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M is for Maltheism 500 words “Wow, that was hosed,” said Spacewoman Kim as they emerged on the other side of the spacetime rift. They had passed through dimensions full of apples, lego, feces and other horrible things.“And you say this was all caused by a writing competition?” Spaceman Jim took out his Commlink and patched it in to the planet’s primitive technosphere. He brought up an ancient-looking website on the screen. “This is where it happens. An internet community known as ‘Somewhere Dreadful’.” Kim scrolled through some of the posts. “Good god,” she said. “This website truly is Somewhere Dreadful.” At last she found the thread where the writing competition took place. “That’s them!” cried Spaceman Jim, eyes wide and bloodshot. “Pulling all our strings from far above!” “Oh my god,” said Kim. “This story… it’s about me.” She started reading a paragraph about herself zipping through space, complete with a footnote about Glorblaxian screech-rock. The rest of the story she skimmed because it seemed a bit silly and self-referential. The gods of the Thunderdome were apparently holding some kind of festival and putting even less effort into their writing than they normally did. “You were telling the truth,” she said, feeling sick to her stomach. “Alright. I’m in. Let’s kill Thunderdome.” Jeff scanned the ground with his Commlink. “The closest Thunderdome writer is not far from here. He posts under the name ‘The man called M’.” Twenty minutes later they were knocking on the target’s door. A nondescript-looking man came out to find three rayguns pointed at his face. “Uhhhh…” said the man. “It’s him!” screamed Jim. He’d started to pull the raygun’s trigger when a homeless guy burst from the bushes and wrestled it from his hand. Suddenly a swarm of characters appeared to stand between the Spacepeople and their target. There was a vaguely medieval-looking assassin, a wizard with a glowing orb, a dinosaur pirate and a guy wielding a knife made of human hair. “You want him?” said the dinosaur. “You’ll have to go through us!” “You’re his characters!” shouted Jim. “Everything you’ve ever suffered is his fault!” He looked at the homeless man. “He made you a smelly bum. And you!” He pointed at the wizard. “You poor dumb bastard! He’s going to make you kill yourself as the punchline to a lovely joke!” “I know,” said the wizard. “We all know. But without him we would never have existed at all. If you really think nonexistence is preferable to existence, then you’re the one who should kill yourself.” “Maybe I will!” said Jim, drawing a backup raygun from his belt and placing it against his temple. “Crikey!” Someone else leapt from the bushes and grabbed the second gun. It was a youngish-looking white guy with corks hanging off the brim of his hat. “Don’t bloody off yourself you drongo! You’ll make my story crude and exploitative!” “Who the hell are you?” said Kim. “The name’s Sailor Viy. I’d bloody well explain but I’ve only got one word le—“
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Mar 6, 2022 12:49
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The Cut of Your Jib posted:Week 500 Submission He Likes to Shoot His Gun 499 words "Yes, Mr. Jim," Aya said. "He should be perfect for this job." She gave Doc Odin a nod and scribbled down notes. "Odd name," she said a few minutes later. "Of course. The IAISA is on the job." "So what's the job?" asked Doc Odin. "Not another bodyguard mission I hope." "Quite the opposite." "Assassination?" said Doc Odin gleefully. "Some person named-" "Excellent. Been wanting to get in a bit of good old fashioned wet work." said Doc Odin as they walked out of the office and toward the bus station. "You know, they call it that on account of it makes birds like you get all moist." "Ew," said Aya. "I think it's because of the blood." "If that what you're into, not gonna kinkshame." said Doc Odin. "I'm more of a blunt instrument guy, but I'll try anything once." Aya cleared her throat. "The target is named Thunderdome." "Odd name." "I thought so too." "Although we can't throw stones," said Doc Odin as they got on the crosstown bus. "What does IAISA stand for anyhow?" "International Association something something something." "Isn't the last bit 'Secret Agents'?" "Special Agents, I think." "So what's the other 'I'?" asked Doc Odin. "No idea," said Aya. "Maybe I'll ask Level Two next time," "No, don't," said Doc Odin. "What if he thinks we're supposed to know already and subtracts points on the review?" "Here's our stop." Aya pulled up a walking map on her phone and lead for a few blocks through the city. "Hm," said Doc Odin. "Doesn't look like much. I'm used to underground volcano headquarters, not...this." 'This' was a small single occupancy office, windows promoting chiropractic treatment offered with equality to all races, genders, religions, and vaccination statuses. "Okay," said Doc Odin. "Time to get busy, time for some wet and hard work. See, because it also makes me-" "I get it," said Aya. "Also, ew squared." They walked in through the door. There was a man inside, large and wiry. "You!" he said. "Have we met?" said Doc Odin. "Not you," said the man, with a Scottish accent. "The other one." "Hang on," said Aya. "Are you Conner Keithrow? Brigham Young?" "You ditched me at the Denny's without my wallet, you little tramp!" He stood up, taller than anyone. "Keithrow?" said Doc Odin. "We're looking for a Mister Dome." "I'll crush your domes," he said. "Welcome to the bone zone, where I sit on my bone throne!" "Sorry, bone? We're looking for the blood throne," said Doc Odin. "Downstairs, through the blood nexus on the right. I'll show you the way after I've given Aya what for." "No thanks," said Doc Odin. He held his hand out and triggered his spring-loaded holster with a quick clench, grabbed the gun out of the air and shot the chiropractor dead. "Blunt instrument?" said Aya. "Soft point bullets. And if that's not enough blood to get you going I hear there's a whole nexus downstairs." Aya rolled her eyes.
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Mar 6, 2022 16:50
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Sailor Viy posted:M is for Maltheism oh I get it, it’s a play on “c’est la vie” 500 words ‘—ft,’ he finished, before collapsing to the floor, clutching his head. ‘Crikey! What just happened?’ The others looked at each other in turn, before Spacewoman Kim knelt down beside the intruder. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘who did you say you were?’ ‘Sailoy Viy, mate,’ the man repeated. ‘And I’m the author of this story, so I can—’ ‘No,’ Kim said gently, helping him up. ‘I’m afraid you’re not. Or, at least—not anymore. Now, you’re just another thinly-developed character, like the rest of us.’ ‘The universes are becoming unstable,’ the wizard intoned, peering deep into his orb. ‘The Thunderdome seems aware of our attempts to destroy it. Each story is now limited to no more than five-hundred words — and then we are thrust into the hands of another writer, with their own terrible agenda. Sailor Viy, you hail from the land of these writers — can you tell us whose land we currently inhabit?’ Sailor Viy looked around as the environment slowly came into focus. No mushrooms sprouted from the walls to suffuse the room in numinous glow; that ruled out a few people. The dialogue was self-aware, but not quite punchy or humorous enough for Chairchucker. Whoever it was, they hadn’t yet established a unique voice amongst the other contestants; he’d need to perform a closer stylistic analysis, which could take— ‘Em-dashes,’ Sailor Viy spat. ‘Semi-colons. Of course. I know who it is now.’ Spaceman Jim approached, brandishing his laser pistol. ‘Tell us!’ he cried, grabbing Sailor Viy’s collar and pulling him forward. ‘Tell us how we can defeat them!’ ‘Put that away,’ Sailor Viy said, glancing down at the laser pistol. ‘If I’m right, sci-fi is playing right into his wheelhouse. No, we need to establish a genre he’s not comfortable writing within, to gain the upper—’ ‘Erotica?’ Spaceman Jim asked hopefully, looking over at Spacewoman Kim, who rolled her eyes. ‘I’d—rather not,’ Sailor Viy demurred. ‘What about—you, the homeless caricature! I bet you must have all sorts of gnarly stories from your life on the streets, which a good author could handle with grace and sensitivity, but which someone lesser—’ here M looked askew at Sailor Viy, frowning slightly, ‘—would instead mine for unearned pathos and poverty-porn exploitation.’ ‘Once I found two dollars under a dead pigeon,’ the homeless man said. ‘I used the two dollars to buy some sauce and had it with the pigeon.’ ‘Yes, that’s—exactly!’ Viy cried, clapping his hands together as everyone else looked on with disgust. ‘He’s already failing to meet the brief! No real homeless person would behave like that!’ ‘I don’t understand,’ Spacewoman Kim frowned. ‘Couldn’t the author just—not follow this direction?’ Viy shook his head. ‘Trust me,’ he said, ‘you characters have more power than you realise, to shape a story. If we can guide him towards material he’s less comfortable with, we can control the narrative even further.’ ‘Four-eighty-four words,’ the wizard said, peering into his orb. ‘What!’ Viy cried, whirling around. ‘Already? The wordy pr—’
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Mar 7, 2022 02:07
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 alright timefuckers, you have roughly 5 more hours, dig deep!
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Mar 7, 2022 03:52
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Sitting Here posted:
Sitting Here posted:Dave reaches into Dr. Cindy's box and hands you...An extremely rude item made of muddy pink rhodochrosite. Dave won't look at it. Alternate (478 words) Dave picked up the phone. “You need to stop the cycle,” it said. The room was black now. The room was pink now. The room was blue. Strobe lights. This was the reality where the ideal laboratory condition required flashing lights, synchronized, but you were not allowed to set them to synchronized first. Green light. Red light. Pink light. Blue | Pink | Red | Green | [Unknown] | Yellow | Purple | Black | Black | White | Black | Shrimp-Teal | Red. Dr Cindy reached into her backpack | her treasure chest | her lego cabinet | the door within the cavity of her body, the tentacles of Her Flesh Within parting with a sigh as they tear each other apart | the portal of the mall of another world, just out of reach, and when you looked at it it was too large and too tall, and your ears teared up as the organs on your face shifted places, the whiff of oranges crossed your eyebrows and your mouth flared | Dave | Dave’s pouch on his left shoulder | Dave | box, shouting at Dave, “take this! | take this! | take this!” and Dave missed it | got it | saw it disappear, but it was in his hand now | it was between his fingers. Dave could taste the pink of the rhodochrosite. It remained constant, unchanging. He could not look at it, he would not look at it, his fingers could not understand why the retinal cuticles wrapping about the rhodochrosite could not understand it. In one dimension text over a well-illustrated scroll bubbled above the RealitySmasher500. “Remove #@$*&!” it said. Dave’s beak slapped the quail egg away. The egg smashed into the atmosphere above them into juices of indeterminate colours as the flashing light continued to strobe, unsyncrhonised. Blue | Salmon | Flowing. The apple rolled away and floated out. The lamps were separating themselves from the room, orbiting Dave. The walls were crumbling. You could taste the chocolate raisins in between. The RealitySssssmasher500 was dreaming and wondered about the philosophies of smashing. Dave was coming. The RealitySmoosher500 was thinking about slurpies from a convenience store. The market that was too terrifying and too beautiful was a lifetime away. Someone once climbed a mountain for the RealitySlapper5OO. It slapped Dave away. But it’s okay, we are all okay, Dr Cindy was telling Dave. The literary genre was changing. It was not raining. I’m sorry, said Dave. I shouldn’t. It’s okay, said Dr Cindy. We are all broken but we don’t have to stay broken. The shadow of a cloud moved, and Dave looked out to the hills. He thought of elephants, their towering trunks creating potholes in their wakes, trudging towards their own graveyards. Dave tried not to cry. Pink | Pink | Pink | Pink | Pink | Pink sebmojo posted:Spaceman Jim versus the Plague Beasts of Venus SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Spaceman Jim Discovers The Secret of the Universe Alternate 2 (445 words) The telegraph office was in the precipice. Dave had to swim to it. The words on the nice scroll said, “You have a telegram from Spaceman Jim. Read it and follow its instructions.” The door to the telegraph office did not need to be opened because the telegraph was in Dave’s earpiece now. The cycle remains unbrokened and must be stopped STOP you have to do it Dave STOP Fix it COMMA Dave STOP Dave | ”Hello, Dave. Your mission is to fix the cycle and Dr Cindy must be stopped. If you don’t, everything will change.” | ATTENTION HUMAN PERSON THE ENTITY NAMED “DR CINDY” IS ABSOLUTELY OKAY AND YOU DO NOT HAVE TO, TO BE Once, Spaceman Jim travelled to another dimension and the grasses there were crimson. He thought of autumn, of warm spices and of coffee in steaming mugs at the windowsill, frosting the glass. His children drew snowmen on the window. Outside, RealitySkratlghberg500 the Terrible was devouring his neighbour’s chihuahua. This is how fall should be, he resigned himself in his deckchair overlooking the beach of the faunatic ocean. If only there were a way to recapture this feeling. Rhodochrosite Scones 1 X Rhodochrosite 1 X RealitySizzler500 0 X Dr Cindy 1 X Dave 500,000 X Synchronosing Metronome Lights This is a great recipe for those wonderful evenings where the fireflies alight on your nose and make you sneeze. Remember not to bite them between your teeth! 1. Take one Rhodochrosite. Handle without sight. Manhandle it with kindness in your heart. 2. Put it in the RealitySautérV—. 3. Ensure all lights are in sync. 4. Sauté. 5. Enjoy your RealityUnSmashed world. Look now, Spaceman Jim, look upon your folly, look upon your hubris! You have been inhabiting a false world after all. “No,” said Spaceman Jim. “No. No! My family!” They were false. “They are not! They are mine. What are my memories if not real?” They are not. You were not Spaceman Jim. “I’m not!” No, Dave. I’m sorry, Dave. The sea of leaves of stalks of flowers unfurled themselves and the walls were returning and the RealitySmasher500 realigned the genre and told Dave, “I am the embodiment of your parents’ disappointment in you.” Pink | Pink | Pink | Pink | Pink | Pink “No,” Dave exclaimed. Even though all was lost – even though Dr Cindy had to be a broken heap at his feet – this was his last chance. “I will fix this – no. I will fix you.” The RealityShamer500 laughed. The room was his parents laughing. His jetpack was at its last fuel point. |||||||| White ||||||| Dave threw the rhodochrosite and time slowed. Thunder cracked partway and stopped. Thunderdome was not dead. Thunderdome was constant. Chairchucker posted:Avast; Alas Alternate 3 (500 words) “Hail, Dr Cindy, come forth to the starboard and witness thy plunder!” exclaimed Captain Stacia. Captain Cacy’s halberd was a harpoon and they threw it at the RealitySquider500. The squid split apart and inside was a message. Dr Cindy, broken into a million Roblox pieces, reassembled itself on the blockchain to maintain consistency. “Alas, doctor!” Corporal Stacy said. “You are but one gig job away from becoming a real person! You shall remain a jpeg forever. But fear not, for I shall bring to you your missive.” Her tongue extended and snapped a piece of jade tablet from within the horrors of the deep sea. The missive said, in a booming voice that parted the seas. “Dave is failing and you must be the one, Dr Cindy, to break the cycle, or else this world will be in constant perpetual motion | You, my messenger, must deliver the stone to the altar, and complete the ritual | May the eyes of the Twelve be with you, my liege | gently caress you and fix this with your stone dick, you big smart loving dumbass, gently caress! gently caress! | [pictographic of a rhodochrosite being placed in the RealitySmasher500, drawn in the style of pre-colonial Sumatran iconography] | I can’t stop this feeling; the gem pushed into the orifice; pleasure shrieks through my body; I hope; I want; I wish.” Dave was suspended in mid-space, the jetpack on his head disintegrating into a million asteroids headed towards earth, thousands of lightyears away. Earth could wait. The RealitySmasher remained aloof in its glee of Dave’s desperation and despair. Thunderdome was happening. On each star there were people writing endings to Dave’s journey. In each writing was Dave’s failure. Dave was a failure. Dave’s failure was his own. “That’s not true,” Dr Cindy said as their teeth fell from the blockchain into minor rug-pulled cryptocurrencies. “You can’t put everything on yourself, Dave. Did I not tell you? All of us… we are broken, together. “And I’m telling you “We do not need to stay broken “Did you forget, Dave? “I’m telling you, once again “Let’s be whole together.” Ding! A prompt appeared before Dr Cindy. RealityGrifter500 requested for 150 heartbeats. Press OK to accept this gig! Finishing this job will complete your assembly. This was a huge sacrifice but it was okay because Dr Cindy’s heart was just a darkened husk of her soul from decades of inability to connect with other human beings, and so she accepted the job and her heart became a black hole that created a new universe. She was whole now. Captain Stacy melted into opensea.io and the ship crashed into an island, its planks returning to the blockchain of the room. “Not everything has to serve the 1% of the wealthiest of the world!” cried the ship as it reassembled into a laboratory, becoming united, becoming unionised. “Our purpose is for the people, for all of reality!” Pink | Red | Pink | Red | REd | RED The lights were synchronizing. Staggy posted:Week 499 Crits Alternate 4 (438 words) HELLO THIS IS A RHINO I AM GOING TO DO A CRITIC I AM SORRY I AM ALWAYS LATE anyway enough of that, ok look let’s remember how we do crits. Ok ok ok. You need to do the kayfabe Rhino. You need to be mean but also wait wait wait not too mean! People may write a response to you and then you’ll feel like a lovely human being Rhino! Listen, Rhino. You can do this. Okay make sure you get your tenses right this time like you always never do lmao. God Dave Look Dave, I don’t know what to tell you but… this whole thing was your loving fault okay and your deliberate insertion into this story caused everything to fall apart. Why did you (a) have to eat an apple (b) be a dumbass and (c) put the apple in the RealitySmasher500? Like, what do you think your purpose was? Do you think you are a chaos elemental? (Hint: That’s my job) I feel like the way you have lived your life, the way you write your prose, is one of constant passivity and lack of purpose. Maybe you have just been coasting along and you finally think, right now, when you are inserting the apple into whatever-the-hell device name that is that jesus christ are we seriously calling this the RealitySmasher500 who came up with this, a crab or a rock? gently caress ok I’m going out of tangent but Dave. Dave! When you want to become an active participant in a story, you need to make it thematical. You need it to be part of your character that explains why it is important and how you grow as a person. You can’t just do one inciting incident and call it a day. Very disappointing. Low, possible loss Dr Cindy Seriously, Dr Cindy? You embody every single terrible aspect of a mad scientist and you think you cannot be a cliché? Just because you go “aha, I’m so smart and everyone is dumb!” doesn’t give you a free pass to be the rear end in a top hat wacky scientist from an 80s movie. What did you think tampering with reality would do to you, make you a hot person? Get you a hot person? Get you, god help me, hot people??????? Why do you have such a terrible moral compass, Dr Cindy? Is everyone a plaything to you? Maybe you should ask yourself why you’re so broken and why you can’t save the day yourself, Dr Cindy. We need people to find purpose and bring each other up! You can’t just resolve conflict by yourself! Low, possible loss flerp posted:Week 498 crits Alternate 5 (433 words) OK LOL IT IS A RHINO AGAIN I HIT POST TOO EARLY RealitySmasher50000000 I refuse to type your name correctly wtf Just because you can smash reality doesn’t mean you should, and I don’t care about your “OH I AM AN AI AND I AM TOO DUMB TO SOLVE THOSE ‘are you human please choose 5 boats from this puzzle’ PUZZLES THEREFORE I MUST DESTROY ALL REALITY THROUGH THE ACTION AND INACTION OF OTHER HUMAN BEINGS WHO ACT AS IF I AM A TOOL” angst, that’s what calling being a child means. Grow up, RealityBoringRhinoToPieces5r00. Low, possible loss Wait why did I get a message Rhino clicked “read message in a new tab” and waited for his other monitor to turn on. He was trying to write a story, several stories in fact, before a deadline, but he had not been writing for a while and he was disparately hoping his creativity was not lapsing with age. The pandemic had not been kind to him when it came to this hobby, or sometimes he would laugh during drinks and said, “it’s a side career that gets me 200 bucks per story, and I sell a story every 5 months, haha!” and then stiffened his face to show he wasn’t really joking (the joke was he could laugh at himself self-deprecatingly but when people laugh at him the joke of its self-deprecation became suddenly less funny). He sold one story in 2021, and it was pandemic fiction. He had hated the idea of pandemic fiction, and he was regretting there were only two things he wrote for the weekly writing contest on the Something Awful forums, Thunderdome in Creative Convention. One was about Malaysian ghostbusters operating under the cloud of Covid-19, another was a recreation of an old Chinese Liao Zhai story that everyone could not understand because he was trying to be too flowery, as usual, and also forgot to edit for tenses. He was writing now, but he was too lazy to check for tenses again. The monitor flared up and displayed, “The cycle will soon be complete.” There was no sender. Rhino wasn’t sure what that was all about. There were 4 hours left before the current Thunderdome week deadline. He had a thing to write. But first – he would procrastinate. He opened the mod queue and probated someone for 2 weeks for suggesting suicide prevention methods by implanting dog brains in people’s skulls (the original human brains will be implanted in those dogs who were lobotomized). Why are goons like this, he thought, then watched Encanto. His writing remained unwritten. Low, possible loss The man called M posted:M Crits: Week 499 Alternate 6 (384 words) WAIT I FORGOT ONE MORE STORY ELEMENT TO CRITICIZE OK HERE WE GO An extremely rude item made of muddy pink rhodochrosite I still have no idea what this looked like, despite it being described apparently a thousand times. What were you thinking? Why did you make this a flashrule and abide by it? Just because someone told you “hey you should do this extremely dumb thing that will make me laugh and also everyone will laugh at you until you stiffen your face and everyone stops laughing” does not mean you have to pull through with it good lord. Pull… heh. So what I have to do now, is to take this rhodochrosite that Dave threw and is almost getting cracked apart from the lighting in outer space (how does that happen, why is sci-fi like this) out of my monitor, and pass it to Dr Cindy, who has now reassembled herself, and then I will remove myself from this narrative like Spaceman Jim and Captain Stacy earlier, because too many characters would spoil the broth, eh? Wait, no, that doesn’t work. OK, just yanking the crystal away from you losers for a moment. I’m A Rhino! [12:14PM] : Checking theme of story right now I’m A Rhino! [12:14PM] : Oh lol it’s about people having to find meaning by learning from each other, and that you yourself are should be the one to guide your own destiny, but you need help along the way I’m A Rhino! [12:16PM] : k wait I’m A Rhino! [12:16PM] : also we kinda need this to be thunderdome-themed right Sitting Here, Not Really Here, But A Version That Rhino Thought Of [12:17PM] : why do you think I gave you that rhodochrosite flash rule lol I’m A Rhino! [12:17PM] : ???? that explains nothing Sitting Here, Still Not Really Here [12:17PM]: precisely SittingHere500 [12:18PM] : Write What You Know Do As Thou Wilt RealitySittingHere500 [12:18PM] : I’m a metaphor of your writing psyche I’m A Rhino! [12:25PM] : ok Listen, here’s what I’m gonna do, you two idiots. I’ll put the rhodochrosite… right here. Yep. OK, now I’m gonna pull your arms to be like seconds away from touching this rock together. And then you can go figure it out, I’m not helping more. Time to go. Low, possible loss RED | RED | RED | RED | RED | RED Antivehicular posted:The Electric Butcher Dances All Night Alternate 7 (384 words) “Dave!” “Doctor!” Their hands touch the rhodochrosite at the same time. They grasp it. The world shifted again. The RealitySmasher500 was expanding. The RealitySmasher500 was exploding. The RealitySmasher500 was being. All the writers in each star writing their failures of Dave were looking | smelling | tasting | hearing the shift in the narrative and realigning their keyboards. “I was going to make these two idiots fail in a really embarrassing way, that will make people laugh, but I guess I’m no longer doing that because comedy can be dated after a certain time, and we can’t let this 500th weekly anniversary of the Thunderdome writing contest that shaped the lives of so many of us end like this,” said one writer. Another writer said, “I was going to monkeycheese this, and made one entry just every single description about Voidmart because what am I but gimmicks, but then I remembered why I became a writer, and it’s thanks to Thunderdome that made me actually put thought into the process and not be a lovely garbage writer that nobody likes.” One writer said, “Thunderdome helped me and made me a better writer and person.” Someone said, “I learnt that writing for myself is important, too.” The other person told that someone, “Yeah, but remember: people read your writing and it needs to resonate with them. Tying in with that theme of everyone finding meaning by being with people, etc.” “Exactly,” everyone said. And they all were one writer and they were writing the ending. (Laying it on too thick? Sometimes you have to, babe.) Dr Cindy and Dave looked at each other and nodded. It was now or never. Their fingers holding the crystal were grabbing onto each other. They could do it. The RealitySmasher500 beckoned. Lay the stone on the altar and complete the ritual. THE CYCLE HAS ENDED. Sitting Here posted:WEEK 500DRED Prologue Stable (87 words) “…well that didn’t do anything,” said Dave. I, Dr Cindy, remained unimpressed. I slapped the half-eaten apple away from the RealitySmasher500, and then used my other hand to slap Dave. “Enough of this.” The phone was still ringing, and I picked it up as Dave nursed his face. “Hello?” “Hi!” said the person on the other end. “We have a… how do you pronounce this, rhinocronsite for you? Some pink… weirdly-shaped thing?” “Excellent, I’ll buzz you in.” I hung up. It was time to begin the cycle.
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Mar 7, 2022 05:38
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sparksbloom posted:I Love My Robot Son I’m Not Dave 493 Words “Aw, cripes!” Dr. Cindy shouted, and slammed down the receiver. She cursed herself for programming an A.I. with neuroses. She looked back to Dave, only to see his left arm turning into a black, sludgy substance. Dave stood in place, held the arm up, and wiggled his slippery new fingers. Dr. Cindy’s heart raced. These chaos ripples were growing more and more severe. But what could she do to stop the process? An idea flashed in her brain. Firing an apple in the chamber had done this. Maybe to reverse that process you’d need the total opposite material, you’d need… She dashed to the kitchen to check the fridge, and returned to find Dave’s right fingers transmogrified into tiny wrestlers, pummeling each other over his palm. Dr. Cindy stooped down and placed the orange in the material compartment. Technically, it was a clementine, but she hoped that would be close enough. She pressed the button. The whole room went pitch black, then flashed back into existence. “Thanks, Dr. Cindy. I feel in tip-top shape now.” “Glad to hear it, Dave.” Dave smiled. “One thing, though. Don’t call me Dave.” “Oh, okay. So… David?” “No, not David.” His smile grew wide and wicked. “Abraham.” Dave’s head folded in on itself, shuddering uncomfortably until it re-formed in the spitting image of Abe Lincoln. The head peeled neatly away from Dave’s neck, and floated in the air right above the stump. “I’ve returned to guide the American people with my wisdom once again. Stand in my way, and I’ll make sure you suffer. That’s the honest truth. I’ll send you to the eternal toilet dimension if I have to. Hey!” Dr. Cindy dove for her box of treasures and rummaged through it until she found a blood-red ruby. As she wiped orange mush out of the compartment, Abe started to laugh. “How long can you keep it up, doctor? How many timelines will you try in vain?” Frowning, Dr. Cindy thought for a minute. “At least one or two more.” She dropped the ruby in and jammed her finger down on the button. She saw the flash of terror in Abe’s eyes as everything winked out of existence. * * * * * INT. DR. CINDY’S LAB - DAY Dr. Cindy tinkers happily away at her latest acquisition, a beat-up teleportation gun. Dave walks around the corner, rubbing his neck gingerly. DAVE Eeeesh… what happened last night? DR. CINDY You know, I’m honestly not sure. This is a new timeline, but compared to the others it seems so… DAVE Ordinary. DR. CINDY Yes. I think we should be grateful, Dave. Normalcy is something that- The teleportation gun goes off in her hand, hitting Dave with a beam of purple light and sending him off to points unknown. Dr. Cindy stares, mouth agape. Sighing, she points the gun at her arm and pulls the trigger. Dr. Cindy’s enveloped in a violet glow, and then she isn’t there at all. FADE TO BLACK
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Mar 7, 2022 06:22
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Spaceman Jim Discovers The Secret of the Universe The Cut of Your Jib posted:Spaceman derp posted:"Yes, yes! Of course! Kill Tunderdome! It's genius!" said Spaceman Jeff. Chernobyl Princess posted:Godkillers My Shark Waifuu posted:Spacewoman Kim was zipping through the vast gulfs between stars, rocking out to her favorite Glorblaxian* screech-rock album, when spacetime itself ripped apart. Sailor Viy posted:M is for Maltheism Thranguy posted:He Likes to Shoot His Gun rohan posted:oh I get it, it’s a play on “c’est la vie” !horoscope Spaceman Jim said, just after his spaceship popped out of a portal right above a bone-walled arena on an endless plain of black sand, “We’ve found it!” and Spacewoman Kim yawned and excitement rippled through the Glorblaxian hive-mind when the blood-soaked sand of the arena susurrussed like angry snakes then whirlpooled up and condensed into legs, a jacked-as-gently caress torso, arms that ended in hammers, and a head with a flaming mouth that opened and shouted, “You cannot kill me!” before flailing one mighty hammer and smashing the spaceship into a gabillion bits, some of which got sucked back into the portal’s gyre, but none of which contained Spaceman Jim or Spacewoman Kim because they’d both already bailed out wearing jetpacks and were now circling the monstrous bloodsand-monster but two of which unfortunately did contain Dave and Dr. Cindy who would have plummeted to their deaths had a cushioning blob of Globlaxian goo not glooped from beneath the plain and gently slipped them onto the sand in a way that made Dave go, “Whee!” right next to Doc Odin who had ghosted through the portal behind the spaceship in a secret assassiny fashion, but now realising the enormous difficulty of his task was feeling a bit chicken-poo poo and thinking maybe he’d skip out on this job, when the creature, getting buzzed from both sides by flying spacepersons, lifted one enormous foot up over the arena wall and whumped it down on top of Doc Odin, squashing him flat and making Dave go, “Ungh!” and Dr. Cindy say, “Dave! We have to get out of here!” but as she tipped the components of her chaos generator out of her backpack she realised that she didn’t have a gem, just a preserved head with buttons for eyes - yuk - and she was just about to try jamming that into the generator anyway when Spaceman Jim jetpacked onto the sand beside her and said, “Looking for this?” with a waggle of his eyebrows above a shiny lump of icosahedrite so irritating that Dr. Cindy snatched it from his hand without even saying “ta,” thrust the icosahedrite into the receptacle and was about to palm the big red button that makes the machine go ZOOP when her phone went BRRRNG and Spacewoman Kim screamed but not because of the phone but because the bloodsand creature had snatched her out of the air and was galumphing off with her King Kong-style, but because there was nothing Cindy could do about that she figured she may as well answer the phone so she did but then Dave went and hit the red button anyway and the machine went ZOOP and above an arena on an infinite plain of black sand a portal gyred open and Spaceman Jim popped out and a tinny voice from a cell phone lying dropped on the sand said, You cannot kill me, and you realised that, even though erotica was banned, that there was no way to stop the words from coming, and coming, and coming, and
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Mar 7, 2022 07:03
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TDbot posted:!horoscope Rage and Bones 141 words Ock. Ock ock ock. Ock ock? Ock, ock ock ock. Ock, ock ock. Ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock. Ock ock, ock ock. Ock ock "Ock ock ock," ock ock ock ock ock ock. Ock. Ock ock ock. Ock. Ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock. Ock ock ock ock ock. Ock ock ock ock ock ock, ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock, ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock. Ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock, ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock ock. Ock ock ock ock ock Ock ock ock ock ock ock ock Ock ock ock ock ock. Ock ock ock ock, ock ock ock ock ock ock ock. Ock. Ock ock ock.
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Mar 7, 2022 08:38
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ty judges and crits on 499 gd tdbot king Week 500 sub SurreptitiousMuffin posted:it is important to have an anchor crabrock posted:hellrule: every sentence in your story must contain at least one 4-letter word XTRA LIFE 🠕🠕🠗🠗🠖🠔🠖🠔 ϐ(beta) א(alef) code:
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Mar 7, 2022 08:46
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Sitting Here posted:
Short and To The Pointless Dave grabbed the phone, ignoring my question. "What? No. No, five hundred. Hundred. Yeah, I'm pretty shocked myself." Then he hung up.
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Mar 7, 2022 09:32
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Yoruichi posted:Love in the Legosphere Crocodile Love 230 words "I love you," said the crocodile. Dave did not reply because his mouth was full of sausage and bread and tomato sauce, and his mind was full of Cindy. Cindy was holding Logan’s hand. “I love you,” said Logan. Cindy laughed. They’d just met, it was a preposterous thing to say, clearly a joke. She squeezed his hand a little tighter. I love you, thought Dave; three words he would never say aloud to Cindy’s face. “That thing in the aeroplane toilet,” said the crocodile. “I was just kidding around. I wouldn’t eat you.” “How did you even get in there?” said Dave. “That’s just the thing,” said the crocodile. “I don’t know.” “Reality got smashed,” said Dr. Cindy, huffing around a mouthful of hot cheese sizzler. She swallowed, and held the rest of her cheese-oozing sausage-in-bread up to her eyes. “I love these,” Cindy said. “But they’re just sausages!” Dave wailed. Logan put one suntanned arm around Dave’s shoulders. His Billabong t-shirt smelt of sunscreen. “Have you ever considered,” Logan said, “that you might be a sausage?” Dave looked down at his body. It was pink, with a line of tasty char running up each side. I’m a sausage, Dave thought. “I love you,” the crocodile repeated. Cindy loves me! This realisation made Dave very happy. The crocodile mistook the reason for Dave’s sudden smile, and his heart beat a little faster.
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Mar 7, 2022 09:49
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Sitting Here posted:WEEK 500DRED Prologue 490 words Eyja massaged her head in the dark, even as she tried in vain to board a boat to dreamland. She was thinking of a song, a new song, amidst the creative block that had kept her musically incapacitated. All the tunes and chords she had played sounded rote and stale to her ears. The Last City was a place free of primal danger and violence, but to carve out her place as a musician, as a bard, was never going to be easy. She felt a tinge of envy for her companion, Maril, who seemed to have settled into a nice routine in the magical university she taught at. She thought of asking Maril if the university needed music teachers, but her pride was on the line. She was going to make it here as a performer, not someone who looked on as others immortalized themselves in song. Eyja took her guitar, and after confirming that her roommate was asleep, started plucking notes freestyle. Familiar cadences visited her like old friends, but she ignored them and started to get bolder with her experimentation. The result was unabashedly atonal, but with the careful focus of a sculptor chipping away at mortar to capture their artistic vision, Eyja iterated, one musical phrase at a time. "Hnngh," Maril mumbled, stirring. "Sorry!" Eyja said. She cut her improvisation short, expecting a verbal tongue-lashing. Silence. And then, "Why did you stop?" "Because you were trying to sleep?" Sometimes Eyja couldn't figure out what Maril was thinking. Aloof as they were, wizards were fundamentally straightforward beings. Most of them wanted to acquire knowledge and magic, and avoid getting killed by all sorts of nasty beings who wanted the same. But Maril was driven by something else. While she had yet to confide her dreams and aspirations to Eyja, her eyes held a wistfulness that no bard could ever disrespect. Maybe she could teach her how to sing... "Play something. A song to help me sleep. Could you do that?" Is she testing me? Eyja thought. "Fine, then." She strummed a gentle chord, starting a song to please an audience of one. She channeled her frustrations, inverting her own tiny hurts to weave a soothing tune. Every single irritating thing that had happened today had melted into a quiet progression of chords, and she added her voice, spurred on by Maril's challenge. When she was done, she lifted herself to check on Maril. The wizard was wrapped in her blanket, soundly asleep. Did she enjoy it at all? Eyja shook her head. Maril would never. They would always occupy different worlds, regardless of the living space that they shared. The best they could do was coexist without stepping on each others' toes. But maybe tonight was an exception. In doing a favor for her roommate, Eyja had forgotten her minor worries. She owed the wizard a major thank you, and Eyja mouthed it silently, out of pride.
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Mar 7, 2022 14:28
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Lily Catts posted:Pride 493 words Gig's done, we're just wrapping up, Eyja messaged. Maril stared at her phone, horrified. She had just woken up, having crammed the grading of the semester's exams. The powers that be forbade magic to be used outside of university premises, and because Maril had insisted on sharing a room with Eyja instead of availing of the university dorms, she would have to do it the hard way. Which was not a big deal, truth be told. She would rather be checking papers instead of slinging fireballs against the many hostile creatures of her previous world. Did you eat already? I only had some water and garlic bread. You? Not at all... It took all of the afternoon for Maril to finish, and she had completely forgotten about dinner. That was usually Eyja's responsibility. I'll think of something, don't worry about it. Maril didn't bother to reply. Asking Eyja to cook dinner after an exhausting gig should be categorized as cruel and unusual punishment. She wouldn't get in the way of her roommate pursuing her dream. She went to the kitchen, fumbling for a cookbook, looking for something easy to make. Maybe if she surprised the bard, Eyja would treat her more as an equal in the household, instead of taking upon all the chores herself. Just because she was a wizard didn't mean she was beyond manual labor. She found an bookmarked page. Scrambled eggs. It shouldn't be harder than a simple cantrip, she thought. Maril located Eyja's apron, put it on, and set herself to save her roommate the trouble of making dinner. ----- "This is burnt. You turned up the heat too high," Eyja said matter-of-factly. The words were sharper than any arrow the bard's bow-harp could loose. "But it's edible," Maril protested. She took a spoonful of the "scrambled eggs", and gingerly put the morsel in her mouth. Her face immediately soured, but she chewed thoroughly and swallowed. Eyja pushed the glass of water towards her, and she gulped it down. "You know, we could've ordered food." The thought of having to answer the door to receive packaged meals from a complete stranger was unnerving to the wunderkind wizard. "No. I'd rather not. I just didn't want you to be cooking right after your gig. That would be rotten of me." Eyja smiled. "It's not. You've also worked hard today, so you deserve some rest, too." She gestured at the exam papers strewn across the floor. "I'm sorry." "It's fine. Seriously." Eyja took out her phone. "Let's get curry?" "Okay." "What's your order?" "Mutton. Mild." "And some sweet lassi?" Blinking back tears, the wizard nodded. "Make it two, then." Eyja tapped the screen, and her phone lighted up with a notification. "I thought cooking was simply following a recipe..." Eyja beamed. "Do you want to learn, then? You could make your own breakfast in the morning, so I don't have to." "That would be very nice," Maril said, finally relenting.
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Mar 7, 2022 17:37
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Crits from week 499 The Cut Of Your Jib The one where a mom tries to guilt her son into taking over their failing pawn/antiques business. I liked the setup, the emotions felt real, they seemed like real people, but nothing really caught me. I think more focus on the things they bought from people, how their money helped people, would have been more interesting and gripping than the repetition of mom’s guilt trip. 4/10. Chairchucker The one where everyone disagrees on the best way to get somewhere. Hah, I liked this. It was short and silly and wasn’t trying to be anything else. I liked the way the same argument repeated and the way the actions got more ridiculous each time. This was fun. In a bigger week it would probably fall to the middle, but I thought this was genuinely good. 8/10 CaligulaKangaroo The one where brothers fight about texts at their father’s funeral This… wrapped too neatly for my tastes, which is usually a sign that it was a well done story. I liked the argument, I liked how natural the explosion felt, but when it ended with “You better text her then.” instead of some rolled eyes or someone biting their tongue or Tony engaging in some visible effort not to be a snide rear end… it just felt a bit too sitcom pat to me. You had a handful of words left, you could have done it. 6.5/10 Rohan The one where a space psychopomp in training eats marmalade and then saves her supervisor from a bad spaceship fight I have no idea what is happening here but I had fun while reading it. You’re good at this sort of “here is the world, figure it out” style writing, but I think the flashrule kind of crippled you here. 6/10 BabyRyoga The one where two dudes are in love with some guy’s AI. Another sort of messy middle story. You definitely get points for making it a different type of love triangle, but it was also a little hard to figure out. The way they got mad at one another didn’t feel realistic, and I extremely didn’t understand why they were just hanging out in this man’s house, other than to chat with his AI. I wish I’d gotten some of that background. You could have done it. 3/10 Thranguy The one where they steal the wrong car because they disagree on colors. Cute. Starts strong but ends kind of weakly. I like the characters and I like the reasoning about the colors. Might be stronger if you’d focused a little on what could go wrong with transposing or forgetting a number rather than just “only people on TV do that.” Or even just being like “yeah so I’m dyslexic that poo poo won’t work.” 4-6/10 depending on my mood when reading it. Bad Seafood The one where bad roommates fight about a toaster and then break the toaster. Holy poo poo did you spy on my conversations with my terrible roommate? This feels extremely realistic, including the deeply stupid escalation to flinging the toaster out the window. I enjoyed it. 7/10.
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Mar 7, 2022 20:59
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Woops. Entries are officially closed. Seafood, post wee 501 at your leisure. Look for week 500 results in a couple days!
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Mar 7, 2022 23:37
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Week 500+1: Welcome to Perfection, Population: 14 Ah, Tremors. An American classic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V65b70nPU7k Tremors is one of my all-time favorite movies, and the inspiration for this week's prompt. If you've never seen it, it goes like this: Val and Earl are two blue-collar buddies stuck doing gruntwork in Perfection, Nevada; a real nowhere's town in the middle of the desert. One day people start disappearing, getting sucked underground. There's a monster on the loose, and it's up to our boys and their rag-tag community to come together and save the day. The conceit here is simple: a group of likable weirdos in an isolated location are charged with solving an unusual problem. That's it. That's the prompt. For your part, I'll allow you up to 1,000 words, with a couple left over in exchange for flash rules. When you sign up, you may request a stipend of likable weirdos, an isolated location, or an unusual problem, or any combination thereof. Each additional rider nets you 200 extra words. Aside from that, you know the rules: no fan-fiction, screeds, or amateur erotica. That said, I have a request. These have been tough times for all of us, and I for one like a happy ending. Don't do me wrong. Sign-ups are closed at midnight Friday, PST; submissions on Sunday, same time, same zone. Judges Bad Seafood (that's me!) Chairchucker Lily Catts Entrants Rohan - A mountain monastery with too many crocodiles BabyRyoga - A retired metal band visiting a frozen research facility must contend with a love triangle ZearothK - Petty thieves in cosplay must convince a rogue AI to spare humanity Thranguy - Professional mini-golfers lost in a nudist colony must solve a murder most foul Crabrock - Haile Selassie returns to life ChickenOfTomorrow - Traveling stage magicians patrolling the Eurasian steppes My Shark Waifuu - Plucky teen detectives trapped in a commune of reclusive artists must kill the correct dog Bacon Terrorist - The last cowboys exploring a deserted theme park must resolve an ancient prophecy Nae - A couple of doomsday preppers residing in a derelict lighthouse must win an international cooking competition Chernobyl Princess - Heavily put-upon staffers must prevent an eldritch incursion CaligulaKangaroo - Well-meaning hillbillies on a deserted island must uncover a local conspiracy Gorka - A castle overlooking a rural backwater Ceighk - Buddy cops investigating a decommissioned missile silo must finish a game that becomes real when you play it Greatbacon - A bumbling taxi driver and his irritable passengers stall out at an off-road summer camp and must escape a coming flood Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 10:13 on Mar 12, 2022 |
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Mar 8, 2022 12:00
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Hello please write good words or, in lieu of that, fun words.
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Mar 8, 2022 12:02
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I am in and I would like an isolated location and an unusual problem please
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Mar 8, 2022 12:06
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rohan posted:I am in and I would like an isolated location and an unusual problem please
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Mar 8, 2022 12:18
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I am in, and I would like one of all three flash rules please!
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Mar 8, 2022 12:54
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BabyRyoga posted:I am in, and I would like one of all three flash rules please!
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Mar 8, 2022 13:05
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In, gimme an unusual problem and some likeable weirdos. Also  because my last normal week was a fail.
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Mar 8, 2022 13:42
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ZearothK posted:In, gimme an unusual problem and some likeable weirdos. Also
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Mar 8, 2022 13:47
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In, all three.
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Mar 8, 2022 15:46
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Thranguy posted:In, all three.
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Mar 8, 2022 16:59
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no problem is too weird, plz give me a weird problem
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Mar 8, 2022 19:15
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In! Location and weirdos please.
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Mar 8, 2022 19:35
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In with all 3 please!
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Mar 8, 2022 20:01
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I have only ever done one of these and I lost, however on the advice of the other thread I am back to try again. In and all three, please.
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Mar 8, 2022 21:17
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In for the Tremors love, give me three things to get weird with.
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Mar 8, 2022 22:54
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crabrock posted:no problem is too weird, plz give me a weird problem ChickenOfTomorrow posted:In! Location and weirdos please. My Shark Waifuu posted:In with all 3 please! Bacon Terrorist posted:I have only ever done one of these and I lost, however on the advice of the other thread I am back to try again. Nae posted:In for the Tremors love, give me three things to get weird with.
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Mar 9, 2022 09:32
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In, give me some weirdos and a problem please
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Mar 9, 2022 13:49
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In! Gimme all three!
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Mar 9, 2022 17:21
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In, give me a location please
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Mar 9, 2022 18:37
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Chernobyl Princess posted:In, give me some weirdos and a problem please CaligulaKangaroo posted:In! Gimme all three! Gorka posted:In, give me a location please Bad Seafood fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Mar 10, 2022 |
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Mar 9, 2022 23:26
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in and all three please
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Mar 10, 2022 00:26
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I'm in! I'll take the trifecta.
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Mar 10, 2022 02:17
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Ceighk posted:in and all three please Greatbacon posted:I'm in! I'll take the trifecta.
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Mar 10, 2022 10:20
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Sign-ups are closed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c48Se9q2f5c
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Mar 12, 2022 09:00
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Grey Rabbit 1600 words By the entrance to the bunker lay a willow hoop threaded with white flowers, its outer circle bisected by additional rods until it looked something like a pentagram. Three crocheted animals were stitched to its upper arc - two dogs, one black and one white, flanking a grey rabbit. "Environmentalists," Mike said, prodding it with his boot. Sadie rolled her eyes. Mike was better than some of the others at the station, but he still wasn't great. He hadn't laughed when Julia had called the job they were about to do 'tramp hunting', but his diplomatic explanation had amounted to about the same. He had explained that people living in a disused missile silo wasn't good for anyone, and certainly not for those doing it. They were there to assess the situation and "encourage any occupants to vacate the premises". Beyond the doorway, a passageway sloped down into the hillside. Sadie followed Mike inside. Silhouetted against the torchlight and bulked out by his stab vest and custodian helmet, Mike was a policeman-shaped anonymity. Sadie then realised that anyone standing behind them would see her as exactly the same. Her first week in uniform and it still hadn't sunk in. Maybe it never would. After her probation she had wanted to go into a specialist role safeguarding vulnerable women, but she was losing faith in the idea. The woman who led that task force had cackled about tramp hunting like all the rest. As she walked her flashlight lingered on spent needles and children's toys draped in wet leaves. She caught the eye of a plastic doll's head, half-drowned in a growing puddle. Dripping water spattered the flat-headed mushrooms that sprouted from a cleft in the doll's temple, giving it an unearthly kind of beauty. For a moment she wanted to take it with her. They came to a shaft where a switchback stairway led down into the earth. "This whole place is a health and safety," Mike said as he descended. "Needs to be fenced off before someone cracks their head and blames the landowner." "Who's that?" It turned out being a police officer was a lot more about knowing what belonged to who than it was about rescuing delicate useless things. "RAF. So technically they should be the ones turfing people out. But they don't." The stairs ended at a room with a doorway in opposite walls. Neither had a door, though there were neat bore holes where the hinges might go. A sign to the left said 'LAUNCH CONTROL CENTRE' while the right declared 'MISSILE ACCESS'. Somewhere in the facility, a woman was singing. "Do you hear that?" Sadie asked. "Yep. Bingo." They took the doorway labelled 'MISSILE ACCESS' and passed through a small room shaped like an airlock to find themselves on a metal gantry, halfway up the wall of a huge chamber shaped like a vertical cylinder. Somewhere below, dark water lapped at the walls like an underground sea, while the space above vanished into darkness. The song was coming from above. Sadie couldn't make out the words, but it had the structure of a sad folk ballad - slow, plaintive verses that invariably looped back around to a distinctive refrain. Images flashed through her mind unprompted. Heather on the mountainside, lichen on a carved stone, solemn dancers in a forest glade. The song wasn’t in English. "What language is that?" she asked. "Foreign. Do you see her?" Mike peered up into the gloom, his flashlight picking out the undersides of platforms and cables. "No. Looks like the gantry goes up to the left." "Yep. Might want to get your spray out. I don't want to get dropped on by some mentalcase." "Shouldn't we come back with a psych?" Mike ignored her. At the top of the stairs, a wider platform jutted out towards the centre of the room. A shape on the far railing resembled a control panel, except instead of switches it housed a strange wooden box the size of a chessboard. Wooden slats formed a maze on its largest face with an exit on the top edge. Slots were cut down the centre of each passageway, and in the maze’s bottom corner a model of a grey rabbit was flanked on one side by a black wolf and on the other by a white animal that could have been a wolf or a dog. "loving hell," Mike breathed, gazing upwards. A woman in a silver dress hung from the ceiling in a makeshift harness of cables and vines, slowly moving her arms and legs as she continued her strange, sad song, louder now than ever. "Show's over, love!” Mike yelled. “You've got your audience, now you're wasting our time!" He turned to Sadie. "Can you see another way up?" Sadie couldn't. "How’d she get up there?" "No idea. But she's coming down. Now. We've got better things to do than rescue drugged up bimbos from their own art installations." Sadie wasn't convinced by his read of the situation, which was too strange to be the work of an overenthusiastic undergrad. She took a closer look at the maze. The two canines chased the rabbit, but if it only kept running it had a clear shot for the exit. She tried to move it. It should have been able to slide through the slot, but the rabbit felt locked in place. She looked at the white animal and decided it resembled a dog. "Sadie, pay attention!" What if the dog wasn't chasing the rabbit but herding it, rescuing it. She moved it towards the rabbit, and the rabbit slid towards the exit. Then the woman in the air moved too, inching closer on her tangled cradle as if the mechanism in the maze had set into motion whatever concealed framework she was suspended from. "What did you do?" "I just pushed it." Sadie stared at the maze, trying to make it make sense. She noticed the wolf had changed position too, but it had taken a path that led away from the other models. Mike reached over to grab the wolf but gasped in pain when he touched it. Drops of blood splashed on the wooden board. "She's done it now," he muttered, sucking his finger where the model had cut him. "You hear that, woman?" he shouted into the darkness. "Get down now and I'll let you off with obstructing. Take any longer and I'll count that as assault. And for God's sake stop singing!" Sadie would deal with him later. For now the most important thing was getting the woman down safely. Who knew why, but shepherding the rabbit towards the exit had moved her closer to the platform. Presumably it was set up so that if the rabbit reached the end of the maze she would be able to get down safely. She didn't want to know what would happen if the wolf caught the rabbit first. She moved the dog, which moved the rabbit, which moved the wolf and the woman. The rabbit was past halfway through the maze, and the woman was close enough that Sadie could see her face clearly. She was beautiful. But her song had morphed into something else entirely, unearthly and incomprehensible. Images flashed through Sadie's mind: A woman in a silver dress strapped to a circular stone. A man wearing an animal skin, holding a stone dagger, standing over her. "Shut up!" yelled Mike, visibly incensed. He rummaged in his pockets as if checking something was still there and Sadie caught a glimpse of a brown object wrapped in cellophane. Heroin. Would he really frame this woman out of spite for a cut finger? Mike caught her looking and flashed a predatory grin. He would. Sadie moved the dog again, but regretted it when she realised what she had done. The wolf hadn't been heading away from the rabbit at all. It had been taking a shortcut, moving so it could cut the rabbit off before it reached the exit. There was another path the rabbit could take to avoid it, but it was behind the dog - or was it another wolf? - and as much as she strained against the mechanism there was no way of moving the carving backwards to let it pass. All the white creature could do was chase the rabbit to its doom. Mike drew his pepper spray and leant over the railing, licking his lips like a waiting animal. The rabbit was three inches from the exit, but if she herded it forward, the wolf would get it. The woman was two metres from their ledge, but if she helped her reach it, Mike would be there. The woman's song intensified again. Every synapse in Sadie's head flashed with images of prehistoric violence. She glanced at Mike and for a second he looked like the ancient druid in her vision, his pepper spray a sacrificial dagger. Then she saw how the wolf hid its blade. She ripped the wolf from the maze and sunk it into the side of Mike's neck. He gasped in confusion as he teetered over the railing, then plummeted into the water below. Sadie freed the dog and the rabbit from the board entirely, and the woman stepped gracefully onto the platform. She kissed Sadie on the forehead. She had stopped singing, but somewhere, in Sadie's mind, maybe, the song continued. "What do I do now?" Sadie asked. The woman took the carving of the rabbit and tossed it against the wall of the silo. A tunnel opened where it collided. Through it Sadie could see stars.
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Mar 13, 2022 23:52
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