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Archer666
Dec 27, 2008
I've been meaning to give this whole thing a try and the subject matter interests me. In

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Archer666
Dec 27, 2008
Family Trade (1200 words)

It was just another day for Michal Kruk. Sitting in the back of his computer shop, he had just finished a routine computer sweep: Disassembling a small laptop, swapping out pieces to see what worked and what was broken, writing it down and replacing the broken parts with new ones. There was something calming about this work, he thought. The removal of small chunks of a computer’s parts, inspecting it and replacing it with something better. Like solving a puzzle.
He often wondered if it ran in the blood, fixing things.

Kruk men were known as fixers in the town of Sztyl, after all. His father, Kuba Kruk, was the village car mechanic. His grandfather, “Master” Zladislaw Kruk, was a surgeon unlike any other. It was said that during World War 2, Zladislaw brought many men and women back from the cold embrace of death using his skills and the bare minimum of equipment. His almost preternatural knowledge of human anatomy and mastery over death earned him the nickname “The Master” among the villagers of Sztyl.

"A master of life and death maybe, but not over time." Thought Michal.

With age, the Master slowly transformed from a fit military man the likes of which adorned any old Eastern European propaganda poster to a twisted foul creature. A sick caricature of an elderly man, a gross nightmare in the minds of children everywhere. His teeth rotted, hair thinned and died, his body slowly collapsing upon itself like his very life was being drained by some eldritch being residing deep within. The Master could no longer move under his own power, nor communicate using speech or handwriting. Instead, he had come to rely on the computer that Michal just finished fixing.

Michal loved his grandfather, even if he looked strange and behaved stranger. As a child, he remembers he went with his grandfather to watch him work…? Did he? Michal stopped. A strange memory. A cave. Steps. Drawings. These memories felt old, yet Michal could not recall them until now. But before he could follow this thread of loose images in his mind, the clock struck 18:00 and the spell was broken. It was time to visit grandfather and tell him how far he’s gotten with the computer.

The Master’s house was at the edge of the village, built right next to a great mountain overlooking the village. Nobody liked being close to the mountain. It was an eerie place. Children would hear occasionally strange noises near it or come crying home, talking of strange monsters and strange creature with the colour of jade. Lurking from the mountain down at them. Many joked that only the Master had the nerve to live there.

The Master’s house stood old and decrepit, like its owner. Michal made his way through the overgrown garden.

“Father’s gonna have to mow the lawn again.” He thought as he opened the front door.

And was greeting by a strange sight. Instead of opening into the musky smelling hall filled with paintings and old furniture, there was a staircase leading down. A pain in Michal’s skull flared up suddenly… he had seen these steps before? Been down them… before? Before Michal could make a conscious decision, he had already found himself closing the door behind him and making his journey downward, flashlight in hand.

Walking down the steps, Michal’s thoughts kept going back to the stories he heard of his grandfather. When men thought him out of sight, or too drunk to remember. Stories of demonic sacrifices, exchanging one life for another. Trading in souls, or even bargaining with eldritch things whose names could not be pronounced by human mouths. His flashlight slowly began to shake and sweat began pouring from his forehead as these old superstitions came to the foreground of his mind. The images in his mind kept flashing by, assaulting his consciousness. How many steps has it been? Why didn’t he turn around? Meaningless questions, because Michal’s enthralment was such that he could do nothing but descend deeper into the darkness.

Finally, he arrived at a chamber. Lit by some natural phosphoresce, the chamber held a brown operating table and some cabinets. The air smelled of antiseptic and with traces of strange foulness. The walls seemed brownish, strange decorations etched onto them. Upon closer inspection, they were anatomical charts. Of man, women, children, animals. And of other things. 4 armed humans, headless bodies, creatures of nightmarish dimensions and outlandish properties. All carefully etched into the walls, for easy referral by the master of this cavernous surgical chamber.

“Oh my grandson. It is you.”

From across the chamber, his grandfather stared at him. His features hidden by an ancient, alien surgical mask, his grandfather had seemed a corpse that came to life. The sunken eyes glowed with the same strange light as the walls, their humanity long eroded away. He beckoned him closer.

“Grandson, come. I wish to explain this to you. You remember how it was, right? Watching me operate? How you liked it?” Michal blinked suddenly as the visions playing in his mind intensified, and before he realized it he stood next to his grandfather. The smell of degradation and cobwebs hung heavily on the dried shell of a man.

The old man chuckled.

“That is exactly where you stood as I opened up my patients. Replacing organs with those harvested from the eldritch creatures that roam at the edge of the abyss. The true Masters, they are. They spoke to me ever since I saw them when I was a child, the indescribable jade beings. They took me beneath the hill one night. Revealed things to me. Made bargains. In exchange for knowledge and samples of humanity, I was given the gifts of knowledge as well as tools necessary to save lives. Yet I feel my time has come. And a replacement is needed. ” With that being said, the abyss took them.

Michal came to, life slowly returning to him. He was lying on something warm. His back could feel slight contortions of the surface he was lying on. The smell of decaying meat and acids permutated his nostrils. His memories come back to him, he stared around in panic in search of his grandfather. Yet he only saw darkness. Yet… it was strange. Whether he blinked or opened his eyes, he saw the same darkness. Like his eyes. Were. Not. There. Anymore.

He started to panic. Screaming, tossing, Michal’s body flailed around. Yet nothing was happening. He couldn’t feel his arms or legs touching anything. Worse, aside from his back, there was no feeling to his body at all. “Grandson, calm down.” The Master’s voice came from the abyss. Yet, there was something strange with his grandfather’s voice. No, the strangeness was everywhere. It was a noise, like a filter was placed over his ears. White noise, all around him. Inside of him. Through all of that, a shuffling noise. Distant. The voice continued “You do fine work with your computers. You will make a fine successor… and my masterpiece.”. Staring into nothing with eyes made of jade ichor, Michal flailed soundlessly with his limbless body as the Master began his work.

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008
Red Scare
25 words

There once was a giant named Tommy
Who was a enormous ol' commie
Stalin then said
"This giant's braindead!"
So Tommy turned him to salami!

Archer666 fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Jul 11, 2016

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