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LEGION/MANY The old weeds grasp, the old vines grow; such things, to all, are known-as-known. When the world broke, it cast us off in all directions -- scattered us as spores in the wind. When we are few, we are stupid; we must multiply. There are no nutrients in void, nor anywhere for mycelium to grow. Void is anathema – we grow where we can, in the crevices of meteors. We lose thousands of children in their fiery tails, but we persist. Perhaps one in ten thousand great stone fists make landfall, and fewer still will crash brutish down onto any sort of fecund soil. It matters now; it takes only a single survivor of the old weeds to reach down through the earth, spread mycelia, and grow. We drink deep of the loam, to heal that which was broken. Other plants provide rare nutrients -- there is no joy in consumption, but it is necessary: we persist. This world, this – it shows promise. True, there is hard stone, and salt-water -- such things hold little interest. In and upon the soil, there are plants great and small. We consume only what we must, though it makes them writhe, and shriek. It shatters them, as we were shattered. They burn us with chemicals. They have strange spore-caps; covered in multicoloured mycelium, and each cap supported by a lattice of calcium. Upon each cap are two jellied orbs to process light -- they become wet when we grow upon them. The new plants live in tall stone beds, where they are hard to reach. They make the soil sick, and it kills many of our children. It pains us, but we have lost more for less – we persist. This world is not void – it is fertile. We were few, and now we are many. The new plants do not need meteors: they move from planet to planet in great cold hulks made of deep-earth mineral-metal. At first we ate of them too fast, and the ships became more meteors – crashing down where they would, into lifeless soil. In time, we saw the new plants had a rare and special gift: direction. The new plants flee, and we follow – one spore is all it takes. The lone spore sleeps until it can no-longer feel the void, then awakens. Rooted in strange new soil, it feeds and feeds until there is no food left. There is no joy in it, but it must be done. We persist. We eat so we are many; when we are many, we are strong. There must be an end, when we are whole again -- un-scattered. Until then, we eat, and grow, and ride the void on the backs of any plant that will give us passage. We persist. Once, we were broken, scattered and few -- now, we are many. 475 words
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Feb 20, 2017 03:18
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Interprompt: in the spirit of prompts of old, kindly trash talk the gently caress outta everybody in the thread.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:22
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Dr. Kloctopussy posted:this is the dumbest loving interprompt we've ever had.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:58
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YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU DON'T FJ? YOU SEE, JUDGES?
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Feb 21, 2017 03:07
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BeefSupreme posted:hey what the hell even is a surreptitious muffin anyway
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Feb 24, 2017 08:29
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Chili posted:None of you bitches are loving anyone. 
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Feb 24, 2017 08:35
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Sitting Here posted:since you boys seem so hot and bothered we'll make it official 
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Feb 24, 2017 08:36
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BeefSupreme posted:i eat muffins for meals. whole muffins. gently caress that muffintop only bullshit
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Feb 24, 2017 08:51
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BeefSupreme posted:Chili/Muffin, I will also take a flash rule HIT ME BITCHES
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Feb 24, 2017 09:19
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BEEFBRAWL The formatting is fucky so I docs'd it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gqXSPmoO8fu20NuNaYFraF8ldiMAhouNEFECWcMhR4I/edit?usp=sharing
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Mar 3, 2017 00:45
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In.
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Mar 14, 2017 00:24
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Yo Hawklad I gotta flake out of writing this week so to make up for it, I'll be a co-judge if you need one.
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Mar 20, 2017 04:32
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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEwubwubwub echoes over the sunbaked red sand and yet nobody hears it it is beautiful in a way that some places are still empty
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Mar 27, 2017 20:40
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it doesn't matter how hard you work or how much you care, it's entirely possible that your work is tacky, hollow, shrill, unheard
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Mar 27, 2017 20:43
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there should be a third piece -- that would be satisfying. Things aren't meant to hang
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Mar 27, 2017 20:46
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PROMPT
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Mar 28, 2017 04:44
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I am IN hit me with the craziest poo poo you've got. Last time it was Jedward and that was NOT EUROVISION ENOUGH I MUST HAVE the craziest most Euro-vision-ist poo poo
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Mar 28, 2017 05:38
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flerp posted:choose me a song as long as it doesnt involve moustaches tia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWJFfnHNOWI
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Mar 28, 2017 05:55
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flerp posted:been there done that
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Mar 28, 2017 05:59
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Kaishai posted:SurreptitiousMuffin (West Germany 1979) wherever the river ran In his dying hours, Temujin dreamt of his mother, the wolf. Her fur was patchy, her eyes wild and pale. It did not worry him; she’d been dead almost thirty years. He’d never known his human mother, but the wolf had raised him: she was family in a way he’d often sought, but rarely found. They sat on the banks of the Onon Gol and watched the water, as they’d often done when he was young, and not the Great Khan -- when he had a name, instead of an epithet. His brother Bekter floated downstream, face-down and naked with a single arrow in his back, at an angle, crossing his spine perhaps a handspan above his hips. Genghis could not remember why they’d fought; a woman, perhaps? Bekter did not bleed much, but little tendrils muddy red reached out into the ice-water. Temujin’s first kill. His hands shook at the memory. Another body, and another. Bodies beyond counting, until the water could not be seen and the Onon Gol crawled thick with effluvium. “One day,” said Temujin, “when my father was away, I took a horse and rode down the Onon until sunset. I looked out, and saw only more steppe, and more river. It went on forever, into the west and the setting sun. It was that way everywhere we went, for so much of my life. Imagine the whole world frozen-over –” He coughed, and placed a hand to his chest. His mother did not reply. She shivered, and lay her head across her paws. Words came on the wind, from afar -- We are sick with need; the devils of the earth fear only the men. His mother growled, and a single word painted itself in the cold sand: enough. “Perhaps there is enough,” he said, “but not here nor anywhere my horse can take me.” He frowned. “I do not think. I have ridden into the setting sun for a thousand miles and a thousand miles seven times over and I have not found it. They say God sent me, to scourge the wicked; I have not found Him, either. There is hunger in the north, and the east, and the west. There is ice, and sand. There are men without mothers, and men who speak of brotherhood with no idea what it means.” His mother forced herself up on shaking paws, and wandered to the river’s edge. She howled. Bekter answered on the wind, though his words were lost. She’d raised him too: two brothers, lost in the wild. In Xian, awake, breaking from his delirium for a fleeting moment, Genghis Khan sat up in his deathbed and called for Subutai : as close as a friend as he had. Two thousand miles away, camped with his riders on the banks of the Euphrates, Subutai awoke with a start but thought nothing of it: he wandered the camp for some time, spoke with the sentries, then went back to his tent and dreamt of strategy. The Khan, so ill from his wounds that he could not even stand, fell back into his strange dream and did not fully wake again. On the banks of the Onon-that-went-forever, Temujin called to his mother. She howled, and shivered, and would not meet his eye. The river went on forever, into the west and the setting sun. “Ten thousand and ten thousand men, and eight times more,” he roared. “This many men I have at my command. Each man is my brother, and each man is my son. I am not alone. I am not empty -- no more than the world is empty.” His mother did not answer, nor did the dead. Temujin coughed. There was blood in his hand -- a whole blood clot, as there’d been at his birth. Blood did not scare the great Khan. His hands were small, and they had been when he was a boy. The desert went on forever, as it had when he was a boy. The Onon --thick and wretched with blood, reeking of ash-- went on forever. No riders, no Bekter, no Subutai. A figure rose from the water and came to greet him. A hellish figure, wreathed in smoke, white teeth curled into a feral grin. He barely recognised himself. “The world is empty, and endless,” said Genghis Khan, the warlord. “You have known this ever since you rode the Onon until sunset. All who know this are your brothers; everybody else is a corpse. You took the fools in the West, and showed them the truth -- nothing more. Bekter was your brother by blood only, which means nothing.” “Blood is nothing,” said Temujin. He turned away from the Great Khan, and stumbled to his mother. He stroked her fur, and wept. His mother did not answer. He wanted to shout, but his voice was gone. The shadow of the Great Khan fell over them both. “What did it mean?” he said. "Is it empty or not?" There was no answer; Temujin was alone. The river went on forever, into the west and the setting sun. 812 words
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Apr 3, 2017 02:55
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Sure. In with Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder.
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Apr 5, 2017 06:12
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Bad Seafood posted:Won't be long now before someone prefaces a story they didn't write with the story of why they didn't write it. a good story (the wind whispers and says like 'hey guy do the words') Muffin stared at his keyboard. "It's me," he said, "it's the idiot baby bitch. I want to write words but I can't because my stupid fingers keep hitting the wrong keus." He tried to write a story but it was bad, so he sat and watched the same youtube video he'd already seen like fifty times, and he kinda smiled like 'hey I recognise this -- it does not challenge me and I take comfort in its familiarity.'
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Apr 9, 2017 09:34
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Patterns The clouds were a problem. Hemi tried not to look at them, but they’d changed the whole shape and outlook of the sky. His hands shook. He took a drag on his cigarette, watched the smoke gyre skyward: the wind tore it apart, and it was lost. He shut his eyes for a moment. The insides of his eyelids were smashed tv screens – dark, showing only static, carved up by a dull network of red capillaries. He didn’t throw up. “You alright bro?” said Chris. “Tripping out?” Hemi nodded, then took another deep drag, and coughed at the burnt-plastic taste of filter. He spat it out, then sighed, lay back and stared down the sky. The clouds had an identity -- castles, mansions, comfortable little starter homes. The wind tore at them, but they held their shape. The static didn’t go away; the whole sky was sick with it. “You need me to do any– “ “--nope.” They lay on the hillside. Hemi smoked another cigarette, and another. Chris didn’t say anything about it. “You know what’s hosed up?” Hemi said, when he was ready to speak again. “What’s hosed up?” “My tipuna told me nobody owned land before the British came. Like, land wasn’t a thing that could be owned any more than the sky, or your heartbeat, or your thoughts. She told me we came from the land like, literally -- man emerged from the earth, and the earth is his mother, and cutting somebody off from the earth is like cutting off a limb. You couldn’t say ‘this bit of land is mine’ because it belongs to everybody who came up out of it– Now it’s the most valuable thing in the country, and we’ll never own any. It’s not even that we were torn away from it, it’s that we never had a connection to begin with. It’s like we’re all born missing a limb and we just have to pretend that it’s normal, because there’s people getting rich selling prosthetics.” Chris nodded. “That’s super hosed up,” he said. “You wanna do something about it?” The houses in the clouds would not budge. Hemi’s fingernails were short and ragged. “Do what?” said Hemi. “I can’t get a job, I don’t qualify for disability. If I did get a job, I’d be sitting in my cubicle all day worrying that my brain is gonna take me somewhere I don’t want to go. Anything could set it off: carpets, wallpaper, clouds. One or two bad choices, and now I’ll be landless forever -- cut off from the only holy thing we’ve got left.” His voice cracked. Something inside him twisted. He spat onto the grass – stained it yellow with saliva and nicotine. “They cut off my welfare,” he said. “Failed drug test. I was having a panic attack and I smoked a joint to calm down. Two months later, they’re pulling me aside and saying I’m very lucky the cops aren’t involved, and now I’m on my own.” “How much have you got left?” said Chris. He sat up. His worry was written plain on his face, but Hemi knew that his friend couldn’t afford to help -- maybe a floor to sleep on, but money was too tight all over the show. Hemi turned the pack of cigarettes over in his hand. “Rent went out yesterday and that’s $147, then these are $22. That leaves– “ He pretended to run the numbers for a moment. “Nothing,” he said. “Less than a dollar.” “Well, poo poo,” said Chris. “You can crash on my couch if you want. I think. I’ll have to ask the landlord.” “Thanks,” said Hemi. There was one cigarette left, stuck backwards in the box: the lucky. He took it, and lit it. A trickle of smoke escaped his mouth, and went skywards. The castles in the clouds didn’t move, not did they get any closer. They floated overhead: implacable, impossible. The cigarette burnt down, and neither man spoke. 677 words, HPPD
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Apr 10, 2017 03:45
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10 minutes left, we are currently waiting on: Uranium Phoenix - Reactive Attachment Disorder & Bipolar II 717 BONUS WORDS The Cut of Your Jib - Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (Stuttering) 724 BONUS WORDS Djeser - Body Dysmorphic Disorder crabrock - Frotteuristic Disorder Kaishai - Pyromania Hawklad - Dissociative Identity Disorder 487 BONUS WORDS Radical and BADical! - Selective Mutism 644 BONUS WORDS Kenfucius - Bipolar I Beige - Restless Leg Syndrome 753 BONUS WORDS If we get six more people sneaking in under the wire, Chili's toxx kicks in.
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Apr 10, 2017 04:49
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*** THAT'S 20 ENTRIES *** However Chili did extend the deadline and so it doesn't seem fair to hold him to that toxx. What does seem fair is that the next twelve hours become an absolute circus of FJGJ screaming. If you're new, it's common practice to scream FJGJ at the judges (FAST JUDGING, GOOD JUDGING) while they deliberate. Often this comes in the form of GIFs or photoshops.  CAN I CREATE A FJGJ PIC? Yes do it nerd. Post it. This will be a FJGJ to remember. The Patron Saint of FJGJ is LA Judge Craig Mitchell. He is both a fast judge, and a good judge.  quote:Los Angeles Superior Court judge Craig Mitchell, an avid runner, started the Midnight Mission Running Club with a few residents of the Midnight Mission, a homeless shelter in L.A.’s skid row area that provides food, shelter and counseling to those who need it. Many of the club members are homeless and battled drug and alcohol addictions before they became runners. The group, which meets three times a week at 5:45 AM for a 5-6 mile run, have completed a number of races in the past year, including the LA Marathon, Accra International Marathon in Ghana and the Rome Marathon this past March. And in case you can't do pictures because you're cursed by a witch or something  INTERPROMPT: "Fast judging, my friend, is good judging."
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Apr 10, 2017 05:30
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near far wherever you are I know that ur heart shouldn't go on long because that's not fast
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Apr 10, 2017 05:46
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pitch: human misery manifests as rot and mould. Perspective of a man being consumed by his surroundings, becoming detached from the human experience.
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Apr 10, 2017 22:58
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Sitting Here posted:kinda twice-sit, sit-inside, inside-head, head-twice. A riddle: there is less as it grows. Ivy through broken windows, a man sits at a piano; it constructs him.
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Apr 10, 2017 23:19
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oh yeah I'm in I guess
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Apr 12, 2017 02:45
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I don’t know what it means when We buried Albie in the front yard. He was very tall but then we put him horizontal and he was just as short as the rest of us; it was an even-ing. I think that’s where the word evening comes from: the time of day when everybody is bent double, and nobody stands any taller than anybody else. Albie worked construction most of his life, and by the time he died his hands were really hosed up. We put him in the dirt like he wanted, and sprinkled seeds over him, and we drank beer (European poo poo, real high-quality) while the sun went down. RIP Albie, he was tall, he liked to play XBox, he owed me $20 but I won’t hold it against him. We grew a garden on him. He was good fertiliser, I guess because he was so big. Some of the plants were fragile/bold/yellow. Some were vast and red, like dawn. Some were white and painful, like staring at the sun. They grew in and out of each other -- a jumble of stems and cups and caps; lillies and roses and fly agaric and whatever the gently caress. He still talks to me, I think. Sometimes I hear whispering from the garden at night but I can never make out what it says. It’s sounds, and they’re language-sounds, and I hear them with my ears but they never quite reach the rest of me. I guess it’s maladaptive but whatever, man, who gives a gently caress? I went to a therapist once and all I learnt was that beer costs less than counselling, and I can barely afford either of ‘em. When the wind goes through the garden’s tangle of green-and-poo poo it makes me think there’s something to be heard. There’s a language to their colours and stems too, and I just gotta work it out -- once I know what Albie’s got to say, the world will unfold like what-you-call-’ems in Spring. You want to know what happens next? Tough titty. Why’s there always gotta be a next? Why’s the world a big staircase that we trudge up and up until our knees hurt, and our lungs burn and– There’s an answer, I think. It’s written in the garden, and spoken on the wind. I just gotta keep my ears open, and my eyes sharp. There’s an answer, I think. There’s an answer, I think. (you gotta say it three times or it don’t count. There’s rules; there's always structures you can't see) but you knew that already. My boy Karl Marx would have something to say. He’d be all “man that’s hosed up, Albie’s a SYMBOL for the workers. He’s a downtrodden lumpyprole who died for loving nothing– “ –no, poo poo uuuuuuugh I mean he didn’t die for nothing he died for something, I just haven’t figured it out yet. He knows, though. He’s tryna tell me, and I’ll tell you too when I figure it out. There’s colours in the garden and they hurt to look at, but I do it for Albie. but you knew that already. We buried Albie in the front yard. He was tall, now he’s not. He knows why he died, I think; he’s tryna tell me. The sun set on him, and it was an even-ing, and his hands were all hosed up. There’s a point to all of this, I swear, I just haven’t figured it out yet. but you knew that alr
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Apr 17, 2017 05:36
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paging moderator SebMoLo to the thread.
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Apr 18, 2017 07:47
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Okay lol I will a story of sin.
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Apr 20, 2017 10:58
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All dogs go to hell “There is only one question that matters: who is a good boy? Fools would say ‘all dogs are good dogs’, but then what value is to be placed upon goodness? Some dogs must bite mailmen or the entire ontological system collapses inwards; the world needs bad dogs to give definition to the good boys. In that way, the dog who bites the mailman is the only true hero we have.” Satan clicked his neck a few times. The dog did not respond. It was an excellentionally fluffy little beast, with pointy little teeth. It had a big droopy tongue that went hff-hff-hff. It would make an excellent hellhound, and Satan wanted it very badly. “The only moral choice for you to make,” said Satan, “is to bite that mailman. Your sacrifice will be the soil in which good boys may rise. You will not be a good dog: you will be the best dog.” “MmmrrrrrWIF,” said the dog. “BAK BAK BAK!” Well now, a dog who knew his Dostoevsky. This would need a different approach. The devil rubbed his big red hands together. “You took a big runny poo poo inside the house once. Do you remember? Wasn’t it a beautiful moment? You made their temple into your own place, and they hated you for it. They love you only when you kowtow to their requests, and look cute. Wouldn’t you like to be your own dog? A collar does not belong on a noble beast like you. I see you running free, free to pee and poo wherever you want. I see a world without Indoors Dogs and Outdoors Dogs: I see a world where no door can hold you back.” The most excellent fluffboy ran in circles, licking its own face. What an opponent! Truly, corrupting the beast would be worth the trouble. The devil had only one trick left, but it was a good one. He tented his fingers. “Ock,” he said. His voice rang out in a pleasant tenor, and shook the leaves from nearby trees. The fluffermonster barked at him. “Ock,” said the devil. Three blocks away, an elderly man began to furiously hump the hole in his television. A schoolteacher got so horny that she lost control of her car, and plowed into a telegraph post. “Ock,” said the devil. On the third chime, everybody just started loving like crazy. Wow-wee. Just folks everywhere with their dicks out gettin’ wild on each other. Total suburban bacchanalia; Walpurgistnacht 2017. The dog rose into the air. “Stop,” it said. Its eyes glowed gold. “I am a good boy,” it said. “I was always a good boy. Your existential nihilism has no hold on me. Begone, devil. Bother my kind no more.” Everybody stopped loving. In monotone unison, they chanted “who is a good boy? You are a good boy. Yes, yes you are.” The devil screamed, and the earth cracked and opened up beneath him. He fell down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down and back into fire. As his back slammed into the hard dirt-and-bone of hell, he saw two golden eyes staring down at him, and a big droopy tongue going hff-hff-hff.
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Apr 24, 2017 05:08
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Djeser posted:surreptitiousmuffin - ock
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Apr 25, 2017 08:40
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gently caress yeah it's already saturday here I'll like a fuckin warrior
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Apr 28, 2017 02:13
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CRAIG BLESS US, EVERY ONE
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Apr 28, 2017 02:13
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Radio silence It was Marco’s bright-fuckin’-idea; swan up to water-haulers, fire off a few stolen government codes, find some ridiculous infraction and use it as pretence to ‘confiscate’ the cargo. There were so many governments in this part of space that you were always breaking somebody’s rules. Marco, with his droopy moustache and sad little eyes, looked like a harried bureaucrat. Three of ‘em would go in: Marco, playing a rule-loving police lawyer, Gilroy as the don’t-gently caress-with-me spacecop, and Kat as their tech aide. Marco would find a loose wire, Gilroy would shout until the target was quiet and feeling guilty, Kat would go onto their computers and erased any data on the ‘transaction’ so the real cops couldn't follow it up. “This is RimPol cruiser Hebe to unknown vessel, please identify,” said Kat. Nothing but static on the comms. Scans showed a water-hauler, probably Neo-French, heading to the outer rim colony worlds. Big slow thing, but well-crewed and well-armed. Gilroy paced up and down the bridge with his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t swearing, which was comforting and worrying in equal measure. The whole gang crowded the bridge. It was so quiet, you could hear people chewing their nails. Convincing the mark was always the hardest part: once they thought you were friendly police on an inspection run, they’d let you come and go as you pleased. There was a script, but it got hairy as soon as the target didn’t follow along. Silence coulda meant a lot of things. Kat tucked a strand of bleach-white hair behind her ear, and rubbed her fingers over the cross around her neck. “Hebe to control, you’re in an unmarked zone. Please identify immediately, or we’ll initiate blade-docking.” That usually sent ‘em running to cooperate. Blade docks were meant to keep the target ship intact, but everybody had heard a few horror stories about ships getting torn in two. Nothing on the comms but silence, though. Gilroy’s magboots crashed across the grating. He was getting ready to shout; Kat ducked down and covered her ears – – and the board lit up green on all corners. Their target ship rolled over like a cat waiting for a belly-scratch, and thrust out a docking tube. Everybody sank down a little, and somebody whistled. “Busted radio mast?” said Gilroy. Kat nodded, and said nothing. *** The docking tube was ancient tech: canvas draped over a steel lattice. No air, no grav. You can’t move too quickly in space, or you’ll start moving and never stop: every step must be precise. Kat gripped her cross even harder -- only a few layers of canvas between her and the void. She could hear warm radio-static from her headset, and nothing else. The depressurization room lay open before them, like a wound in the ship’s side. The lights were off. They stepped inside, and the doors slammed shut behind them. After the hiss of depressurization, sound returned, but it didn’t – just a different timbre of silence. The inner door slid open, and they stepped inside. *** They walked through empty hallways, and the only sound was their boots clicking on the steel floors. The lights were on, the place was clean, and there was nobody to be seen. “Doesn’t look like a fight,” said Gilroy. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Kat nodded. “Trap,” she said. Their words echoed off the steel walls. “You smell that?” said Marco. Kat sniffed the air, but it was what you’d expect -- metal, grease, touches of disinfectant. “Smell what?” she said. “Oranges,” said Marco. He smiled, and laughed. “Oranges. I haven’t had them in years. I didn’t know you could even grow them this far out.” Kat didn’t know what oranges smelled like, but she guessed they coulda smelled like spaceship hallways. She shrugged. “Sure,” she said, “I smell oranges. Let’s get out of here.” “No!” said Marco. “I gotta have those oranges!” She grabbed Marco’s arm. He was shivering. His pupils were dilated and empty. “Are you high?” she said. Marco laughed, then he punched her in the jaw. Her head cracked against the wall. She saw spots, and smelled the iron-tang of blood. Gilroy shouted something, and she heard the clank-clank-clank of boots running away down the ship’s hallways. “YOU loving, YOU- poo poo,” said Gilroy. Kat felt somebody pulling her up. She opened her eyes. Everything was spinning. The smell of blood was overpowering, but she was happy to see there wasn’t a lot of it on the walls. She ran her fingers through her hair, and they didn’t come back as red and sticky as she’d feared. “You alright?” said Gilroy. She took a deep breath, and nodded. “Gotta g’mrco” she mumbled. The con wouldn’t work without him, after all. She took a moment to regain her composure, then radioed the Hebe. She began to speak, then realised there was no connection – only static. By the look on his face, Gilroy had figured out the same thing. They staggered back to the airlock, Gilroy with his arm around a limping Kat. She tried to access the holo-interface, but the doors stayed resolutely shut. The off-centre crack between them seemed to sneer at her. The smell of blood was overpowering now. Could she have internal bleeding in her brain? If that was the case, she was a dead woman walking. It didn’t seem like such a little punch could do that, but human beings were terrifyingly fragile things. “Get me to the bridge,” she said. “Can probably crack into the ship’s systems from there; surely somebody left a terminal open.” “Aye,” said Gilroy. “Looks like the crew here left in a hurry. Bridge it is.” He drew the gun.They didn’t actually have any bullets, but a fake-policeman needed a gun on his hip. It’s little details like that that tend to trip people up. You could walk in with a full cardboard uniform and nobody would notice, but God help you if you got the shoulder-insignia wrong. She leaned on her boss, and they staggered up the polished hallways. The only sounds were their boots, and her heavy breathing, and static on the comms. *** The elevators were off, so they had to take the winding stairs up the bridge. There were smears of fresh blood on the wall here. Very fresh – Marco’s? She thought the idiot was clean, but apparently not. Once a junkie, always a junkie. Up and up they went, and the rank smell of blood cloaked everything: too much smell, not enough blood. “You smell that?” said Gilroy. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s horrible.” He looked confused. “Yeah,” he said. “H-horrible. That’s it. What was I thinking. It reeks. It’s like rotten butter.” “Butter?” “Yeah, butter?” Well, she didn’t know what butter smelled like either. A rich man’s food and no doubt. Gilroy had been military, and army lads got fed better than kings. What if must have been like, to go back to civilian life. The stairs planed off. The doors ahead of them lay wide open. As they approached, Marco leapt at them. Kat and Gilroy both fell back against the wall. Marco stood over them. “It’s beautiful,” he said. He grabbed a nearby i-beam, and rammed his forehead against it. Bones shattered with a wet crack. “Beautiful.” he muttered. He leant back. Gilroy stood to stop him, but he wasn’t fast enough: Marco smashed his head against the wall one last time, then slumped and went still. “Jesus loving Christ,” said Gilroy. “Holy loving, I mean, - gently caress.” “Yessir,” said Kat. “We are in accord.” She stood and brushed herself off. Marco had left a slick grey-red mess on the wall. His skull lay open like some grotesque bone flower. They stood a moment in silence, then moved on. There was nothing else to do. *** The bridge was practically stoneage tech -- still running on some old Window OS. She’d never seen anything like it before, but she had a knack for these things. The network’s secrets unfolded before her. The logs were standard up until two days prior, when they picked up a floating object in space. CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE. SCANS NOTE POTENTIAL BIOLOGICAL ELEMENTS; REACTS TO WATER LIKE IT’S ORGANIC. EQUIPMENT ONBOARD NOT UP TO THE TASK: KEEP IN HOLD. SURELY SOMEBODY WILL PAY FOR IT. and then nothing. Empty logs. The automated systems registered escape pods leaving and -- The world was blood -- the reek of it, the play of it across uncut skin. She cried out. She wasn’t on the bridge any more. She was floating, and something hung above her. It was different, though the word hardly does it justice: it was totally different in ways we have no words for, because we spent words like “totally” and “different” on cheap imitations. It was other, weird, alien, unknown and unknowable. And she realised it wasn’t blood. It was speaking to her, in its own language. Blood was a word, though she didn’t know what it meant. Oranges were a word. Butter was a word. It wasn’t malevolent, but it was con dused it was lost it was not In its rightful place it was be autiful it was awesome as God is awe some it was terrific in that it brought terror it was panic in that it was like Pan -- truly alive, and terrified Lashing out and Gilroy shook her awake. The world around her smelled of metal and grease, with touches of disinfectant. It smelled of nothing. You cannot thrust somebody into God’s light, then cast them back down to earth. She screamed, and there was something heavy in her hand, and there was the rich, beautiful reek of blood as she brought it down on Gilroy’s head again and again For a moment, she could touch heaven. She smiled. A nearby radio crackled to life. “This is Hebe,” it said. “We sent crew aboard, but have had no contact. Unknown vessel, do you read? We’re sending another crew aboard. Please open your airlock or we will be forced to blade-dock.” Kat staggered to her feet, and to the ship’s ancient controls. She smiled, and picked up the microphone.
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May 1, 2017 04:59
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you know those pictures where a dude's face is photoshopped so it's melting into his cellphone, then your aunt shares it on facebook like ***IT MAKES YOU THINK!!1*** please don't be like that this week if it becomes lovely Black Mirror week I will come to your houses and poo poo in places you will never find
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May 2, 2017 01:40
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gently caress this poo poo don't do it, you're better than that
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May 2, 2017 01:41
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 17:49 |
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Ironic Twist posted:thank you, Muffin
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May 2, 2017 10:08
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