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Story a Day

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What Came Before:

--- Quote from: sciborg2 ---Sometimes (ok, a lot of the time) these will be incredible short, maybe a paragraph. But here I'm going to take a stand and put out something every day.

Feel free to comment or add to this thread. In the words of Slim Charles to Omar, "Do what you feel."

=-=-=

Story #1

"There. Did you hear it?"

"What?"

"There's someone at the window."

"We're two stories up." It's just the pot. Or the drink.

"It's not the pot. You know pot just makes me sleepy." You should know that by now.

"Mel, I'm looking out the window and there's nothing there. Maybe it was a bird." Here it comes.

"I know what a bird sounds like. It was something else, like the sound of a spider crawling on glass. Don't laugh."  I don't laugh at your pity parties do I? Like you're the first guy who can't seem to live up to his father.

"I'm not." But I'd have a right to. You know I have that final tomorrow, though you probably can't remember it's the econ one. The one where I'm on the A/B border...You know pot makes you like this, but it's always about you.

"You were thinking about it. You're asking yourself how I'd know what a spider on glass sounds like." You're the one I'm supposed to tell anything to.

"Mel, it's okay. Go back to sleep." Should I glance at the clock? Or will it stress me out, to know what time it is?

"You go to sleep, you have that final in the morning." And I have a paper and a little brother who is failing out of highschool. But I know you're judging me for those tokes I took...five hours ago.

"Alright. Just..wake me if the spider comes back, okay?." Don't fucking wake me, okay?

"I will." I won't.

"Thanks."

/story
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: sciborg2 ---Sci Story #2

"This shit right here - it's our ticket outta this mess." Billy didn't bother to mention that the mess was as much our fault as the Enemy's, or that the ticket was a way too conveniently found weapon's creche.

We have shit luck, our plans turn to shit, and we get shit on but one thing shit doesn't do is fall into our laps. I'd taken this as our unofficial motto and managed to so far avoid falling into the jaws of the Reaper.

But I'm not going to lie, I looked at that gleaming xeno-tech like water in a desert. 'Cause we're all betting men here on Deltacron XCII, even the cautious, and Death - well, that motherfucker's the House.

Also, I'm aware that number may have meant shit to the Romans. Blame Xerexes Inc and their marketing department. Or fuck it, blame a universe that gave humans a Manifest Destiny (tm) without thinking what'd happen if were left to the interns to name newly conquered planets and stars. At least they left the quasars to the professionals, but even then one got named after Reagan.

"With these guns we can finally smoke those faggots and get the fuck off of Exy-2." Iz remarked while running his relatively delicate hands over what I took be the xeno version of a bayonet. Iz was a man of few words, by which I sadly mean a man possessed of limited vocabulary. He was, to my chagrin, more than ready to close the distance between his mouth and my ear with his personal, highly abridged version of Websters.

I watched as Iz and Billy continued passing the glyph covered firearms between themselves and our final Strongman Crux, with Iz gleefully reiterating that now we'd be able to smoke/stomp/break/dominate/"slap the silliness out of" our Enemy who were faggots/cunts/bitches/fags/pussies/hipsters.

After this overextended version of a dog pissing out the borderlines of its nation isomorphed onto gun owner's foreplay, I was finally allowed to examine the weapons and determine, in the event they were real and not booby trapped, how they actually worked.

(Something in me whispers "Isn't this whole planet a trap for boobs?" and internally I cringe that the cynic in me could be so lacking in cool points. How could the wisest, wry-est part of me make jokes as bad as my mother's?)

=-=-=

Do homework for the bullies and they'll leave you alone, maybe pick you before any of the girls who outdistanced your skill in whatever "unit" the school had decided was a part of American gym class.

In a double past life - middle school, pre-Revelation - I'd resented being made an accessory to cheating, despite having proposed the arrangement myself, but now I was grateful. Back then it'd had kept my skin relatively free of bruises and spitballs, now it kept me from being one of the butt boys.

I made my camp far from the action, just close enough for Billy's watch to keep an eye on my person. Well, not my person really, just the magic box in my skull. If Billy'd been able to scoop out my brain and keep its services in a jar, he'd have been grateful. I was the bone in his salmon, somebody he couldn't just bully into submission.

It's not enough to be useful, and getting a man like that to take you on as a flight risk just means you end up as a dog on a leash. So I told him my girl, a smokin' young thing, had left me as soon as she could. Hinted she left me for a "real man". Flat out stated that being a Whiz wasn't good enough for my PhD parents, that I just couldn't get rid of that gut that drew my skinny frame into an uncanny valley.

All half-lies, save for the part with the girl, but it all worked to let Billy know I hadn't come to Exy-2 to play. Rather, as far as he knew, I'd come here to die.

The "fun" is dying down near the fire, the Strongmen and Kelly having used up the Callers but themselves tuckered out by the Flexibles.

Finally, far enough from Iz's snoring, sleep seems like a real possibility.

I lie back and think of gun-making aliens.

=-=-=

In a world where everyone walks around with a smart drone, being a Whiz can be quite a convenience. In a better world, or at least one better for me, it'd be a world where being able to figure out all kinds of machines would make you standout at least as much as that one dude who ate a whole plane.

But I lived on an Earth where Whizzes were the repairmen for people who built gates between universes, people who deferred to Strongmen, Fleet-foots and the occasional Fire-Eye. It make sense in a sad kind of way - even the most beautiful machine could be punched and burned down to scraps.

Even before the powers, if you admit it to yourself, things weren't all that different. I mean, how much money did you spend on comics to read about people like you? And don't talk to me about Fantastic Four, don't pretend you bought that shit because you just had to know what was up with Reed Richards.

Geeks never ruled the Earth, any Earth, even before our powers kicked in. They just ran shit for the rich kids and pretty faces. Same as it ever was. But God must've known humans were especially dull, which is why I guess He sent down a Revelation to show us something the wisest and wry-est among us already knew.

=-=-=

Viewers on Home must've keyed onto the fact of our apparent advantage, one I was more inclined to trust now that I was watching the descent of a bot holding a box which itself contained nothing less than some brand spanking new uniforms. Nothing like a day or two of not completely stinking like shit to put a vestigial smile on our faces.

I change in the relative privacy of my fellow prisoners, all camera drones focused on Kelly's plasticine body. The last woman we had, Amanda, looked almost exactly like her, save she'd been the victim of skin-bleaching, scalp transplant, and hair dye along with the usual plastic surgery that came with the sentencing. Amanda'd been told that shit was reversible, and given that she'd been a Flexible rather than a far more valuable Fleet-foot, I'd decided not to let her know my Whiz powers were telling me otherwise. Moot point now, though it was weird to think parts of Amanda had a far longer half-life than others. That jelly-bags of omnicone would, if undisturbed by the scavenging flora, lie in a by now unmarked grave with the perseverance of styrofoam.

Kelly for the most part seems to accept the ogling and her new resemblance to the Game's first female Medalist, though a bit of shyness causes her to try and awkwardly use her dope enhanced thighs as a curtain for the lips of her labia.

Kelly's dignity was a blip on my radar, if that to be honest. The biggest thing on our collective minds was the veggie iconography splayed out on our chests. I looked at the broccoli bearing a golden halo around its head and felt my heart sinking down to my balls.

We'd found a creche of workable xeno-tech, and I knew that shit was legit, so there must be a Mecha or three now in the hands of the Enemy.

How else do you explain this fucking shit? We'd gone from championing Saturnalia Crack Pipes to Johnny's Veggie Drumsticks. Unless humanity had pulled a 180 in my absence, we were well and truly fucked.

=-=-=

The air is filled with the tire stain stink of dead Flexibles. Billy's head is pasta, smashed by the Mind-Grabber.

Our two surviving Callers are taking turns stabbing Kelly's corpse, the walking bonzai like things they'd charmed nibbling at the less plasticine dead. I take a moment to notice that the corpses of their actual rapists - Billy and Crux - are untouched by my fellows, and I wonder if it was really so bad having to eat out the ex-housewife who ran as fast as thunder and screams.

Sadly - or not, never knew much about Kelly - sounds are slower than thoughts.

I think to challenge their desecration, given our dismal circumstances, but then stop myself. Who knows how many charges are left in this gun? So long as they don't try to erect some kind of monument amidst the alien ruins, I don't think I'll be getting involved. Whizzes can't compete, even with shitty-ass Callers and their menagerie of bugs and carnivorous plants.

Not to mention without Callers super teams have to actually hunt, and in my fifteen years here I'd never been on a team that didn't have a Caller. What the fuck did I know about hunting? And with two years left before my Earthly incarceration, wasn't something I really needed to learn.

Besides, the Mind-Grabber might actually live through a lung perforated by a thrown stone tentacle. All depended on if the med-drones stationed on Exy-2 would get here fast enough, which was sorta a likely given since Talent like that must good for some ratings.

Survivors get drafted into new super teams, so with his fat-ass on our side we could keep going even if we're more than likely to be sponsoring fucking print-books at this fucking point. Wonder how he ended up here though, Mind-Grabber and Callers with genuine Talent are usually too useful to fall to the Draft.

I glance back at Iz, spending his final moments pinned under some stone monstrosity that's a cross between a wolf and squid. I almost miss the soundtrack of ignorance he provided my life, but then again he'd looked me in the eye as I and the Callers failed to lift up the statue and called me a faggot.

I'd flinched, but I think the Callers' were too weary to notice that even a stopped watch is right twice a day.

At least the Enemy got taken out by the Mind-Grabber before we'd even shown up. One guy with power enough to be famous, even if he stayed away from the front. Why hadn't he prettied himself up? Switched out whatever sugary, carb-loaded shit he had for meals with Johnny's Veggie Drumsticks?

"Coulda been a contender." I say to myself, glad that in the midst of this shit storm my wit's back online.

I hear the buzz of a drone but don't even look up. First one on scene's always a fucking camera-announcer:

"Witness, People of Earth, the Fate of all Conscientious Objectors..."

/story
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: sciborg2 ---Sci Story #3

Golems made from garbage, wasp swarms resistant to pressure and force, a rain of bacon shards.

These are the messes he leaves me, things to be cleared up with the locals.

Games he plays, to slow down the inevitable passage of my knife through his heart.

The farther from the Center we go, the more ambitious he'll get. Everything's so...malleable out here. It's been awhile since I could see the silver sphere of Order, but now I can't even taste its battery tickle on the surface of my tongue.

I look back and see a the corpses of giant wolf-spiders, their flesh rotting to reveal an internal scaffolding made of something resembling cartilage. I look forward, toward my brother, and see indigo thunderheads stretched across the horizon.

The wind delivers his invitation, carrying the scent of tree sap and wet dog.

=-=-=

My brother has left all glory to me, taking the role of villain for himself. Even before he comes they know him for the Devil, for it is he who tells warns them in their dreams. He steps through their towns, their cities, their villages, bruising reality before passing on.

Each time, I am the Savior he prophesies. I have saved children I could never have, men and women who I could never love. Each time he gifts me new forms of happiness, new lives to slip into. Harems, hometowns, sacrificial altars and even normal lives where I could act with an invisible hand.

I approximate the pre-damaged the physical and metaphysical, best as I can, before I move on. Children call out my name, one night stands curse me or ignore me or weep into the wind.

This time, I don't even do that. If I take these people out of their hardened syrup prisons, if I heal their exsanguinated sky scraping trees, all of them will die. I don't have energy to waste on resurrections, so I bear witness to my brother's ingenuity and quickly move on.

=-=-=

The Wolf Wave crashes around me, a thousand jaws snapping at me as two thousand baleful yellow eyes bear witness. Fangs break on skin as hard as diamond, flame radiates outward from my sternum, blazing out of every orifice.

I burn and burn and the smoke of singed fur and cooked flesh fills the air but still the Wolf Wave scratches its claws against my now naked skin. Gold thread rags lie at my feet for a moment, then melt into scattering aurum rivulets.

Snarls and howls and whimpers fill my days, I am star blazing under the depths of a lupine ocean.

When its over, all that remains is a single cub, just old enough to walk.

I keep to my path, feet upon a bridge of ice i craft from the falling ink rain. The animal chases after me.

It's full grown paw prints stain the grass on the Other Side of the chasm, while my own steps leave no trace at all. (I am an Ouroboros, I feed on my history.)

I stop and look back, and the animal stops and returns my inquisitive gaze. I take a few steps forward and it mirrors this action. A companion for my quest then.

I keep to my path, and the animal follows, unable to see the smile on my face.

The path of my knife does not veer, but it's nice to know my brother still loves me.

/story
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: sciborg2 ---Next four will use Madness's endings, if I have to burn out my brain to come up with some shit!

Ending used: And it was the exact colour of her scarf.

To be king you must be wise, and strong, and courageous. You must be worthy of all this luxury.

These are the words his mother, The Rose-Handed Queen, had told her eldest son even before he could walk, even before he knew what the words meant. "Courage", "Strength", "Wisdom" - each taught definition brought on recognition, and he could actually remember the weight of learning each one. 

Yet sometimes strength is not enough, and wisdom must be forsaken so that others will rally around your strength.

And that is how the Queen's third son ending up taking the throne. Conceived rather late, and from the loins of a concubine no less, the third son of the beloved Rose-Handed Lady of Quall had learned little of wisdom or strength due to being weaned on bitterness and neglect.

Courage was a by-word for force in his mind.

What the rule of Liam would be bring the Empire, the once loquacious street augurs smiled wanly then murmured that the omens were silent and our future was our own to determine.

Of his eldest brother, his body was lost on the contested Northern border. All scrolls with his name were burned, all statues struck down, all paintings too beautiful to destroy were "corrected" to depict the face of Liam where his brother's once was. Of his second brother, who stood up to the third child of the Queen, there was at least some physical remnant.

This remnant was a discoloration upon the white tiles of the throne room, just under the statue of the nation's Rose-Handed Lady, dressed in simple robe of white jade and a scarf of rose quartz. There was a stain where the son had keeled, looking into eyes of his now divine Mother, marking the place where her second son had prayed for his life and his kingdom. And it was the exact colour of her scarf.

/story

=-=-=

Heh, that didn't end up going anywhere. I think I messed up by trying to drive into the last sentence instead of working backwards.
--- End quote ---

What Came Before:

--- Quote from: sciborg2 ---Sci story #3

Ending: Death always comes as a stranger.

Sparrows squabbled over mates on the rooftop, oblivious to the dying woman on the other side of their roof tile arenas.

The vehemence of the competing males caused this soon-to-be-corpse to raise her eyes to the ceiling, an action that would later be misinterpreted by her attending grand^5-children as their mother making peace with God, a figure who their mother had had her own rather public squabbles with via the Lord's intermediaries more inclined to death and aging themselves.

The truth of the matter was the woman's blurred gaze in truth looked through the lens of memory, piercing through not just the roof but the blue veil of sky and grey shaded shell of the moon.

(Again, keep in mind that she looked into her own past, and thus realize that there is no need to point out - with the snide cleverness so popular among those who think themselves clever - that even had she been in possession of far more powerful eyes her line of sight would have failed to touch that natural satellite which was at the time illuminating the other side of the world.)

It was in the lunar caverns of that rock pinched off from earth by an Artist or perhaps Mere Causality in Earth's fetal era that she'd contracted the disease that was both fatal and life prolonging, the illness that carries its victims through centuries yet invariably kills them. The illness that put paid to the cheeky aphorism that had never rung true to her ears: Death always comes as a stranger.

/Story
--- End quote ---

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