one? The one about the farm pig who thinks he's a dog or the curious monkey?" "No, no. The bears! The bears!" Lenny sighs, leans back, and says, "Oh right, the bears!" Sarah claps her hands while beaming a smile at the old man. Jam flies from her hands and gets on Lenny's shirt. He looks down and ignores it. He clears his throat and says, "The little bear lost his forest home thanks to termites and was wandering the city looking for a new home. The termites were close behind so he had to be quick." "He knocked on the pig's door. He refused to answer. He knocked on the cow's door, he also refused. He knocked on the door of another bear family, but no one was home. He finally knocked on the door of the stork family and they let him in." "Yay," cheers Sarah. "Mr. Stork was very kind. Very kind. Mrs. Stork was worried and argued a lot with Mr. Stork. The little bear lived in their attic, quiet as mouse, as to not worry the storks." "Mr. Stork would bring the little bear food and the bear was thankful but could not do much to repay him as the termites were always close behind. One night the little bear overhead Mrs. Stork talking to a termite." "Boo," hisses the little girl. "The little bear snuck out of the attic that night and just as he was walking away he saw the termites run up the attic looking for him. Mrs. Stock was at the door with her head hanging low as Mr. Stork was yelling and arguing with the termites." "Poor bear," says the little girl. "Little bear had to live on the streets, sleeping in the sewers, and for a while in bear jail, but a little while later, things got better. The eagle came and took all the termites away and the little bear lived happily ever after." "Yay," she cheers. She pokes at her sandwich and takes one bite. Her face is covered in jam. "Okay, lets get you cleaned up. Maybe we can find your mother," says Lenny as he looks at her sticky hands and sticky face. He picks her up, groaning a little, as her little hands grab onto his forearm, partially covering his old and faded tattoo. Sarah looks up at him and says, "Icky termites!" Lenny chuckles, "Yep, icky termites, indeed!"

I want you to tell me the story again. The important one. The one existing to warn me against a very real danger or threat I’m too young to understand.

The echo of the gunshot lingered in the air, as if asking why it existed in the first place. The professor, still holding the smoking gun, listened to it bounce around the corners of the room. *Trying to hide?* he thought with a smile. *There's nowhere to go.* Slumped backwards in his chair was the student he had fired upon, mouth as open as his eyes. A third eye gleamed in the center of his forehead, and as the silence in the room continued, a thick red tear squeezed out. "Welcome to Philosophy 101." the professor said, laying down the gun. No one said anything. No papers rustled. No one even breathed. "Today we're going to be discussing the moral and ethical dilemma I have just posed to you. Some of you may not believe that there is anything to discuss; killing is wrong and that's all there is to it. Others may see that there are two sides to every coin, even one as violent and abrupt as this." He surveyed the students quickly before moving on. There were only seven of them left, a typical size for a private school. Four boys and three girls. Only one of the girls was crying, he noted. All of the boys were pale, paler than the desks their fists were clenched upon. Would they be next, they wondered, and would they have to prove their masculinity, virility, and strength in order to survive? "No one else will die today, of that I can assure you. What I would like is for you to give me your thoughts, reactions, and impressions about why I might have killed your fellow classmate." "You're a psychopath?" one of the boys piped up. Harry, his name was. A freshman psychology major, if memory served. "That's certainly a possibility." The professor turned and wrote "psychopath" on the whiteboard in stark block letters. "Anyone else?" "He knew something about you," a girl named Valerie said, almost too softly to be heard. "Be more specific," the professor said. "There are lots of things about me that none of you, including our victim here, know about me, and less than one percent of those are in any way incriminating. There's a wealth of possibilities as to what your 'something' means. So, if you would, elaborate." Valerie looked utterly mystified that her simple statement created such a complex problem. "He could… He could have known you were in trouble with a bookie for gambling away more than you had." "You think I'm a gambler?" "I think you like risk, so it's not too far off to venture the guess that you like to press your luck with money as well." "Well put." He wrote "gambling debts" on the whiteboard. "Anyone else?" "He was your wife's lover." the boy next to Harry said. "That's always what it is in books and stuff, right?" "You're right, but," He held up his left hand. "I'm not married. You have to be observant to a fault with stuff like this, people. Scrutinize me. Read my body language. Do I seem unhinged, high, nervous, angry, or what? Are my hands twitching? Am I sweating? Do I make eye contact when we speak? Read between the lines." "There are no lines," Harry said. "You look totally normal." "Exactly!" the professor whooped, throwing the whiteboard marker onto the ground, spiking it like a football. "And what does that tell you?" "How many bullets are left in that pistol?" Valerie asked, her voice tremulous. "Trick question, my dear. There are only six." "So one of us gets out alive? Is that what you're saying?" "Your first assignment is to figure out who that will be. I expect a page, at least, by tomorrow."

Professor walks into a classroom. Shoots a student in the head. Proceeds to have a conversation about why.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, there was an issue with your application for Heavenly Entry. You're going to have to head down this corridor till you find Door A-2 on your left, then take a seat and wait for your name to be called." "But I've been waiting here for two hours now! When am I going to get judged?" "Until everyone who died before you gets judged." The woman left the line, as Bob sniggered behind her. The angel gave him a sharp glare, but said nothing before floating away. "ATTENTION. JUDGING HAS RESUMED." The massive screen lit up again, and everyone's head craned upwards towards it. "Hey, uh, I just got here," Bob whispered loudly to the angel next to him. "What's going on?" "Judging, Robert Jones. Everyone watches the key life-moments of those before. It's the only entertainment we were able to authorize here, in the void between Heaven and Hell." "Damn. Any good ones?" "Shhhh. Just watch." Together they watched the man's life, from his childhood till his end. It was around the 20-year mark when Bob noted, "This seems familiar." "Shhhh." "Hey! I know that guy! I'm sure of it! That's Hitler! That's his life on the screen!" Heads were turning, murmurs of agreement, but the angels soon settled everyone down again. "What's he doing up there? They playing reruns up here or something?" Bob asked infuriated. "He is being judged, as usual." "They didn't see what he did on earth? He should've gotten express delivery to the big man downstairs!" "No one is without sin, Robert," the angel noted, a little frustrated with Bob's outburst, "and no one is judged unfairly." "But he did so much!" "Shhh. They've almost decided the outcome." The recording stopped, and green text flashed upon the screen: ADMITTED. "WHAT!?!?!?!" Now the whole line was in an uproar. People were yelling, screaming, cursing, throwing fits on the ground. A few Jews broke down crying. Some simply stood in stoic silence. "HOW IN THE WORLD COULD GOD LET SOMEONE LIKE HIM INTO HEAVEN?" Bob screamed. "WE DEMAND JUSTICE! HE KILLED MILLIONS!" "You do not trust the judgement of God?" "He doesn't deserve to live!" "Sin is sin." "I don't get it! What is this madness!" He grabbed the angel by the shoulders and started shaking him. "GIVE ME ANSWERS!" "Sin is sin, Mr. Jones. God is holy. No level of impurity should enter these gates, no matter how small. But-" "I can't live with a God who lets someone like him go, but is going to throw some nice old fellow who lived his life quietly go away," he said, pointing to the screen, which showed DENIED. "God is a God of second chances. That man chose not to take them." "HE DID NOTHING WRONG." "All men are given a lifeline. Those who refuse to grab it drown. Some refuse to grab it until the end of their time, but it is always there, and they will be rescued; though, they may end up with hypothermia afterwards." "Some people don't deserve a lifeline!" With that, Bob stormed off out of the line, heading into the blackness of the void. The angel stood there. "Oh, he'll be back," he reassured the others surrounding him. "After all, we've only reached the 1940's. He has plenty of time."

You've died and are in line to be judged. Each person's key life-moments are played on a big screen for everyone behind them to see. Who are you stuck behind? What did they do? Are they a good person? A bad person? What is the verdict?

12 monitors were all blaring at once, all on different channels, all different regions and all of the same story: >*"Explosion destroys the Ka'ba in Saudi Arabia, more to follow"* As the 18 figures in the room rushed around, trying to handle a minimum of 3 phones or tablets between them, 3 more entered their midst. The collection of Military Staff, Political Staff and Intelligence officials, (Amongst others who don't officially exist on record); all stopped to acknowledge the new figures. President Harrigan, his usual face of smiles and hope all but gone. Replaced with a sneering, annoyed and though he would not admit it; terrified face. > *"What the Christ is this? Who did it? Who the fuck caused this goddamn headache I'm now going to have to clean up?!"* No one had an answer. One quiet female voice rose from a corner. > "We don't know sir, all our drones are combing the area and our IOs are checking any murmurs about this from the preceding months." The President, still fuming to the point you could swear steam was coming off of him, seemed at least pleased that something was being done. > "Good. Make it years, this could've been part of a long game. Jesus fuck this could cause war if it was a cunt from home. *Jesus fucking FUCK*. Check our International files, I want any *trace* that could provide hope it wasn't one of us out by the end of the day. Gives us time to find out who did it, and quietly bury them." Slightly taken aback by his answer, the woman stood there. > "And who are you by the way Miss...?" > > "Officially, sir?" > > "I'm the President and I'd like one good answer today." > > "Jane Sawyer, deep cover Governmental PR." The President held still for a moment, then recalled he had seen her before. > "Whoa whoa whoa, didn't you campaign for me on your show?" > > "Yes sir, we decided you would be best suited for running the country" > > "Wait, what do you mean *we*?" Several top figures exchanged glances. The President, not overly fazed by the idea of a rigged election waved his hand. > "Whatever, issue at hand. General White, what have your boys found?" A tall and powerful figure turned away from 4 men controlling various computers. "That's the thing sir. Nothing. Not a single trace. All we know is an airborne explosive hit the side." > "An RPG?" > > "No sir. My 3 top men believe it was a drone." > > "*Aw fuck* we do not need that press. Are they these 3 guys here?" He pointed at the 4 men (The one of the far right being a Navy officer) > "Yes sir, these 3 men have done great work before. They've helped track down scores of terrorists, both domestic and international. If I were religious I'd say God was giving them answers." Suddenly all 3 figures turned around, and stood straight up. > "General White, we know did it." The central figure confidently announced this much to the relief of everyone in the room. > "Well thank fuck for that, now do we need a domestic clean up or can we announce it to our allies?" > "What do you mean?" > "Look, was it a white American or a foreigner or an immigrant that doesn't make us look bad? Last thing we need is a fuck load of Muslims burning down our goddamn embassies like back in 2017." The three exchanged glances. > "Aw Jesus. Where are they? I want to atomise them out of existence, no trace to the US." > "Sir..." > "Do not fucking say the middle of London making public announcements. WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY" > "In front of you." All of a sudden, every person stopped in the room to look at them. Only the Military boys and girls moved, drawing weapons faster than you would believe possible. > "Don't bother, our *very* public video, whatever you call it, is out. Also, do not even think about shooting us. We know how this ends." > "Listen here you little shits, what the fuck do you think you are doing?" Heads turned to the news as the 3 men now appeared splashed across the screens, outlining and framing the US Govt. for the attack. They were suggesting that they were blackmailed into attacking it. The President was livid. > "Alright. What do you want?" > "Utopia." > "What?" > "We're from the future." > "I say again, *what*?" Confusion spread throughout the war room, how could 3 lunatics make it this high throughout the Government of the United States? The leader now strolled back and forth. > "How do you think we obtained all that information? How do you think we knew exactly when and where terrorists were? How do you think we got to this position with phoney ID's? We're from the year 2,617. The US pre-emptively strikes the Middle East via the Ka'ba on the 3rd of August, 2023. Which is today, obviously." > "Whoa whoa whoa, hang on can you stop talking lunac-" > "Mr President, do you remember when you were 9?" > "Yes yes what about me being frickin' 9?" > "You don't remember that man in the suit in the forest?" Silence fell upon the room aside from the monitors spouting speculation and confusion. > "Get the fuck out. I never, and I mean NEVER told anyone about that. How did you know?" > "You don't remember his face? *It was me*. The weird chocolate I handed you?" > "That was the best chocolate I ever had." > "You buried that wrapper in your back yard, looking to dig it up at the end of summer so you could buy dozens after your first paycheck" > "*HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS?*" > "Because you wrote it down. In this dossier. Well, the original at least this is a copy. You write down exactly what happens. Now I do need to hurry the next bit up, you have some planning to do. By striking at Islam's heart first, you cause a war between various countries of the Middle East and the West. Israel burns in under a week. With no choice, your boys stomp out the flames of fury and take the entirety of the Middle East. With other regions now scared of your brute force, they strike too. Asia collapses with North Korea and China attempting to de-throne you guys with the help of Russia in roughly 2 months time. As Eastern Europe falls, mainland Europe reluctantly agrees to side with you, ushering in a new era of peace and stability. The US takes over the entire of the Americas, with her breadth spreading across the planets." > "Planet*s*?" > "Look everything you need to know and are permitted to know is in this file, here. We are no longer needed, we are returning." Then, General White boomed: > "LIKE FUCK YOU ARE LEAVING, I WILL HAVE YOU ALL SHOT FOR THI-" Smiles spread across the 3 faces. > "No you won't. Good luck Mr. President, today is the day peace spreads through superior firepower." In an instance, they vanished. Out of thin air, causing air to rush in towards them to fill the gap they had just left. > "Mr President, I implore you not to read that document. We can avoid war if we-" > "No, we can't General White." The monitors filled with scenes of anti-Western hate spreading fast. Fire bombs were being flung at the White House. > "But sir, we can't be responsible for the destruction of millions of lives!" > "We weren't, they were. And in several hundred years I will have it arranged that they are to be shot on sight as they return from our time. Until then... I want my plane fuelled, as well as yours."

Explain how a cult of time travellers actually create a utopia in the far future by carrying out terrorist plots in the past.

"And... begin!" Papers rustled from one side to the other as the students began their test. It wasn't a difficult test, in fact, it wasn't even really a test. This "test" was purely extra credit, but they wouldn't know that until afterwards. The teacher walked over to his desk and sat in his chair. *Ah, finally some peace and quiet. I forget how nice tests are on a stressful day.* He gazed over the room, spotting the students trying so hard not to be caught cheating. He knew though. After teaching for as long as he had, he knew exactly what to look for. The awkward hand on the forehead. The ever so slight neck "stretch". The "clock check". The list went on and on. *And then there's Brad.* Brad didn't ever cheat, or if he did, he wasn't very good at it. The only thing Brad was checking out was Emily, his student teacher. *Maybe someday kid.* Emily came from the nearby university. She was a nice girl, only a few years removed from most of the seniors in this class, so it wasn't a surprise that some of the students paid a lot more attention when she was teaching. The semester was winding down for her college courses and she would be leaving soon. *I'll miss her.* She had become somewhat of a good friend to the teacher. She came from a bad situation at home, but instead of being a father, he just acted as a friend. That seemed to help a lot more. She seemed to forget all of her other troubles when she was with kids and helping them. It was nice to see in this cynical world. Fifteen minutes passed and just a few of the students had finished. The usual group began turning their tests in, confidently returning to their seats. It was as Brad took his sixth "Emily check" that a noise was heard from outside the classroom. All of the students heard it and turned to look at the door. Some of the students seemed to recognize the sound, but couldn't quite place it. You don't usually expect to hear sounds from video games or movies in the school. The teacher knew what it was right away though. *No! Gunshots!* "KIDS! Into the corner." The kids looked at him with hesitation. Some moved right away, albiet slowly. "NOW!" They moved faster, still not knowing what exactly was going on. He pulled Emily aside. "Emily, please stay calm. Those were gunshots." "Gu-" "Sh! The kids will be more scared than they need to be right now. They don't need to know what's going on, not yet." Emily didn't calm down much, but she calmed down enough to maintain her composure. "What are we going to do? We have to call the police." "Yes, call the police quickly and then get in the corner, keep the kids quiet. I'm going to try and help." "Wait! What do I tell them?" "Tell them... it's probably just something in the woods shop, but I just want to be safe." Emily looked at the teacher. "Mr. Williams... Tom, be careful." "Emily, you're a good person. Don't ever forget that. And don't worry," Tom smiled "I always am." Tom walked towards the door as she called the police and reported gunshots. He peaked out the crack, trying to see if anyone was in the hallway. He always left the door open as he always had students that would pop in from time to time, and he didn't want to turn them away. There wasn't anything in the hallway that he could see, so he left the room. It seemed like time had slowed since the first few shots, but only a minute or two had passed. Tom walked down the hallway towards where he heard the sound coming from. He tried to think on the students. *Who would do this? Greg's got a bad family, but he's not the type. Lamar's brother just passed, but natural causes. He wouldn't grieve like this. Kari just broke up with D... oh no. Kari.* Tom sprinted down to Ms. Halter's room. Sure enough, he could hear crying from inside. Kari and her boyfriend Dan had just broken up. There was always suspicion that Dan wasn't a great guy to her, but no one thought it was that bad. Just typical high school drama. Tom knew though. He had seen things like this before. Dan wasn't a great guy, and maybe he went too far. "And you, I THOUGHT YOU WERE MY FRIEND! But you were right there with him! I begged you to stop, but you didn't!" As he tried to slowly and quietly open the door, another bullet sped out of the chamber, followed by screaming. *Damnit Kari!* Tom pushed the door open and entered the room. Ms. Halter and a student, Dan, by the looks of it, laid face down on the ground and a third, Jessica, was holding her stomach, trying to stop the bleeding. "Kari!" Kari turned and fired, not looking before she shot. The bullet hit his stomach before anyone could react. Tom hunched over, both hands on his stomach. Kari stood in shock before more tears began to fall. "NO!" She lowered her gun and ran towards her favorite teacher. "Mr. Williams! I didn't mean t-" Tom stood up, revealing a hole in his shirt, but no wound. "Kari, you need to stop." "Wha... What? How? What are you?" Kari raised her gun again, not for revenge, but confusion. "Kari, I can explain later, but I need you to stop." "No! I won't stop! Not until everyone understands! He hurt me, and I tried to stop him, to get help, but NO ONE LISTENED TO ME!" Another bullet fired into Tom, hitting his chest this time. Tom didn't move at all. He just stood there as the bullet slowly was pushed back out of his chest and onto the floor. He walked towards Kari who fired two more bullets before he reached out and took the gun away from her. "Kari, listen to me. I know you're hurt, but this isn't going to make you feel better." "Yes it does! He hurt me, and he hurt other girls, but now he can't!" Kari stared at her once favorite teacher, defiant and angry. "You stopped me from stopping his friends, who did it too. No one knew about his friends. I know people talked about Dan and me, but his friends did most of it. I HATE THEM!" She started flailing her arms, trying to hit Tom as hard as she could. He reached out and tried to hug her, calm her down. She tried her hardest to keep hitting him, but after just a few seconds, it was like all the energy she had left her at once. She collapsed to the ground, no longer crying, just staring at the floor. "Kari, look at me." He bent down to meet her gaze as she slowly lifted her head. "They're going to be punished now. The police are on there way. Do you understand?" She nodded her head. "But, you're going to be punished too. I understand what they did to you, and how you feel, but you just killed two people, and Jessica is badly hurt." "I don't care about them." "I know you don't, but that doesn't mean you can kill them. They deserved to be punished, but not like this." He reached down and grabbed one of Kari's hands with his empty hand. "Listen to me Kari, do you understand? You can't kill people just because the hurt you, no matter how much they hurt you." Kari sniffed, tears began falling down her cheeks once more. "I do. I'm sorry Mr. Williams. It just hurts so much. I feel like everyone knows and can see me. Like they know how much it hurts and what they did to me. I feel like everyone's looking at me and laughing when I walk down the hallways. I don't want to feel like this anymore. Please... I'm sorry." Kari reached for the gun in Mr. Williams other hand, but he pulled it away before she could grab it. "Kari! What did I just say? You can't kill others because they hurt you." "I know. But I can get rid of the pain. Please Mr. Williams... please." She fell completely to the floor, sobbing. Tom stood and looked towards the other students in the corner. They were all so frightened and confused. *They'll never be the same. She'll never be the same. And* they *aren't going to help her. They'll just punish her.* He turned and picked Kari up into his arms. He ran into the hallway just as he heard sirens approach the building. He ran towards the gym and towards the back exit. Kari didn't move or say anything, she just cried. *I'll have to move a lot farther away this time.* He pushed open a door and ran across the field and into the woods and police began to sweep the school. -- Two cops returned to their car as the last of the EMT's and detective's left the school. "Joe, you hear the story?" "Yea, some girl was raped, brought a gun to school and was stopped by an invincible teacher?" "Yea. The detectives said all the kids said the same thing. You believe that?" "Nope. Not a damn piece of it. Next thing you'll tell me is some guy in a wheel chair can get into people's minds and another can shoot laser beams out of his eyes!" "Ha! Damnit Joe! Don't make me laugh right now!" The cops got into their car and began to drive away. "Well, at least we got the names of all the kids who raped her though" "Yea, those little shits will get theirs, but I can't wait till we find this invincible teacher and the girl." -- Kari sat by the fire and grabbed the blanket closer to her. She hadn't touched the meat yet, but she would eventually. *They'll get even closer to finding me now. The bullets are still there, I didn't grab them.* Tom walked over to the fire and crouched down next to Kari. "Eat this. You'll feel better." She didn't say anything, but she did take a bite. *I know better. Why didn't I grab the bullets? They know my name, sure, but anyone can fake a name, background information. DNA's a bit harder. You're slipping up old man.* He stood back up. "Kari, I'm going to get us some more water. I'll be right back, okay?" She just nodded her head. *Soon enough she'll come to grips with what she's done. Soon she'll be ready to accept the punishment without it ruining the rest of her life. When that time comes, when she understands, she'll turn herself in. Until then, she'll be safe here. I can't protect her from her fate, but I can prepare her.* Tom walked towards the nearby river, trying to figure out how he was going to restart his life, again.

An immortal man is a teacher at a school, that is being involved in a school shooting.

On April 5, 2043, the Fourth Wall fell. It only took an instant, but in that instant everything we thought we knew changed forever. We hadn't even known the location of the wall. But reports started coming in. Farmers in a remote part of Missouri told of unspeakable horror. Of daughters kissing a young scoundrel. We didn't believe at first. Oh, but we were fools back then. A small search party of local law enforcement was sent. The National Guard wasn't even called in. We should have just thrown the Navy Seals, Israeli commandos, British SAS, the whole book at them right from the start. Or closed the damn thing off again. The search party never came back. That's when the press started taking it seriously. A few crazies talked of UFOs and Loch Ness monsters, but that's all they were. Crazies. The truth was much worse. After a few weeks, and a few more disappearances, the Guard got called in. No word was heard. The world began to descend into chaos. Grocery stores emptied. Revolutions erupted. A border skirmish broke out between China and Russia. We were on the brink of total madness. A meeting was held. The United Nations gathered. For once, they were actually united, with one voice. An expeditionary force was assembled, the UN's finest. This time, three men made it back. Every one of them ranted and raved, about thatchers and berries and gathering wood for the fire. Unrelated things. We threw them into insane asylums, where all three took their own lives. War was declared. A real state of emergency for the known world, unlike any seen since the Black Death or the Mongolian conquests. Entire armies went forth. The world's best military minds were called out of retirement. Former world leaders called for calm minds to prevail. We heard not a word from the armies, drones, and weaponry that disappeared into the breach. But as the waiting troops outside watched, from that horrible gap in reality came one lone boy. He was dressed like a 19th century country bumpkin or farmhand, a little disheveled and dirty. A mischievous smile spread across his face, spelling doom for our world. I write this as of May 7, 2051. I have been whitewashing a long fence, the new Third Wall, for many years. I grow tired, but I cannot stop. If you are reading this message, put in earplugs, the best ones you can find. Glue them to your ears. Pursue the boy. Kill him. Save the world.

The Fourth Wall has been breached and our world has come into physical contact with previously fictitious realities. What happens next?

"Let the hostages go free! Drop your weapons and come out with your hands behind your head!" "Let us get to our helicopter and we'll leave the hostages unharmed!" "Not good enough! Let the hostages go free, surrender your weapons and then we'll let you go to your helicopter! That's the best I can do!" "We'll free the hostages, keep our guns and stay put!" "How about you keep the hostages, but give up your guns and stay put?!" "That's not sounding that good to me! Ehh, let me talk with Crazy Rob and I'll give you an answer!" "Crazy Rob?! Crazy Rob Kaplan?! From West Philly?!" "Holy shit?! How do you know Rob?!" "We were in Mrs Plinkton's music class together! Always was a crazy guy!" "No way! Then you know my brother, Fats Delaney!" "Short guy?! Sandy brown hair?!" "No man! Huge guy, long black hair with a beard! He -- hold on, Rob's talking to me -- he played banjo in your class!" "There was a Danny Delaney, I think! That him?!" "No man! Fats! Everyone called him Fats! His first name was Billy!" "Sorry, I don't know any Billy Delaneys!" "That's 'cause his name was Fats! Fats Delaney! How do you know Rob and not know Fats?!" "Sorry man! Maybe he's a different Crazy Rob?!" "You Pete Browne?! You played trumpet?!" "Yeah!" "Well then it's definitely the same class!" "Oh...Decided yet?!" "How about this?! We keep the hostages and the guns, but we go to a different place?!" "Like where?!" "How about the Bank of America three blocks over?!" "Sounds good! I'll see you there!"

A tense hostage negotion in a bank, involving an incompetent thief verses an incompetent negotiator

"Hello, Michael," The kid before him greeted excitedly. "It's been a long time. Do you remember me?" Next to him, the seventy-five year old man looked at him in confusion. In an instant, he was able to scan his whole life, and not once did the boy's face ring a bell. "No," answered Michael, his voice fairly tired. "That's okay," the boy shrugged. "Just as a reminder, my name's Peter. You ready to go back?" "Back?" "To Earth. You have a few more rotations before you're ready for the real deal." In the distance, a white light began to shine. Gradually, it moved closer. "As usual, you won't remember anything from this life, just the lessons. You don't seem to have done anything bad, but this time around, you might wanna stop every once in a while and just take a look around. See who you can-- what?" "No. Not yet." And he dropped on his ass. To Michael's relief, it didn't even break a hip. Not like the last time he fell. Peter watched him sit on the ground for a moment. "O... kay..." Minutes passed. Every few moments, Michael would laugh to himself. He would sniffle. "Are you okay?" Michael said nothing, just nodded. "Alright. Sorry, but you have to get going, okay? I have to help others as well." "Ever have a kid, Peter? Or a wife?" Peter paused. "Go help someone else. I just wanna remember them a little longer."

A man dies and finds out that he is getting reincarnated. He sees the light in the tunnel and he sits down instead of going past and being born. Tell us why.

Why the fuck do you have to be so goddamned beautiful, for fucks sake. Seriously, I can't stop fucking thinking about you and it's driving me insane. If only you were a bitch, seriously I've wished that you were one of those girls I'll never know. The girls who pull faces when I talk to them or ignore me as they strut past. If you were one of those I could forget about you, I could accept that you're just something I'll never be able to experience. But oh no! You have to be nice, and thoughtful and smart and fucking funny too. Holy shit, you're actually funny. I always tell myself I'm being absurd when I think about you. She's not that great, you're putting her on a pedestal, she's not that hot. And then I see you in real life and you prove me wrong every time, without fail. You're always better than I could ever imagine you. Always better looking than in my mind and with a new quirky hairstyle or cute story to share. You're no angel. You're no gift from god, although you play the part and might even believe it yourself. You're a demoness, placed on this earth to torment me. And what have I done to deserve this? Love you?

Rant at me.

The world slowly turned beneath them, the slow beast lumbering through the day and night, through time and space. Their line to mission control had been dead for hours at this point, and she and her fellow astronauts had been getting desperate. Tim was continually on the line, constantly trying, but never getting a reply. It always went like this: “Mission control, this is Timothy Curtis from ISS, can you hear me, over?” “Mission control, this is Timothy Curtis from ISS, can you hear me, over?” There had been reports of a solar storm yesterday, and Katie was afraid that Mission Control had been wrong about the severity of the storm. It could knock out communications, GPS, nearly everything, if it was severe enough. But a different storm was brewing instead. It was Collins who had first noticed the lights. They seemed small, so very small on the light side of earth, barely enough to be noticed. He called her over. “Katie, come over here and have a look at this for me, wouldja?” They looked like fireflies in the daylight, just bright enough to be noticed, nothing more. There were a few in Asia, a few in Europe, but the majority of the flashes were in North America. They were still small and spread out. “What do you think it is?” “Cloud formations reflecting the light? I mean, I’m just a mission tech, but maybe the solar storm is causing that.” A shout came from the back. “Hello! This is Timothy Curtis from ISS, can you hear me, over!” There was garbled static- there was a voice, but it was indistinguishable from the crackling. “Hello! This is Timothy Curtis from ISS, can you hear me, over!” More static, even less voice. “You are breaking up! I cannot understand you!” There was static, a voice, then a soft boom, then silence. Unnerved, Timothy was afraid to try the radio again. But try he did. There was only silence to answer him. Katie let out a gasp. Day had turned to night, and with it, a fresh round of lights had appeared. Bigger, and brighter. These were everywhere, shining through the darkness. Katie had often looked at America at night. You could tell where the cities were, the lights shining brightly through the darkness, the flame of civilization visible through space. But the only light tonight was the blooming fireflies. Timothy came to the observation module to watch the lights bloom. He had turned the radio off an hour ago. Katie was reminded of a Christmas tree, in her youth, decorated in bright yellow lights, shining above the green. She tried to think of that tree, her house, her family. She tried to remember. The lights had gone out. Night gave way to day, and day gave way to a gray planet, sullen and ashen, and the world slowly turned beneath them, the slow beast lumbering through the day and night, through time and space. Edit: Removed unnecessary comma.

An astronaut witnesses a thermonuclear war from space

Fuck my luck. With my face still resting on the cool marble tile, and my eyes still shut, the collection of voices merge together to form a single chaotic noise. Blood trickles down the side of my head, and into my ear. Involuntarily, I reach up with my hand, as if to swat the invisible fly that drifted into my eardrum. However, I am quickly stopped short by the ziptie holding both of my hands behind my back. Shit. I forgot. My hands are numb; I have to mentally think of them to recognize that they are even there. My head throbs with an uneven, crashing pounding. An earthquake exploding off the Richter scale in my head. Turbulent waves, erratically crashing on the recesses of my skull. The blood continues to trickle into my ear. It’s annoying. As best as I can, I slowly roll over onto my side. My back feels as if it is being dug into with a shovel, and I couldn’t suppress a slight groan from escaping from my lips. The legion of voices becomes 1 less, as I hear someone quickly stride over to me as I begin to open my eyes. They open just in time to see a boot connect with my stomach, and launch me across the marble tile, slick with blood. A harsh accent threatens my life if I dare to move again. Vomit dribbles out of the corner of my mouth, as I struggle to control another pain recently added to the growing list. My eyes adjust to the lighting, and for the first time I am able to survey the surroundings. With my new visual perspective of the scene, the voices separate themselves from the pack and find their original owners. The mournful wailing, high-pitched and sobbing, slithers to the woman holding her dead husband in her arms. His Hawaiian shirt is askew, revealing a matted mess of hair and blood on his chest. The comforting crooning, low and soft, creeps back to the middle-aged business man as he comforts a shell-shocked woman on the other side of the room. She rocks back and forth, her head softly hitting the wall under the counter of the bank teller. The rest sit in silence, expressions of anger, fear, and worry written across their faces. In front of me, the sound of a snarling debate stomps back to the 4 men with masks, the only ones standing in the building. They point their automatic rifles towards the ceiling as they furiously discuss their next move, while their coworker crouches in front of the vault with his tools. Fuck my luck.

A bank robber walks into a bank, in progress of being robbed, and is taken hostage.

"So, what do you do?" "Anything you want me to babe;)" "That's cute but seriously... what do you do." "No, I was serious too. I'm the crowd-sourced kid, well crowd-sourced adult now." "Oh my god, I knew you looked familiar!" "Yeahh..." "So what's that like?" "Sometimes it sucks, the rest of the time it's all right." "So everyone votes on what you're supposed to do? I couldn't imagine a life like that.. What was growing up like." "Surprisingly not bad. I've researched myself and how it all started and stuff.. There were tons of arguments when I was just a baby. Eventually it got to the point where they all voted in a caregiver and decided they would choose only the major aspects of my life. It's really weird how much money someone will pay to have control over someone else.." "So what were the major things they 'voted onto you'?" "The first was a very expensive private primary school. Then public middle school. Next came a moderate private high school. They all decided Harvard business school. During summer vacations they decided I would backpack through Europe, Climb Mount Everest, Master Kung Fu at a Shaolin Temple, and spend a summer in Africa helping people." "That sounds kind of amazing if you don't mind me saying..." "It is cool to have money thrown at you to do kind of cool things but I would never have chosen those things for myself if I had any say." "Then why do you still let them have a say?" "...when you're raised by billions of people it's hard to have an identity.. I don't know who I am yet. I guess I'll know when I know and to be honest they haven't steered me wrong yet.." *beep boop, beep boop* Lifting his phone from his pocket he checks the command. *Attempt to sleep with her*, it says. He can't help but smile to himself thinking of all the people, all the losers, that just sit at their computer and live vicariously through him. He really doesn't care that much anymore though, most of their commands are what he'd do himself with the added bonus of having them paid for by someone else. Tonight they sent him to the bar, tonight they'll foot the bill but they won't enjoy it as much as he has. There's a serenity and freeness that comes with never having to choose. "Hey listen, I'm done for tonight, want to head back to my place? I've got a frozen pizza and netflix.." "Yeah I'm starving, Let's go!"

Let internet users raise a child by letting them vote on major decisions.

"Hey, thanks man, I reall appreciate it." "Not a problem, my man, where you headed?" "Uhhhhh.....Limon? Well Denver really, I mean, but if I can get to Limon I have a....uh....a friend there who will drive me to Denver. What about you, where are you going?" "I'm headed to...uhh...Goodland, I guess." "Oh, so you're not going as far...." "...BUT I COULD....sorry, I mean, I could take you as far as Limon, no problem! I mean, it's only....what, another....hundred miles?" "Well, I woulnd't want to put you out or..." "NO! It's fine, really! I, uh....I enjoy driving, you know? And....talking to people, I guess?" "OK, that's cool. Listen, uh...we got a few miles until we get there, but there's this little place on the other side of Hays that....that I might like to stop at, if you're interested. Like a...um...like a bar, or..." "Uh...yeah...that sounds...great...I mean...." "Well it's not really a bar per se, it's more like a spot out in the country....a, a field I guess you'd call it...where the local teenagers sometimes go to drink..." "....OK...." "I mean, who knows if anyone will be out there, and if no one is there, we could just grab a couple six packs ourselves and....I don't know, just drink and....uh...." "You said it's out in a field? Like, outside of town? Off the highway?" "....Yeah, like a couple miles north of 70....You kind of have to....know where....." "What? Why are you looking at me like that?" "....Look, I'm just going to come out and say it....Do you have a shovel, hacksaw, and 200 yards of plastic wrap in your trunk?" "WHAT? I mean...why would I...." "Because....because that's what's in that big bag of mine you insisted on putting in the trunk for me...." "....Wait, you mean...." "Yeah, I mean..." "Well, hell. You know I was wondering...Limon? Who the fuck goes to Limon?" "Yeah, well, who the fuck drives a stranger from Goodland to Limon at 11pm on a Monday? Where's your spot, Burlington?" "Just short of it, some old abandoned farmstead that the world has forgotten about. Is your spot really north of Hays, or...." "Yeah but I've been looking for something new, the part about the teenagers was not bullshit. I was thinking I might kill you and move a couple ones buried there to a new spot." "Well, not for nothin', but for my money it's worth the drive to get into Colorado. The ground just feels...safer, you know? I can't really describe it, it's like..." "Like a voice in your head in the form of a memory you can't quite recall telling you so?" "YES! Thank you, that's exactly it!" "Wow, what are the odds, huh? So anyway, what do you think...Hays? Might be some teenage couple out there getting it on? You up for it?" "Yeah, sure, that sounds like it has potential. Just...." "What?" "Well....Let's.....can we be gentlemen about this? Can we agree that there's not going to be any backstabbing - literal or otherwise - here? I mean I'm not going to lie, I've always fantasized about a team kill, and maybe if you're up for it, after the kill, maybe before we dismember them we can....well we'll cross that bridge later. But what I'm saying is...Let's....let's work together and not try to kill each other?" "Oh......absolutely! Uh.....scouts honor?" "Yeah......scouts honor."

A man picks up a hitchhiker. Both are serial killers looking to murder the other.

They almost refuse to let me on the train. I arrive at the last minute, running up to the turnstile, out of breath and energy. The ticket-taker looks me up and down, examining my frayed clothing, tattered shoes, disheveled hair, and ratty backpack, flung over one shoulder and only half-zipped. He fixes me with a glare that tells me he probably thinks I'm a heroin addict or something. "Look, buddy," he tells me, "I don't know why you're hanging around here, but you better get your ass out of here before I call the cops." "No, wait," I gasp. "I have..." I pause to rest my hands on my knees, and gulp air into my lungs. "I have a ticket." I fish into my pocket as his right hand moves for his walkie-talkie. "Look," I say, holding up the piece of paper. He snatches it and looks it over. "Alright, fine," he says. "Don't shoot up on the train." "What?" "Nothing. You better hurry or you're gonna miss the train." The platform is deserted. It seems that everyone has already gotten on the train, and perhaps it's simply waiting for me, beckoning me to enter it and ride off to who knows where. I climb inside and squeeze into a compartment. Almost every seat is full. Next to me, a rather large woman in a flower-print dress has already begun snoring against the window. Drool crawls down her face from the right side of her mouth. A businessman in a suit sits across from me, typing furiously on a laptop, his face twisted with discontent. He checks his watch constantly, as though doing so might make the train depart sooner. To his right, a balding man is working on the crossword for today's newspaper. Every so often he lifts his head to glare briefly at the snoring woman next to me, then returns to scribbling letters into the boxes. I try to start a conversation, but when I open my mouth and begin to speak, crossword man shushes me and points to sleeping lady, giving me a look of reproach. Laptop man doesn't even look up. Without any warning over the loudspeaker, the train starts to move, jolting the snoring woman. She grumbles and then goes back to sleep. All of the people in my compartment seem so disturbingly... casual. None of them seem to really care where the train is going, nor are any of them looking out the window as the darkness closes in around us. The snoring woman is sound asleep. Crossword man is still engrossed in his paper, and laptop man is glued to his screen, his fingers moving almost mechanically across the keyboard. The train is strangely quiet. No one else on the train seems to be talking, or even making any noise. They are all engrossed in books or staring straight ahead into nothing. The only sounds are the train clanking along the tracks, the tapping of laptop, and the scribble of crossword man's pencil. Outside the window, it is entirely dark. Pitch black. We can't be inside a tunnel; there would still be some maintenance lights. No one else seems to notice. I stand up. Something is very, very wrong. I move to the center aisle of the train, which is growing increasingly shaky, as if it's going to derail. "Hey!" I shout. No one looks up. "Hey!" Louder this time, waving my hands. Crossword man stands up, grabs me by the shoulders, and thrusts me back into my seat. "Quit making a scene," he commands, picking back up his newspaper. He slides the door of the compartment shut. "What the fuck is going on on this train? What the hell is happening?" "You of all people should know where we're headed. Did you even look at the ticket you purchased?" "No, it was for... it was..." Crossword man waits for me to fish into my pocket to look at the ticket. It's a piece of plain white paper, with the word "Ticket" scrawled on one side in messy handwriting. My handwriting. "But... but I could've sworn that this said I was going to... going to..." I suddenly can't remember. "You don't even know why you were rushing to get on this train in the first place. When did you even buy your ticket? Hmm?" I try, but I can't remember. "You must have really wanted to escape from something, huh? What did you do? Kill someone for some heroin? You look like the type." "I'm not a fucking drug addict, OK? Please tell me what the *fuck* is going on here!" I reach over to slide open the compartment door, but it doesn't budge. "No use," crossword man says, motioning at the door. "Looks like we're stuck in here. So what did you do?" "I have no idea what you're talking about," I lie, my voice breaking. My hands are shaking; my breath is coming out in sharp, short exhales. "Sure you do." He waits for me to answer. "Nothing? Alright, I'll start. I killed my wife. Murdered that cheating bitch. Plunged the knife into her gut and twisted it in until blood gurgled from out of her throat. Woman next to you? She drowned her two-year-old daughter in the bathtub. Couldn't put up with being a mother. Mr. Business to my left? Let's just say he really didn't like that his son was gay. Beat the poor kid until he went into a coma. Kid died four days later in the hospital." Holy shit. I get it now. I know exactly where this train is headed. "So," crossword man says, "what did you do? Mother? Father? Boss?" "I killed my best friend," I admit after a moment of tense silence. "Motherfucker had it coming to him." "Oh?" crossword man says, raising his eyebrows. He doesn't seem disgusted, only intrigued. "And why did you do that?" "Because he was an annoying little fuck. He bitched and moaned about everything. I won't go into the details, but I made sure it hurt. Man, it was fucking brutal. You should have seen what he looked like, pleading for help. It was almost cute. Ha. Like you'll fucking live after I've cut open your stomach and shredded your intestines." "Boy, you are one sick fuck," crossword man laughs. "That's impressive. He must've really done something to piss you off." "Do you know what it's like," I say, "to eat Ramen every fucking night and then listen to your supposed 'friend' complain that his Ferrari got a scratch? That his private chef had to take a day off? That he had to go to Hawaii *again* and he was bored with it? I would've killed for his life. I mean, I suppose I kind of did. He needed a lesson in gratitude." I glance out the window. It's still pitch black outside. "His white shag carpet turned so wonderfully red. It was like... like a beautiful abstract painting," I say, waving my hand in the air as though brushing across an invisible canvas. "Like a Pollock." "Huh," crossword man says. "So, I guess you've figured it out now? Why we're all on this train, heading nowhere?" "Yes," I say. "It's... it's not quite hell, is it? It's more of an... an escape, no, actually, not an escape. A confine. It keeps us all here together. Isolates us from the real world, puts us with like-minded people. We keep each other company." "Exactly." Crossword man picks back up his paper and pencil. "And each of us has our own routine. I've been doing this same crossword for 17 years." "Oh, so I--" "You'll find one soon enough, kid. I hope that explained everything to you. Nice talking to you, but I need you to leave me alone. I'm still trying to get 32 down." -------------- I've been on the train for 237 days now. I've fallen into my routine, which, as it turns out, is rereading and rereading the same book I had in my backpack -- *Strangers On A Train* by Patricia Highsmith. How deliciously ironic. The train compartment expanded at some point to 6 seats -- an empty one next to me, and another unoccupied seat next to crossword man. The windows outside are usually pitch black, but every so often, they lighten and we return to the same exact empty platform. It's the same show every time. One person rushes onto the platform, pleads with the man at the turnstile, and is finally admitted onto the train. He runs onto the train, takes a seat, does the exact same thing I did. Someone in his compartment explains it to him, he fesses up to what he did -- raped and killed his sister, shot several classmates, so on -- and goes into his routine. The windows are lightening again. We're arriving back at the platform. I don't know where the platform really is, or who the man at the turnstile is, but I've learned to stop questioning it. It doesn't really matter, anyway. A thin man in a jogger's outfit sprints up to the turnstile. He talks to the man there, passes through, and enters the train. He's in my car. Finally. My turn to explain. Breathless, he approaches our compartment and stares at the seat next to me. "Excuse me," he says, his breath short and his voice ragged. He points to the seat next to me. "Mind if I sit here?" "Of course not," I say as the windows begin to darken. "There's always room for one more." (New Years Challenge -016)

You boarded, took a seat, and are on your way to your destination. You don't recognize anyone, but that's common when travelling alone. Yet soon you realize, every single person around you, including you, shares the same secret...

I was an accident. My mother really didn't mean to spawn me; she hated me in her last moments. I longed for her attention, but never got it. I know I acted out as a child. I ran all over the place, making a horrible mess wherever I went. She just lay there. I didn't know it then, but she had died to give me life. Childhood flew by as I ate everything I could find and started growing big and strong; bigger even than my poor mum. Those were good days; room to play, plenty of food, no friends but I never really needed any. I made my own fun. The times sliding around my room, playing with all my toys. I even went outside for a little bit but it was too cold, too wet for me. Time flew by as it does, caressing my memories as it passed. I wish it could have lasted forever, but nothing does. Everyone goes through phases growing up, and I was no exception. I didn't leave my room for ages, growing bigger and bigger with no one to tell me to get any exercise. It was unhealthy and I soon began to feel the effects. The room seemed to be shrinking; my room, the room I had been born in, no longer welcoming for me. I had to make the choice. It was that or die. I left. Food was plentiful outside my room, though some of it leaked water from strange holes. I ate it all. I must have doubled in size; something I know would have made my mum proud. It brought me no end of trouble. The bigger I got, the less it seemed that I had enough to eat. Then came the worst time... Someone tried to kill me! Soldiers charged my home, firing their weapons into me over and over again. Such harsh burning was nothing short of torture, and for what? I had done nothing wrong! I was running out of food and in so much pain. I fled my home to a neighbor's where they had masses of extra food for me. It was delicious! A wondrous buffet of nourishment; helping me grow ever bigger and stronger until... well, the soldiers called for reinforcements. Endless waves of their onslaught poured into me. I cried and screamed, hissed and shrank back, but they didn't stop. They never stopped. They cut me in half and showed no mercy to either half. Now I'm in hiding. Barely holding on to life in the basement of my neighbor's home. No one knows I'm here. I was strong enough, big enough to put aside a little piece to save myself from the slaughter. I'm cold though and it's wet all around me. I don't know if I can hold on much longer. To think I was massive once; great and powerful, now reduced to this. Hiding, dying... alone. I never got to tell my mother that I loved her. I really did. Colder now, near the end... I wonder if it hurts to sleep...

A house burning down from the perspective of the fire.

It surprised me. I am a god, I have created life and a universe so beautiful--so *beautiful* and so complex, so wonderful, and yet... I was surprised. I did not see it, I did not believe it at first, and even now I find it difficult to understand. How has this happened? How is it possible that my universe, my *creation,* is decaying? Is dying? I find it difficult to explain this to you even though you are my own creation. Just know this: I am life. I am not death, for death is something I do not understand and it is something that I did not create. But did I? Perhaps in creating life I have forced death to exist, for even though I may give you eternal life, you will die. Your body will live, yes, your heart will beat and your mind will think, but you... your soul will die. You will lose the will to live, you will lose sight the reason I created you: to appreciate my creation; the universe, the stars, the earth on which you live, and the most beautiful of them all, you. I find with great despair that I cannot control death. Am I not god? Can I not create wonderful and complex creations, can I not create the simplest yet the most beautiful of things? Why then can I not control death? Is death the higher power? I fear it may be the highest. I must then ask of you something no creator should have to ask of its creation: Do not forget me. Death will come, death will take you, and I know not... I do not know what lies beyond death. Do you understand what that means? I, the creator of everything, do not know what exists beyond death. So I ask you to not forget me. When you are in the realm of death and death asks of you your origin, your purpose, your will to live, do not forget me. Tell him of me, tell him of my creation, of its beauty and purpose. For I shall be here, and when death comes for even me, I pray he will come with open arms and not as a stranger.

A creator of life witnesses death for the first time.

I walked into my apartment after a long day at work. I didn't bother to greet my cat and just walked straight to my bedroom. I took off my work suit and laid in the bed. Tomorrow was an off day, so I decided not to wake up early tomorrow. I crawled out of the bed again to closed the blinds so the morning light wouldn't wake me. I stared outside and noticed a shape on top of another apartment. It looked a lot like a creature. Its long and pointy ears were clearly seen. His red eyes were barely visible. Its silhouette looked a lot like a demon. It seemed to be staring at me too. I figured I was tired, and this was just the fidget of my half-asleep vision. I decided to wave, it should wave back if it was a dream. Its red eye blinked, nearly confused. It looked at its arm, held it up and shook it sideways. I smiled as I knew this was a half-dream. It started to run toward me. *It'll fly through the window, I'm sure of it.* I thought, entertained by my witty thoughts. It jumped off the edge of the rooftop and disappeared just below the window. I heard a loud bang. I was slightly confused, half-asleep dreams wouldn't make noises. Wouldn't they? I shrugged it off and laid back to bed. I was staring at the window when suddenly it opened by its own. I was sure I was now dreaming. But this demon monster crawled through the window. "How can you see me?" It growled. "Why did you waved at me?" "Because it was polite to do so." I spoke to it. Its demonic face, which was now slightly clearer, was purely confused. "Why are you not trembling in fear?" It growled. "Why are you not whimpering, hiding beneath the covers?" I started to laugh, this dream was just too good to pass up. "Because this is a dream, why else?" "Dream?" It was its turn to laugh. Its laughter was demonic, it was very unnerving. "Foolish human, this isn't a dream. I do not know how you can see me. But I do not care." "I don't know why I can see things people can't. It's just something I'm stuck with." I interrupted it. "At first I always assume everything I see was just a dream, as I usually see them when I'm tired." I crawled out of bed, not exhausted anymore. "Would you like tea? You're the hundredth manifest that I could see and others couldn't, so I'm feeling the desire to treat you specially." I gestured for it to follow me into the kitchen. It followed me. I turned the stove on, the cat sat on the couch, staring at me, unknowingly of the guest. "So may I ask what were you doing on top of the neighbor's roof?" I asked. The demon was still staring at me questionably. "This so called neighbor had an innocent soul that I needed." "Ah, yes. The newborn." I smiled. "Any particular reasons?" The tea kettle whistled, and I poured the water into tea cups and placed tea bags in them. I placed the tea cups on the table and sat down on one end. Gestured the demon to sit. "Innocent souls is what keeps Hell alive. What keeps us alive." It sat down. It picked up the tea and placed its tongue in it to taste it before sipping it. I smiled, as this was the start of a beautiful nightly conversation. -016

You are tired and getting ready for bed. As you close the blinds in your bedroom you look up and notice the silhouette of a monster on your neighbor's roof. His glowing red eyes lock with yours; there is no question you've seen one another. What happens next?