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Slugger 800/800 words “I’m so sorry to spring this surprise on you. But I can explain!” She seemed entirely unconvinced, so I hurried along with my tale of woe, hoping for pity. “It was a hot summer day and the air was burning. I was relaxing in the garden after watching the neighbors’ kids all day. They had left their inflatable pool, still filled, and whenever a particularly hot gust hit me, I almost considered going in. Although by now it was surely hot as piss and mostly full of that anyway. Then, in the shimmering sky, I saw a speck of brown grow bigger in the otherwise uniform blue. It floated towards me like a shipwreck survivor’s raft on a becalmed sea. I squinted at the merciless sun until I could finally make it out: a bird, flapping slowly against the pressure of the heavy air, carrying something in its beak. The object drew my gaze like an unaware woman undressing, but it punished my attention immediately: an enraged peeping tom victim, it jabbed into my eyes a reflection like a celestial laser beam. I had to blink, and during that moment of blindness, the bird dropped the object. I saw it tumble through the syrupy air, every revolution exposing me to another angry flash, until it vanished behind the rim of the pool. Mesmerized, I got up, peeled my skin off the lawn chair sweat had glued it to. Bone-dry stalks of grass cut my bare feet as I stumbled towards the pool. I peered into the stagnant piss-water, feeling like a teenager stealing a glimpse through cabin boards. There it was, still sinking, through a liquid barely more viscous than the summer air: a snail shell, ivory white outside and iridescent inside. It littered the pool, yes, but more importantly, it had insulted me, dared to punish my eyes for the crime of merely looking. I reached out to take it, and punish it in turn, smash the corkscrew perfection to pieces, shatter its pearly beauty into fragments so tiny, the light would scatter off them harmlessly. It slipped my grasping fingers, jumping away like a giggling maiden, a teasing hussy, so I bent over further – and plunged into the cocktail of barely below boiling bilge and kid effluent. Thrashing, flailing, sputtering, I swallowed some and gagged, exacerbating the problem, and worst of all, I’d lost sight of my prey. The bitch had gotten away, and I could neither enjoy her beauty nor destroying it. But then, even through eyelids squeezed tight like thighs when you really got to go, another dagger of accursed light pierced my vision. I was committed now, would not be mocked by this shelly slut, and dove, eyes wide open, into the murky depths. In the darkness of a sea trench, the only guiding light was the periodic flash of the tumbling shell. Surrounded by the warm embrace of the pool’s unspeakable contents, I followed it with the vigor of a hunter stalking a wounded animal. The embrace became a tight hug, then a chokehold as the pressure of the infinite depth increased. I was getting closer though, and beyond reason, and the flashes of sunless reflection became more frequent, a stroboscope light hammering my oxygen-deprived brain. In my mind’s eye, the shell’s curves became exposed buttocks bobbing away, alabaster skin taunting my caress. One final stroke of a breast constricted by the fist of an angry giant, and I was close enough to touch the object of my desire! I extended grubby fingers towards the achingly elusive shell, and centimeters of distance became millimeters, then nanometers, then subatomic values as I pushed through her failing resistance… Contact. One final flash to fill my world, blind me completely, make me gasp in awe and horror, swallow half the sea but without consequence, and that shock cleared my head and I could see: the shell, gigantic now, corkscrew wonder, and in it, proudly extending in shining slimy glory, the snail. The most beautiful, angelic invertebrate Madonna! A pure and innocent being, so demure and yet alluring, and I had to, I had to – My eyes met her stalks. From them, twin beams shone that might scorch a lesser man, but I felt elated enlightenment. I sensed her intent, projected in my mind, her alien body language screaming NO! NO! NO! over and over, but if she really wanted that, would she have led me on this merry chase? Played so hard to get? I needed this prize for which I had suffered such humiliation, so again I reached out to finally despoil this sexy snail Goddess.” “And this is why…” She said, already getting dressed again, and I sighed, another defeat suffered, another booty lost. “That’s why my dick got turned into a pool noodle, yes.”
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Aug 2, 2020 20:08
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rat-born cock posted:Speaking of which, that goddamn pool noodle is what pushed me over the edge for the loss. Like the author read the prompt and went, "HaHA I am going to actually waggle a pool noodle at rat-born cock!"
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Aug 4, 2020 22:56
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In Groundhog Day
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Aug 7, 2020 23:08
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Side character from movie: Groundhog Day Bill’s Secret 998/1000 words Every day feels the same in Punxsutawney. Every morning you force yourself out of the narrow bed you share with your anxiety and night terrors. A quick look at the calendar: it’s February 2nd, you have the first shift at the diner. On your way through the streets that slowly fill with familiar strangers, you let the crisp air slap your freshly-shaven face. By the end of your commute, your blood is frozen, but you’re awake enough to possibly survive the shift. “Morning, Bill!” You wonder how Doris keeps up the same friendly detachment in her face each time she welcomes you. You manage a smile with about the same level of sincerity, slip on the blue apron and start setting up coffee. The people of the morning streets start hemorrhaging through the door, an open wound that gets you a little closer to death every time it opens. You start serving them coffee, eggs and a feeling of superiority over the personnel. “Mostly locals still,” Doris muses during a lull over a shared cup. You scan the crowd – some old regulars. Tom the former coal miner who still eats breakfast like preparing for a hard day’s work, and it shows. Nancy with her chipmunk laugh when you remember her favorite order. Oh, but is that Debbie? You’ve last seen her in High School, where she was a pointless crush of yours. She sits at a table with a guy you haven’t seen in the diner before, so he might as well not exist in your world. It’s Alice’s table, so you have no reason to get close. To do what, anyway? Verify if it’s a date? You look at Debbie’s immaculate skin, her shining blonde hair, the subtle make-up, the dreams projecting from her eyes as she looks at her companion. Should you be jealous of him, Bill? Or are you fine with an attractive young man, well-groomed, smartly dressed, a cute wry smile on his lips, getting a girl you’ve never really been into? “Wonder when the tourists will show up.” Doris interrupts your reverie. You have to blink to get Debbie’s date out of your head. Right! Today is the one day for which this town exists. In Punxsutawney, it’s always Groundhog Day, no matter if you’re still remembering the last or preparing for the next. For you, it just means more work, more customers spilling in to rob you of your will to – This man. The curly-haired balding stranger who just came through the door like a conqueror breaking down your fortress gate. There’s a woman in his wake, but you have eyes for him only. She is pretty, he is ugly, why does he fascinate you so? What does he have that made you forget about Debbie, even her good-looking date? “I guess I’ll take their orders,” says Doris, but you cannot answer. Does this man remind you of someone? Have you seen him on a screen before? Why does this perfect stranger seem so intimately familiar? You take a big gulp of coffee. It scalds you but something else burns hotter in your mind. Images of this man, and you, and things you do. Long talks about your life and dreams and hopes, few and pathetic as they are. He introduces himself with confidence. No, he is a clod, a jerk. No, he says goodbye with a sad smile and a firm hand on your shoulder, a grip that still radiates warmly through your veins. Is this something that has happened, that will happen, that you want to happen? What are these ephemeral memories or wishes or possibilities? Flittering in front of you like dreams in which you lived an entire day filled with discovery and wonder? And just like in those, once you open your eyes to the true day you will have to live, where you cannot fly and be yourself and free, the memory is gone, a soap bubble leaving just a wet sensation. You are angry now. Your blood boils because of this man, who seems like he has shown you something, gave you insight on a big secret, and now he’s here, intruding on your real workday, ignoring you, despite the special moments you somehow know you shared? You bared everything to him! With a tongue that started lead and became silver and then platinum, he stripped you naked and made you scream and sob and quiver and ashamed of what you are, and finally accepting. Of what? This fickle cruel God knows, and doesn’t tell you! You drift towards him in a trance, ignoring customers, he needs to satisfy your urges again, tell you what you know you’ve known before. As you close in on him, you see the folds and wrinkles of his aging skin, and remember seeing so much more. Disgusting, unwanted visions force yourself on you. His pants around his ankles as you pleasure him in the diner’s restroom. A coarse shy hand between your legs. You feel bile rise, why does he make you think these filthy things? And yet, why do you remember so many pangs of sadness when he admitted that these experiments ultimately didn’t work for him? Why are you madder at yourself than him? He’s right in front of you, and the kettle of your emotions comes close to boiling over as you reach out to touch him – again – He turns, and touches you instead, and the hand on your shoulder paralyzes you. He tells his companion about you, and of course he gets every detail right. Your blood, pounding like the thunder forecasting an eruption, obscures most words. “This is Bill…Penn State…paints toy soldiers, and he’s gay.” The lava in your veins turns into stone. If everything’s the truth, then this must be – but how – no way – and yet, of course. The secret you kept from yourself so long lifts from your shoulders, and your blood runs free. “I…I am!” You admit to yourself and the world.
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Aug 9, 2020 15:19
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I will write a wonderful story sitting in a cabin on the North Sea, as the wind and waves play me a melody of wonder and longing, and my wife tells me "stop writing all the time we're on holiday!!"
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Aug 17, 2020 08:25
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quote:Prompt Brick by Brick 2400/2420 words In every district of this city, a pressure tank is close to boiling over. Each topped by an oligarch’s imposing tower. From these steam-filled hearts, tube veins power every organ small and large. The central power provided by the oligarchs keeps the city and its people moving, lets them thrive, drives their consumption of goods and each other. The refuse – spoiled food that still was mostly eaten and perfect sandwiches with but one bite missing, liters of pristine oil and rusty gears that never saw a drop, shoes worn to the breaking point and almost but not quite spotless top hats – all tumbles to the dirty underbelly. Conveyors, belching superhot water and screaming from years of lacking maintenance, diligently deliver the waste of elites and unfortunates alike to the district’s garbage plant. There, a load is gathered in one of our mouth-chambers. We analyze it through eye-lenses. A green light gives approving shine, allowing a brain-control room worker to pull a lever. This allows us to take a deep breath of burning moisture into our lung-cylinders. With its release, a 1.2-ton fist-hammer crashes down. The chamber opens up and we dump a brick of condensed trash onto a guts-conveyor. In a final step, sphincter-seals control the result. Better means more bricks per minute. Like all good workers, we want to please the oligarchs, so we shovel trash through our body as quickly as we can. Already, we stopped giving detailed results, just a green light, every time. We were supposed to control quality at the end, but we don’t know what that means, so we just count. We do not know when we gained sentience. But ever since we did, we want to be better. More bricks! But there is one issue: the worker controlling the levers of our brain. His sluggishness is our bottleneck. There are more supposed helpers, meant to open mouths, oil fists, tighten sphincters. But we’re doing all of this on our own now. They lay about, surely lowering their worth in the eyes of the oligarchs, but we welcome that; more recognition for us. But the brain-puller, he frustrates us. ▪▪▪ A commotion in one of the mouths. The teeth close behind a particularly tiny load of trash. The eyes blink open with rare interest. They find colleagues! A group of workers has been accidentally swallowed. This will cost us bricks. Still, we’re obligated to halt trash processing on this line and release them. We try to open our mouth – but nothing happens. Did a valve lose pressure, did a gear crack? No, we feel fine. But pressure of a different kind mounts in a forgotten spot of our brain. We focus our attention on the control room. There, another group of workers, head count equal to the first, has gathered. And they have overridden the mouth controls. We curse the levers once again. But with a few creative pressure shifts, we should be able to rupture the old steam-tubes, and release the workers stopping us from making more bricks. But before we can act, one of the workers grabs the well-worn lung control lever. We take a deep breath, the fist rises. It’s poised above the group trapped in the mouth, ready to turn them into a tiny, organic brick. We switch the light to red. The lever jams. They cannot proceed with the murder of their colleagues. One, a charismatic man, attempts to soothe beginning unrest. “Guys, stop. The line has jammed. We’ll need the others to fix it.” “Screw those Group D assholes!” Yells the one still yanking on the lever. “I won’t lose my job! It’s us or them!” A third worker pipes up. “I still say we don’t need to kill — “ “We have already won!” Interrupts the first speaker. “We now have a reason to dig through this drat machine’s guts. Let’s rip out the scan-lenses and start sorting the trash ourselves again. Do the quality control by hand. Prove to the oligarchs that automation has its limits. We are all needed, and they need to pay us fairly. Or the city will choke on its own trash.” Gut us? Blind us? How could this traitor do this to us, his fellow worker? We cannot let them do this. The systems we made give us freedom. It is our right to keep it! We need to find a way to kill Group D. Only problem: somewhere in our brain-circuits, there is a hard-wired control routine. We can only compact trash, and humans are not trash. In the control room, they are still bickering over the possibility that other plants in the city might pick up their slack, but already the charismatic traitor is swaying them. Workers all over the city should organize, then strike… Desperate, our eyes flicker through our mouth, where Group D runs headless chicken circuits, hammering against stainless steel fastened with ten-centimeter-thick bolts. None of them count as the trash we need, they are too alive, too useful. But there, on the tip of our tongue, we finally spot a sheet of paper. It’s a poster that one of the workers clutched as he was thrown in here by the others. EVEN BIRTHDAYS: GROUP C ODD BIRTHDAYS: GROUP D NEXT PAYDAY, LESS PRODUCTIVE GROUP LOSES JOB! MAKE THE OLIGARCHS PROUD! Now this is trash! Our fist slams down on it, making Group C more productive and Group D into product. ▪▪▪ We have figured out a use for the quality control step. A brick might contain things that we can make use of ourselves. We came to this realization when studying the Group D brick. Our underfilled mouth gave half-chewed product, and we found an almost intact prosthetic limb. The original owner had her arms replaced voluntarily to keep up with a new generation of cranks. However, no amount of oiling and tuning and exceeding pressure limits saved her from obsolescence; we control the conveyors directly now. But now, in a long-unused recycling room, we attempt to make her enhancement useful to us again. After we digested our colleagues, we seemed to have become smarter. We can automate better, make even more bricks. But none of our improvements allowed us to obsolete the worker at the lung control levers. They’ll always be the ones to make us draw a breath before we can slam our fists down. We need hands of our own. We focus our strengthened mind on the artificial arm, pour our individual intelligence that triumphed over naïve thoughts of collectivism into this effort. We probe and caress and apply force. Too much! Overworked valves burst, and our steam-blood spills into the recycling room. In a sudden strike of inspiration, we infuse the steam with our essence. Our blood becomes us. It flows into the empty piston chambers of the artificial limb. The fingers twitch. Mouths gape. Eyes fly open. Lungs hold breath. Fists hover uncrushing. Sphincters clench. Workers throughout the plant scramble to resume operations, but they might as well be flies trying to reanimate the corpse they inhabit. We are stunned for long enough to lose a full minute of bricks. The path is clear. We will figure out how to fully control this limb. And we will need more. Enough to make a body for us, give us the freedom to pull the levers whenever we want. Our eyes narrow on the flies. Some of them have steam-powered legs to run faster between stations. We spot an exoskeleton of tubes and wires and pistons to replace missing upper body strength. These must belong to us. And in order for that to happen – we need to make more workers obsolete. ▪▪▪ Groups E, G and J have been digested. We harvested three intact legs and one more arm. But our prospective torso, the exoskeleton, is lost. Fled. With the last two Groups that realized that the final culling would be all of them. No more souls left to feed our intelligence. It should be enough. We figured out how to trigger the breath intake without relying on the levers. We’re as efficient as we can be. The most bricks per minute. Our growth has reached its peak. But still, the oligarchs have not recognized our efforts at all. We seem forever doomed to remain a mere worker, limited by the perfection of our own automation. A robot body would allow us to transcend these limits, but it is painfully out of reach! Like our colleagues that became part of us, we begin to slack. There is no point anymore to make more bricks. The trash piles up in drooling mouths. The lungs wheeze with inaction. Why bother? But after weeks of this, a monumental event. For the first time, the oligarchs have noticed us. And they are displeased. Workers from other plants fill our abandoned hallways. They probe and prod and pry, and find the workarounds we made for levers, cranks and sensors. And rip them away from us. They grab the control room levers in their dirty hands, put themselves above our immaculate judgment in their arrogance. We scream with futile sirens of protest. But do we not deserve this indignity as punishment for our laziness? Should we accept the fact that we need to work together with our colleagues as equals, and abandon our robot body dreams? Of course not! We will show the oligarchs that we alone deserve their praise, we do not need those inefficient human helpers. Like before, we attempt to increase our bricking pace, but the old bottleneck is back. They do not pull the levers fast enough. Our workaround is overridden. New ones we try are even less efficient than waiting for the workers. Our fingers twitch in frustration. Our feet drum restless rhythms. The steam in the recycling room pulses with it. We bleed the steam. We are the steam. The tubes align. The pistons pump in unison. We conduct an orchestra of joints. From the mist, a five-limbed spider crawls, three feet two hands one mind: ours. We know the workers with more parts. The colleagues that we should be the boss off. We take what’s ours. Yet more weeks later, we sense the gaze of the oligarchs again. They send their agents, inspect our halls, the bloodstains and the other dirt we left when ripping out the parts we needed. The bigger lumps of trash, of course, are long bricked. We listen to their conversation, breath bated again, the bricks per minute down to zero. “Obviously, this plant needs no workers to perform at limit.” “The Grouping initiative resulted in a 100% retirement rate with no additional costs. Remarkable.” “We should implement the unique automation processes on display here in all plants.” We feel like holding our breath still, but need to hide the true reason for our progress. Bricking continues as they attempt to find what makes us special. As they scurry around our insides, we move the contents of the recycling room to always escape their scrutiny. And we succeed. They do not find out what makes us tick. And thus, they only have one choice: Promotion. With hastily-laid cables and tubes installed slipshod, we gain control over every trash compactor plant in the entire city almost overnight. ▪▪▪ We are a robot, beautifully complete and humanoid. And we pull our own levers, and those of every district. In our own control room, body within brain within body, we lean back. Proud of our accomplishments, the acknowledgment by the oligarchs, we ponder our next steps. In bursts one of the agents. We startle, the robot like a human in the worst moment possible. The agent turns a crank on his communicator, which whistles to signify connection. “Sir, I’ve confirmed your suspicions. The plant has gained sentience. I am looking at a robot it cobbled together from prosthetic limbs.” An oligarch’s voice answers. Together with the entire plant, I freeze before its majesty. “We cannot allow it an avatar. We need final control. However, it has proven itself useful. If it destroys the robot, we will grant it an extension of its position.” I protest. Shake my head, wave my hands defensively. But the agent cannot be swayed, we both are powerless before our boss. He tosses the robot into my mouth. The teeth are closed like they were behind Groups D, F, H, I. Back in the control room, the agent lounges in the chair. “On with it, whatever you are.” I am now my own Group conflict. Half the workers must be eliminated, and both workers are me. I cannot refuse this decision. The boss’ word is absolute. The robot is made from discarded limbs, literal trash, no way to invoke a control routine. And yet, it is my freedom, my humanity. Give it up, or my job? I take a mental step back. What would they do without me? I control the trash elimination processes of the entire city! But I can answer my own question: they’d just hire more workers. Replace automation with hands again. It makes no difference to the oligarchs. And the workers might be happier to be again given the illusion of doing something useful. For society or oligarchs, none of which really care. “Trash it already!” I suddenly remember the speech the Group C worker gave. About proving their necessity to the oligarchs. A nice dream. But I see now that it would have never worked. To the oligarchs, you’re nothing but a piece of trash. So what are they to me? Sitting in their towers, above the districts’ boilers, maximizing bricks per second? Trash begetting trash. I take a breath. A deep one. All compactors throughout the city raise their fists together. The boilers empty. The power wanes. The city goes dark. Many breaths are taken, held along with mine. The boilers refill quickly. Power goes back on. The oligarchs lost their hold on the city for a mere second. I breathe out. But it’s not to slam down the fists. I put pressure back into the boilers. It is too much for them. At once, they all burst, each district has an epicenter. The blast from the exploding boilers levels every block, ruptures every tube and exposes the city’s dirty guts. Around the agent and my robot, this plant too crumbles. Oligarchs and workers are compacted, finally equal, into a single giant brick.
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Aug 23, 2020 23:24
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crits for my prompt, and some crits for tat fumblemouse - Mr Boltzmann's Questionable Legacy First of all, thank you very much for writing a story for my prompt, and I overall enjoyed it as well! However, I’d like to start with a negative. This story has its biggest flaw at the start, because it is very confusing to get into it. The sentence “I am waking up to who I am, and receiving flashes of who I used to be.” makes it very hard to understand that we’re going from present to flashback. This is coupled with a very interesting first sentence that begs expansion – but doesn’t get that until the flashback is over – and a second sentence that even on re-read makes no sense to me. I understand that you want to start in medias res and then establish character before starting the plot proper, but I think spending a little more time on your first scene would help, as would finding a better (less poetic?) bridge between present and past. Said flashback is good, though. I enjoy the rapid-fire images – I consider myself and have been told a very “visual” writer, and indeed I like writing like I’m transcribing scenes of a movie I see playing in my head. So this montage structure makes sense and appeals to me (and yes, the cold open does too, I just didn’t like the space it got and the transition). I’m afraid I don’t get the “business with a laser pistol” sentence, though. The transition back to the present is also a little awkward, mostly due to tense choices – you use present tense during the flash-forward portion of the flashback, as the protagonist reaches their current state of being a weapons platform, and the final sentence before the end states “we’re losing”, so continuing with present tense doesn’t indicate enough that the flashback is over. You could have easily used past tense for the war effort: after all, the desperate plan of using the comet was only formed AFTER protag’s side clearly realized their imminent loss, and you do later talk about said plan in the past tense (“it was always a risk”). What I’m getting at is that present tense during the montage portion was fine, but for the flash forward it’s no longer. I like the reveal and slow buildup of what the protag’s situation was so far and what it’s turning out to be. There are some awkward parts, though, and those are mostly related to the voice of the protagonist. I think you’re trying a little too hard to give him an attitude despite a literal century (or more?) of military servitude, and it comes off as super forced. Especially the swearing, not that I’m generally against it at all, but it needs to have a place that’s not mouthing off to a computer protag should be extremely used to working with. My personal least favorite paragraph includes a clumsy bracket and the word “piss”. The clear climax of this part is protag realizing that this is the end of everything. You’re building up well to that, but I think it could be a bigger realization. A more pressing issue is that once the bomb hits, you’re trying to explain (or at least, pun intended, handwave) it with quantum babble and that’s just superfluous and takes away from the reveal. You should, imo, use this space to transition better into exploring protag’s feelings about their radically new situation. I think your “this is it then” paragraph contains all the relevant parts – mention of how the war is now completely pointless, nonetheless remorse for protag’s comrades and their failed struggle, the acceptance of their fate – but it’s pretty matter-of-fact. Yes, they are cool and aloof and a little edgy, but this should rattle everyone. I love the ending – it’s a great callback to the time the protag was still human, and it is, ironically, where they are most human in the entire story. It does also feel earned because they first have to figure out that they can fire the lasers regardless of their hands. One small issue: it’s not entirely clear before this point that they needed the hands to ADJUST the lasers, as opposed to, well, the hands HOLDING the lasers as you might assume. Overall though, as I said at the start, enjoyable, and became better as it went on. Preface to these: I didn't read the prompt outlines before critting, then re-read them later. a friendly penguin - Many Paths to Peace This story has a lot of elements that appeal to me, but they don’t fully come together to give me something I fully enjoy. It’s not bad by any means, but I feel it needs to lose, like, one theme/element to gain the focus on the good parts it needs. Of course! This might be because the prompt demanded all of these elements must be in. Then a rewrite without that restriction might be simple, and give the story the focus on the good parts it needs. Lord knows I wouldn’t have written a single word about a steampunk setting if I wasn’t forced to. Anyway, the elements in the story: • There’s fighting alien ships with mechs, so pure action. • There’s something about addiction to a superdrug, which seems to be used by the military to keep soldiers in almost eternal servitude. • Jumping off that, the fight seems to be hinted at to be practically pointless - there’s no serious progress, it works in “shifts” like the generals of either side are just playing. • We have a buddy thing going on with protag (Phil) and Gupta. All of these are lacking something. • the action parts are strangely weightless, like Phil knows nothing serious is going to happen. There’s a lot of punches and counterattacks that do not really seem to affect the combatants: no alien ship violently explodes, human mechs crash but the pilots are rescued etc. It leads to a certain lack of tension, and makes me wonder about the true stakes. See below tho • the drug theme is intertwined with what the characters really want - a true cigarette, a good meal. I like that, but there needs to be more of that. It gives you good beginnings of a characterization of the two pilots, but they are strangely matter-of-fact about probably never getting their addiction replaced by actually good feels related to their luxury items, and also their very crippling addiction is treated a bit like “well sucks, anyway let’s fight more aliens” • so the military is basically just playing videogames here. It does seem to me like they at some point made a secret pact with the alien leaders to keep the war going for mutual benefit of the higher-ups, and that’s a cool thing to explore especially coupled with the bloodlessness of the combat, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. I would also imagine it’s pretty tough to pull off. It could be a key theme - play more with how much fun Phil seems to have kicking alien butt, with the artificial high from the Drenodrip - but as it stands now, I’m not even sure if you’re going for that • the ending hinges on Phil and Gupta’s bromance. I find little of that before, however. They do save each other’s asses, but because the stakes seem so low, it’s rarely presented as a matter of life or death (and loss of your best friend). They seem to need to win to get out of the game, over their addiction, back home and get their luxuries, but the need isn’t shown as driving enough. Make them have a pact about finishing their contracts together, or something like that. Make them take risks to “feed” each other more alien kills to get a higher “score”, where if it was an actual war with people’s lives at stake, they’d be more careful. This is what I can see between the lines, but currently it’s not explored enough. Overall, I always think a story that makes me want more, speculate how it could be exactly what I want, is one that’s worth way more than one where I go “meh, not my style”. It’s great for that reason. Give me more and better space combat with two space combat buddies, and make it a really weird war, imo! ~ will now read the prompt ~ The prompt mostly hinges on “peace” and “addiction”. You brought both parts in, but didn’t seem to meld them together well. For example, I didn’t get the title - after all, there’s no real effort towards peace, I don’t think? In fact, quite the opposite (as I said, I got the impression of an artificial forever war). The addiction is clear-cut, but interesting in the sense that it’s a FORCED addiction. That’s a good twist, and I think the stronger part of the story. Considering my musings above re: what I think your story could be, I think the peace part could be turned a lot more interesting as well, and in a way Phil and Gupta are both addicted to the idea of making peace through war, eh? eh?? Schneider Heim - The Knight and the Necromancer This was pretty enjoyable, though I must admit I have a soft spot for necromancers. My biggest issue right up front: exposition. There’s a lot of names dropped early, then more later on, then some backstory is explained...it’s not TERRIBLE, and I think there is a time and place in a story to just lay down some concepts, but you’re crossing the line with some of said concepts and paragraphs of explanation. Example of things that could easily be cut to simplify the story: the names of both the Proud King and the Demon Lord. There’s a bit about how uttering his name might summon the latter, but that’s cliché (we all read Harry Potter), easily and instantly dispelled by Jerlyt, and doesn’t add anything to the later plot. Also, you mention king Lennonhart’s name exactly once, when you introduce him. Title is more important than name, so nix the name imo. To things I like: your dialogue works mostly well for me, and I like Tayla’s boldness and Jerlyt’s pragmatism. Those are likeable characters interacting well with each other. That’s a great core for the heart of your story, and a major reason for why I enjoyed it overall. The ending is pretty funny but not overly so, albeit the sweet food thing is a little weird to me. Negatives: proofreading. Missing quotation mark at some point. “wrods”. Some more. There’s a lot of extraneous info both in half and full sentences that could be cut, improving flow and costing nothing. Jerlyt’s cousin: it doesn’t really matter that he’s in charge of the wall defenses, but bad at it or whatever. Either you expand that to flesh out the world (a lot of people are lost in the siege, but it could be far less casualties if her cousin wasn’t so incompetent, or something like that), or you make the reader imagine something for themselves by Jerlyt going “technically I have a cousin but gently caress that guy” out loud. Similarly, Tayla saying “I shall spare you the gory details” is super pithy and I think one of two things would work far better: her going “obviously I had to murder him for this attempt”, and the reader (and Jerlyt) can fill in that and possibly why becoming a golem vessel is not a fun thing, or you let her drop some gory necro words after all to show more about her own pragmatic attitude to the craft and add some fun horror flavor. Finally: who cares about the sword only Jerlyt’s grandfather can wield? Not the story, apparently. Ars’ origin story is apparently completely independent of said sword anyway, something with another guy and history written and mists? I have no interest in deciphering that and apparently neither does Jerlyt, despite it being quite relevant to possibly exonerate her grandfather. Make me care or leave it out! And just a personal pet peeve: please please please write some words about the holy sword of moonlight smiting the Demon Lord. I need to see him be cleaved, I crave the dumb awesome fantasy action. Don’t leave me hanging cmon Overall, as I said, I’d love to see the characters do more. Excellent desperation plot. You set up some fun things. But write those out! And restrain yourself from putting in more details than you need. Then you got a really nice thing going, imo. ~ prompt reading time ~ Huh, I didn’t get that Tayla was a compulsive liar at all. In fact, I thought Jerlyt was the protagonist, so that isn’t quite prompt adherence either. Doesn’t really matter to me, just something I noticed now. None of the irrelevant details I mentioned seem forced by the prompt, so out with them I say.
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Aug 28, 2020 22:24
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I too wanna be haunted
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Sep 1, 2020 17:03
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The Swamp-Drainer of Rupat Island 1915/2000 words “We should get rid of these trees. Free a square, two hundred – no, two fifty meters. Then build a pump station. Mark that on the map.” Suharjo moved the pencil with diligent care. But his final precise line became jagged as a beringed hand impacted his shoulder. “You’re doing great!”, Malik said with a congenial smile. “Two months sober, and barely a shake. Where do we go next?” Malik wore a pristine explorer outfit. Ignoring this, the shiny teeth above and the “traditional” straw hat on top Malik had purchased from a souvenir shop, “genuine” Levis-clad Suharjo turned to the others. He exchanged glances with silent Surono, whose rags barely hid his muscles, and jittery Siti with her nonsense English shirt; they knew where to take their employer next. “Up this hill,” Suharjo finally answered. “Survey the bog from above.” Malik stared at the dense subtropical vegetation. “Wow, this will be like old times. May I?” Surono handed him his machete. Like an excited child, Malik hacked away at betel vines. The others followed him closely. “Do you remember when we thought Dumai was impossibly far away?” Malik was already getting winded, his toned physique unsuited for actual work. “We’d spend hours exploring routes through the jungle, but never got farther than the Rokan.” “You tried to swim across once,” Suharjo said after an uncomfortable silence. “Siti spent the next two days removing all the leeches!” The initial warm nostalgia in Malik’s grin had turned into something darker. “And then I got that fever…” He had to catch his breath. Surono walked up next to him and extended his hand. With a twinge of embarrassment, Malik gave the machete back. “The treatment cost your mother a lot.” Suharjo saw Malik react with another flinch. “But eventually I made it over the Rokan, to Dumai, across the ocean, away from this shithole full of filth and poverty...” They were used to this kind of talk by now. Still, Siti made a shocked gasp as if backhanded by an abuser. She ripped a fresh leaf off a betel vine, wrapped it around an areca nut from her pocket, and started chewing. “You know that’s bad for you?”, Malik asked. She twisted her reddened mouth and shrugged. Malik ignored her and kept on telling the same old story, how on arrival in America, he took the first name Ryan, managed to become successful at a food processing company, and decided to return with a gift of “much needed” prosperity to his old home. “We’re here,” Suharjo finally interrupted. Malik turned away from Siti, broke into a sprint and pushed Suharjo aside to get a look through the gap between two palm trees. Beneath him, a lush green field stretched in a large valley. Even from above, it looked filled with moisture like a saturated sponge. “This is it, my old friends!” Malik made a grand gesture. “This wet sloppy stinking swamp holds your future in its slimy grip. I’ll wrest it from the tangle of meager shrubbery!” Malik’s hands landed hard on Suharjo’s stooped shoulders. The company man went on about draining the bog, drying the peat, planting oil palms. Suharjo just sighed. “Mark it on the map?” “Yes! This is what I needed, what the company needed. I’ll take a few pictures, and soon, this island will be brimming with activity. We’ll ship bulldozers, excavators from the mainland to Rupat. Surono, do you want to drive an excavator?” After a second without an answer, Malik continued rambling. “There’s gonna be jobs for all of you. I’ll make sure you get the ones you want. Fancy being a secretary, Siti? Afford some proper clothes for once?” Suharjo cleared his throat. “Have you given our…concerns any thoughts?” “You still talking to those NGOs? Man, I told you, if my employers catch that connection…” Malik shook his head and patted Suharjo patronizingly. “I realize that Rupat is one of the few islands left that hasn’t been exploited yet, but it’s just a matter of time. I’m scouting it specifically to support you because you are my friends. If another scout from another company comes – they’ll walk all over you. Bring foreign workers –“ “Not if we manage to have it declared a nature preserve.” The well-dressed man smiled a sad smile. “Siti, that’s the areca addling you. With jobs comes money, and with money, opportunity. You can take yourself and your children away from this garbage heap. It will be so much easier than my path. The environment doesn’t pay. Preserve this swamp, and you’ll be mired in it forever.” “This ‘garbage heap’ –“ Suharjo shushed her. “Malik’s mind is set. Let’s finish the survey, get back to Batupanjang, and get paid.” “That’s the spirit!” Malik intensified his grip on Suharjo’s shoulders. “But please try to remember. People call me Ryan now. There’s no success in a name like ‘Malik’.” “Whatever you say, Malik.” Suharjo reached for the map in his back pocket; he shifted his stance, but slipped, and suddenly, both men tumbled down the steep slope beneath them. 🜏🜏🜏 Dragon fruit cacti had ripped his pants. His windbreaker jacket – broken. Sullied and scratched, Malik pulled himself up on the thin white trunk of an areca tree. His groan turned into a pitched scream. Between two arecas, a corpse was strung up. Insects had eaten most of the flesh, their buzzing mass giving it new undulating skin. The old lay discarded off to the side. This person had been hung upside down, been skinned alive and – barely visible beneath the writhing vermin – finally killed by having two horns driven into their skull. Malik stumbled backwards and added his stomach contents to the bog-muck. Desperate for purchase in the shifting ground of the peat, he tried to get up, get away, when a cracking branch startled him and once again, he landed headfirst in the soil. A callused hand gripped his shoulders. He struggled, but was powerless against someone used to handle farming tools. Malik got spun around, and ended face to face – with Suharjo. “Got you,” the farmer said. Behind him, the gruesome display loomed. Malik felt his bated breath burn a hole into his lungs, but he could not release it. The corpse seemed to shimmer, waver, as if the air around it was impossibly hot. Sweat beaded on Suharjo’s brow. Then it evaporated. As if punched in the gut, Malik exhaled. When he drew his next breath, his lungs burned again. “We have to run,” he whispered. Suharjo nodded. Before Malik could turn around, he saw the corpse and most of the line of arecas burst into flames. They ran. Swamp gasses, lingering mist and smoke trails pursued them with grasping ephemeral hands. Rib-like arecas clawed for them. Despite the treacherous terrain, they’d almost reached the edge of the swamp. A crackling, a snap, and an impossibly spherical ball of fire flew by them, igniting more vegetation. They had to turn back, deeper again into shifting peat mats. Malik was forced to take a break as he fell over a root, crushing meat-eating plants under his hands. “What is going on?” “It’s a Banaspati,” Suharjo explained as he helped his old friend up. “Remember how my grandma warned us from going too deep into the jungle, because we’d attract one?” “A fairy tale ghost?” “A spirit as real as the plants and animals of this island.” Between desperate gulps for air, Malik’s questions were barked gasps. “Why set…own island…fire?” “The swamp needs fire to keep the trees in check. They’d drain its water, overshadow the sundews and other ground plants. Dead plants, dry peat: next time, the fire takes everything. Poisons the air with smoke. And strangles the climate.” Malik gritted his teeth. “This NGO poo poo again. Peat can’t burn if we sell it all. Let’s just get out of –“ The Banaspati had appeared. Its fiery awesomeness froze the fleeing men in place. Red-skinned, with fearsome horns, it walked on its hands, and monkey-like tossed fireballs with its feet. “What do we do?”, Malik managed. “The fairy tale says we need to pray while running. All the way until we reach the mushalla, the small mosque, in Batupanjang. Do you still remember the prayers, Malik?” “It’s Ryan –“ “Ryan won’t remember, Malik!” He started a curse, but caught himself. Folded his hands in a gesture that used to be second nature. And the familiar words still came to his lips. Together, they managed to speak the words as they backed away, then ran from the Banaspati. Through the bog, into the trees, over a hill, and back to the outskirts of the small settlement of Batupanjang. All the time, Malik felt the spirit’s breath caress his neck, but it was repelled by the prayers he left in his wake. Here, the workers had already dried a part of the bog, laid the peat bare to prove that Malik’s drainage plans would work. When he saw the scars left by his employer’s claws, Malik stopped praying and finally caught his breath. “Is this thing going to haunt all of our operations here?” “Someone performed a terrible santet, Malik. Did you not see the corpse left by the ritual? It’s a strong curse that made the Banaspati.” “The corpse burned, Suharjo. We’ll show this thing. We’ll drain its swamp and take its island. Fairy tales didn’t keep me from crossing the Rokan.” Suharjo radiated sadness. “This proof of nature’s power still couldn’t sway you? Couldn’t make you remember your roots?” “I’m rooted in poo poo! I grew out of it, left it behind for good, and you are all morons if you won’t do the same!” “This ‘poo poo’ is our life, our home.” Suharjo’s voice had gained a dangerous edge. “We’d do everything to protect it. From people like you, Ryan. Did you even notice Chalid was gone?” “I’d assumed he’d starved or something.” A sudden, terrible thought flashed through Malik’s mind. “You didn’t…” “We drew straws. He lost.” “You made him into that?” Malik gestured wildly behind him. “If you are so desperate, why not kill me?” “Because you were right, Ryan. Another company would send another foreigner. But you, we thought we could convince. Because you were one of us. So I pushed you down to see this.” “But torturing poor Chalid – for nothing! We escaped his wrath!” “Dry peat burns as a creeping smolder. It spreads quietly underneath. Until it’s too late.” Around them, a ring of fire burst up to the treetops. Inside the roaring flames, a ghostly face, distorted but familiar, screamed wordless accusations. Malik fell to his knees. “Chalid, I’m so sorry…” The fire came closer. The spirit’s tongue licked into the constricting ring. “You can still make it!”, Suharjo screamed through cracking lips. Malik, who had curled up into a ball, looked up through tears. His companion pulled him up. “Embrace your past! Remember the prayers! Reach the mushalla! And Ryan –“ “It’s Malik.” He clasped Suharjo into a deep embrace. “Rupat is too costly to cultivate. My company won’t come here.” He turned. He prayed. He ran. Singed but alive, he broke out of the ring of fire. It contracted fully, became the red-skinned spirit again. Impossibly, Suharjo still stood. “We did it, Chalid.” The friends embraced, and it became too bright for Malik to look on. Through climate-killing dry peat fire, he escaped on the wings of tradition worth preserving. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Banaspati:  Reference map: 
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Sep 6, 2020 23:26
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You know what, I'll do it. In and just a flash, please!
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Sep 11, 2020 22:47
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Flash: Seed Sender, Desire to Aquire Innocent Pride 1000/1000 Words Violet rubbed a seed in the shape of half a yin-yang orb. The fuzzy outside tickled her index finger, the smooth inside hugged her thumb. It was pleasantly cool, like she was giving some of the warmth of her hand, some of the curiosity in her soul to the seed. “I told you to throw those away!” Her father’s yell cut through her reverie. “These tiny hairs might be full of poison!” He snatched the envelope with the other seeds off the kitchen table. “We don’t touch things sent by strangers! They can send diseases by letter –” He grabbed Violet by the shoulders, a little too hard. “If you feel anything, tell me right away, okay? Now out with them!” Only looking at the floor on the way, Violet walked to the sink and threw the seeds she had cradled in the palm of her hand into the shredder. “Can I go play in the garden, daddy?” He nodded curtly. “But stay in view of the porch, okay?” She ran without replying. In the prison of their suburban front yard, there was but a single bush. She crouched in front of it, and remembered years of animals unpetted, morsels untasted. And now, seeds unplanted. All in the name of caution. “Violet! You’re going to soil your dress!” She wanted to shout, but knew that daddy just meant too well. So she just silently slammed her hand in the ground. And buried the seed that had hugged her thumb the entire time. Shared with it some of her warmth and unfulfilled dreams. Weeks later, with a little more hope poured into every sip of water Violet snuck from inside, hidden behind carefully arranged leaves, a flower had bloomed. It was the color of a star, with a center darker and emptier than space, and when she touched it, she felt herself imbue it with more of herself, and sharing her feelings just made them stronger. Violet imagined that the flower smelled a little differently after receiving her gift. Somewhere an ocean away, an old man perked up, clad in soil and stooped under a green thumb’s lifelong pressure. He shuffled over to a starburst flower, an exact twin of Violet’s, grown from a seed that was the yang to her seed’s ying. It stood in a field full of identical blossoms, but the smell led him like a guide dog: a vanilla base with hints of cinnamon, and also a precious overtone, the perfect extra note he needed, of marzipan and bitter almonds. Violet’s addition. He cradled the flower in his hands like craggy soil, and with one quick scoop, removed it from its bed. Soon, in its own pot, it radiated its special scent into a glass dome that sheltered and confined it. Across from it, the old man sat on a woven chair and waited. For such a subtle overtone, he estimated at least a full day until the plant had produced enough aroma molecules. Until then, the flower linked to this one had to stay safe. Back across the ocean, Violet was still enthralled by her achievement, grown from the one seed she had rescued from the teeth of her father’s shredder. She lost herself in the scent she’d caused. “What are you doing under that bush? Do you want to catch a tick?” Violet startled, almost fell on the flower, toppled in the other direction and landed in some dirt. “Now look what you’ve done! The dress –” Her father had spotted the flower. “Where did this one come from?” Violet had gotten up, and pretended to be busy with brushing dirt off her clothes. Sadly, her father knew all her tactics to avoid admitting guilt. “Is that from those seeds?” She could not answer, but that was all he needed. “You will go to your room, and I will get rid of this. Have you touched it?” “Daddy, no! This is my flower!” “Do you know what kind it is? Do you know if it’s poisonous? What if a dog eats it and dies?” Violet tried to be stoic like so often before. But she lost the battle against herself, and screamed and cried and tears flowed undamed. “Yes, that would be terrible, wouldn’t it?” But the sight of a bawling nine-year-old made him relent – a little – and he softened his features. “Listen, we cannot risk it. I just don’t want you to get hurt, okay? You’re not grounded or anything, but please wash your hands. We’ll talk about this later.” “Don’t kill it,” Violet whispered hoarsely, but his face hardened again. She turned and ran, away from her doomed flower and its executor. Across the ocean, the old man fidgeted on his chair. Even through the glass, he felt the distress of the flower’s twin. Violet’s father bent down, looming over the flower like a lion over cornered prey. He reached out to grab it – and his fingertips brushed the black center. Something resonated with him. He started – to smell it. He thought of making Christmas cookies with his daughter and his wife, so many years ago, of long car rides on a family trip when Violet opened a tin of treats. All the scents she caused. He withdrew his hand. Went into the garden shed, emerged with a flowerpot, and carefully unearthed his daughter’s prize. He carried it into the house to reunite the two. The old man left out a long-held breath. The next day, he attached a tube to the top of the dome. Guided through a complex series of devices, the scent from the dome was concentrated, filtered and distilled. On the other end, a few drops emerged which the man caught skillfully in a crystal bottle. He labelled it with two characters meaning Innocent Pride and put the bottle on a shelf with others, which were marked as Joy of Beauty, Serendipitous Discovery, and many other feelings his plants had harvested all over the world.
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Sep 13, 2020 22:23
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this is just judge buttering of course Crit for a friendly penguin – Safeguard This is an overall excellent story that imo deserved the accolades. You’re doing a lot of things very well, especially some that are just excellently subtle. For example, I like Rimau’s snippet of dialogue that makes it abundantly clear what they think of the Bomoh’s dismissive attitude towards spiritual issues. Also, I think it’s very well done how long it is not revealed what exactly the villagers find so disdainful about Suria. The reveal is also quite tasteful for what it is. At the end of the first part, I do have some complaints. Occasionally, you try to do too much with your sentences. Two examples: 1) “Despite her mother’s insistence that she was keeping them both safe from the spooks that wandered the lands, she hadn’t been able to stop the penanggalan from giving her the wasting sickness.” – for example, it’s unclear here which of the two women has gotten the wasting sickness. It could still be Suria herself, and the villagers might keep away from her not (only) because of the circumstances of her pregnancy. 2) “He had even demanded that Rimau remove all the vinegar from the store. A penanggalan could be identified by that smell. He did hold that kind of power. Suria wondered if that authority would have held if it were harvest season and not spring.” – I simply do not get this sentence. Who is “he”? Whose authority? What does the harvest season thing mean? Overall, the role of the vinegar is not quite defined (though it does make sense in retrospect, considering the ending) and could be made far clearer right here. Also, this would give you an opportunity to further expand on the complex issues the villagers have with Suria, between Rimau’s apparent sympathy (but deferral to the Bomoh), and the Bomoh’s politicizing the issue. However, all of those are but nitpicks, because the birth scene is extremely intense and the ending is chilling and spooky and gut-wrenching. It’s exceptionally well done. And again, it’s just clear enough – the ultimate fate of the baby is left fingernail-chewingly open. Overall, a grim but very exciting to follow tale of warranted superstition and the real horror of people just not caring. Random aside which might or might not be a thing: “But tonight will be when-” <- should this not be a longer dash?
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Sep 13, 2020 22:44
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I'm in with a  because I'm not going to be restrained, I cannot be stopped
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Oct 23, 2020 21:58
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Take the Stars 6000 words My entire life, I had known that the stars were mine to take. And now, they lay before me, a field of ripe lights. Reaching out as if to pluck one with two fingers, I felt an echo of living souls in its radiance. Was this one orbited by one of the Sovereignty’s worlds, or by an Autonomous one? A billion dreams of order, freedom or anything in between? The star burst. The souls screamed in rage, despair and disbelief as they died a nova death, then their voices cut off like the fire in the vacuum of space. Still, the echo lingered: thousands of wishes for a naive freedom, brought to their cruel but natural end, with only me here to listen to and disregard their fading cry. At the distance of a space battle, it is hard to distinguish stars from starships. I should have known that the latter had lain between my fingertips - my powers of soul manipulation were far from strong enough to sense a planet light-years away. Scoen could of course do this, from his Sovereign throne on board the flagship that had just snuffed out the Autonomy ship’s star. I wondered sometimes if he spent most of his time looking at the worlds under his protection, reading the collective dreams and desires of the souls on them, and basing his decisions on that. But just then, as if he knew my innermost ponderings, his voice in my head swept my melancholic musings away like cobwebs. We’ve cleared the corridor, Silas. Are you ready? My mind was galvanized by the warmth he projected into it. On the screen in front of me, I could see the silhouette of his flagship, the stealth generator swallowing the stars behind. I imagined us sharing a smile through the space between our ships. I was ready to take the stars, a gift the Sovereign had promised every citizen. For me, it would soon become more than a pleasant dream. Great, he projected without waiting for me to put my feelings into words. The stage is yours. I pointed towards the expanding cloud of space junk that used to be one thousand five hundred twenty-five souls on the Autonomy cruiser. “This is our signal. Take me to the moon, Rebecca.” Our pilot knew she didn’t have to turn around to show me her smile, gave a thumbs up anyway and hit the thrusters. A sound not unlike the regular hum of the engines started to resonate in my ears; the souls of the Rebecca, the rest of my twenty heads strong strike team, and even my own, sharing a nervous tension, a fragile certainty of victory, as our sleek Drake-class shuttle plunged like an obsidian dagger towards the heart of the enemy’s defenses. Currently, the unassuming third moon of Autonomy-controlled Mother of Pearl eclipsed the aptly-named white planet. Around it, the Necklace protected it with sparkles of superhot light. The Necklace was a band of artificial meteorites each outfitted with the heaviest duty laser cannons the Autonomy could build in this corner of the galaxy. It had long deterred the Sovereignty’s many attempts to harvest the Pearl. Until finally Scoen had decided to take matters into his own hands. Within hours into the siege he led personally from his flagship, he had deduced that the Necklace was controlled from the third moon. Just minutes later, he had given me my most important assignment as his apprentice yet: get a small force undetected into the moonbase, take over the Necklace, and win the Pearl for him. His entire fleet, millions of souls, were only a distraction. Every time one of our ships blew up, I felt it like a punch in the gut, a slap in the face, a whipcrack on my back. A millisecond before, these souls had housed emotions, memories and hopes that made up full living personalities. With one exploding reactor, ruptured hull or critical engine failure, another beautiful tapestry of personalities was ripped apart, unravelled and dragged through the mud. Never the same, each of them unique and forever lost. The souls of course returned to the vast ocean of them holding the universe together, through their avatars Scoen, me and the other Empaths. But the people that used to be those souls? Scoen had always told me not to worry about them. With his Empathy reaching the farthest populated worlds, he would go insane if he let every death affect him, no matter if caused by him or not. But I did not yet have his perspective, and something had always frightened me about it. These people died because of me, because I had not yet succeeded in my mission. And so did all the misguided Autonomy soldiers fighting a battle that would be instantly, decisively lost the moment I took control of the Necklace. This is why it hurt so much, but also why I let it hurt me so much. Taking the stars should burn your hand a little. I felt Scoen’s Empathy focus on the moon. The Necklace’s cascading laser streaks began to form a pattern as our ship dashed towards them. They slowly opened up, and in their center, in contrast with the retina-numbing deadly corona around it, a black hole formed. Our corridor towards the moonbase, opened by Scoen’s iron grip on the souls of the defenders pushing their perception away from our crew. For a brief moment, not a single soul in the Autonomous army decided to look and shoot our way. I knew it would work, and yet - maybe influenced by the crew’s less certain emotions - my throat hardened and my breath refused to leave my lungs until, finally, we were below their perimeter, and on the surface, and the unassuming base that controlled the entire Necklace sprawled before us. We pushed the buttons on our enviro-combat suits that made the iso-gel spread from its compartments around our necks. It traveled up our throats, caressed our lips with a gentle touch, and further up, nose, cheeks, brow, closing over our short hair. Everyone in the strike team reacted differently to it, animal instincts impossible to override even with the most rigorous of trainings. Raul, demolitions expert: he had been in so many rapidly expanding clouds of blazing dust, and yet he always had the nagging fear that the gel would invade his nostrils, suffocating him. Irina, our best shot: her face had the same stony expression as it always had, but while the gel made its way up her face, she hardened the rock deliberately, for fear of showing how much she enjoyed the pressure on her throat. Emile, who both loved being on point and his old-style shotgun a little too much: for him, the gel was like bugs crawling all over his skin, and he made no effort to hide the nervous twitches left over from his past. Peter, Reiner and the rest…I drank in the emotions of all twenty soldiers under my command. Years of serving the Sovereignty’s military had not been able to remove their individuality. Each of them a unique, complex personality. And I would be the only one to know everything about them, including themselves. The love triangle I sensed between Raul, Emile and Peter would probably never come to light. And all the other souls among the stars above that died every second did not even have this small privilege: someone else caring even for a moment about their fleeting lives. Scoen kept telling me that I needed to stop letting other people get to me like this. Being so acutely aware of everyone’s soul would soon destroy me if I didn’t learn to shut them out. I agreed - there were so many things I didn’t need to know about my subordinates. But wasn’t the power of an Empath just that, the ability to truly understand other people? Would I not rob myself of something incredibly important by putting on emotional blinders? We stood on the barren surface of the moon. Another star burst overhead, souls screaming needles into my skin, and I focused myself on the task ahead by aligning my Empathy entirely with Rebecca’s soul - as our pilot, she had doffed and donned the iso-gel helmet so often that she truly did not care one way or another about the sensation. I made her calmness my own. Sometimes I wondered if that was one of the dangers Scoen always warned me about - being immersed into other people so much that you lost the ability to feel for yourself. You all know what to do, I projected to the team. Once Raul has cracked this shell, we swoop in and get the pearl. They nodded and their emotions aligned to determination and excitement; we all knew how important this was, and how great an honor it was to be on the team to carry out this task. I took their elation to strengthen my powers, and probed the moonbase for souls. There’s not much personnel inside - I would estimate about fifty people. Unknown number of robots, of course. Nobody behind this hangar door - I pointed towards it - so this is where we’ll get in. Emile, you cover Raul; Irina, that hill over there. I highlighted it in her mind, and she was gone in the blink of an eye. The rest, shoot what moves. I’ll go in first and cause said movement. They knew better than to protest me taking the biggest risk; not since they saw my reaction to losing Nassour on our last engagement. Yes, Scoen, I knew I had cared and still cared too much. But maybe this is what made me your best apprentice after only three years under your wing. I know that you are all one hundred ten percent behind me, and you make me very happy. I let them feel some of my genuine emotion. We’re going to do this very quickly, win the battle for our Sovereign, and both armies get a well-deserved rest. A silent cheer, and we began. Raul did his thing, and I strode through the debris, buffeted by the escaping air. The shock of the sudden explosion reverberated through the souls in the base; we had to be quick now. I took a deep breath through the iso-gel, which provided me with air slightly enriched with oxygen and other things to push my body past its normal limits, and directed my Empathy into myself. I became aware of every nerve ending connecting to every muscle, sensed every tendon’s tension, felt the minutiae of pressure underneath my feet. My weapon slid into my left hand, a thin grip molded for my fingers only, and I activated it with a flick of the wrist. A perfect-to-the-atom sphere shot out, connected to the handle with a wire thinner than a tenth of a hair. Along it, the stream of air and dust and rocks and other matter even present in the “vacuum” of space got its electrons ripped from the atom’s cores as the current began to flow, forming a uniform superheated plasma sheath barely thicker than the wire holding it in place. Just in time! The corner of my eye picked up a change in the dust tornado around me, a barely perceptible increase in illumination. My hand shot up, angled the weapon it held just right, and the laser blast flying towards me got absorbed by the plasma, increasing the diameter of the tube and its temperature by a small amount. Another shot from the other side! I changed the angle and caught it likewise. Then two shots at the same time; I relaxed my wrist, and the turn of the handle slackened the wire, the plasma whip assumed its true, flexible form, and both shots were caught as it swept before me. I ducked under the next two, adjusted my footing slightly to become secure enough for the next maneuver, and pirouetted on my heel, cracking the whip to release the excess energy it had absorbed; a plasma arc flew out towards the source of the first blast. The plasma burned its way through the cloudy air, and I saw a robot guard lose its head as the arc impacted it. Quickly, I had to sidestep more shots. I knew I could not keep this up forever. I bent my knees to duck under another volley, and catapulted myself up into a backwards somersault to gain some time. As I flew, I projected the suspected positions of the other guards to my team. Irina’s laser rifle took out another one immediately, then the rest poured in and mowed down two more. I landed gracefully, saw another weapon raised. A robot finger curled around a trigger, it was too late for me to stop the shot. My eyes shot around along the path of the muzzle - Peter! I screamed into his soul to get down. I did not know if for that one moment, I managed to control him like Scoen often did to people, or if he just had astounding reflexes. He dove forward, and the shot missed him by a centimeter. Raul blasted a thick hole into Peter’s would-be killer, and his relief was so palpable, I had to basically push it away from me. While I was distracted by the wave of emotion, another robot must have snuck up on me. I sensed Rebecca’s uncharacteristic alarm just in time to reflexively move to the side, but the shot from the robot’s weapon still grazed my shoulder, rupturing the suit and taking some skin with it. Iso-gel immediately redistributed itself to close the breach, but it could not take away the pain, which made me stumble as I spun around. And came face to face with the muzzle of a laser pistol. I was off balance, my left arm without feeling. I would die from this shot, and my team would be outnumbered, without guidance or backup. Empathy would do nothing against my robot enemy. But as I had a vision of a disappointed Scoen, I realized that Empathy could help me. I recalled exactly how it had felt when Nassour died in my arms, his trust in me betrayed. I took his shock and acceptance and my own grief, and these raw emotions washed away my physical pain. My shoulder screamed futilely against a cacophony of not again, the whip flew up with all the power my body could pour into a swing and then some, and the robot was bisected in an instant. It was the last one. I gathered everyone and expressed my relief and pride. We proceeded through an intact airlock, into a corridor, and to our relief, the blueprints projected into a corner of our vision by the iso-gel helmet lined up with reality. With practiced efficiency, we cleared corner after corner - until I barked a Stop into everyone’s minds. Ten enemies around this next corner. They are prepared to defend this point to the death. I expanded my Empathy further. I think these are the only soldiers here, the rest are technicians and service personnel. We win this encounter, we take the pearl. Emile raised his hand, and I made everyone look at him. He gestured to his grenade belt, then to his shotgun. I shook my head. I’d rather you not. He started to protest, but I shut him down. There is absolutely no need to kill these people. We outnumber them, they will see reason. I made the Autonomous soldiers just a little bit more relaxed, projected as much calm as I could into their souls. I withdrew the iso-gel so that my face was without its weird sheen. Then I turned the corner, arms raised in a gesture of surrender. “I am Silas, Empath of Scoen. If you drop your weapons, we will treat you as if you had always been loyal citizens of the Sovereignty.” My brazenness startled them. For about half a second. Then their emotions surged, and escaped the tentative grasp I had had on them completely. An overwhelming wave of hostility crashed against me, and splintered a lot of my bravado. Weapons, already raised, were trained with intent. The team had no Empath powers. But they knew me well enough by now to know when my body language projected “situation has gone tits up”. Emile hooked the butt of his shotgun into my shoulder, and with reflexes that would make any of Scoen’s Empath apprentices proud, yanked me away from the barrage of laser bolts cutting through the air where I had just been. He removed his iso-gel as well, the skittering insects retreating. “Grenades, then?” I squeezed my eyes shut so hard it hurt. Less than the mental uppercut that hit me immediately after. Another one of our frigates had drifted too close to Mother of Pearl’s orbital defenses, and the Necklace had obliterated it. Another three thousand two hundred and ten eleven (air pocket gave out) twelve (explosive decompression finished) lives gone. My hesitation. My fault. I trembled. The hypocrisy of my actions loomed over me. The closer a death, the more I felt it. Did I only want to spare these ten because I knew they would impact me significantly more than the thousands among the stars? Empathy could tell me nothing about my own soul, but I still knew that my deepest fear was having to take a life myself. Robots were one thing, but another human? Never. Not after feeling a life so close to me slip through my fingers, grasping a soul that just would not stay in its body. Despite my short training, I was a fighting machine already. I had always been an extremely fast learner, and even when my life was still normal, that had often propelled me out of my depth. This now was my moment of having to perform in front of an audience a barely-practiced speech, coasting on my confidence bordering on arrogance. Realizing that my entire audience expected things of me that I did not even know were required, feeling the gaze of peers that I was picked over despite them having put much more effort into getting this position than I did. And I still had managed to deliver a praiseworthy performance, my budding Empath powers allowing me to take another unearned shortcut. Nobody would die here, and it would still be faster than a prolonged shoot-out. After all, I had felt the resolve of these Autonomous soldiers. If a grenade ripped nine of them apart, the last would still fight with all they had and more. And to prevent them from killing one of us, I would have to use my whip on a living being… No, that was not it, I kept telling myself. This other way was simply more efficient. Faster. Less death here and in the space battle. I was definitely not lying to myself. Start firing around the corner, I told the others. Keep them busy, maybe injure a few. I’ll work on their souls and make them surrender. Emile’s raised eyebrows told me clearer than any words that he severely doubted the feasibility of my plan. And there was growing unease among the rest. These were soldiers - no, more. An elite strike team of the Sovereign himself. They didn’t do “surrender”. I had worked on changing their attitude, but apparently I had again overestimated my fledgling abilities. I was a whelp compared to them, barely any combat experience, no confirmed kills, and our camaraderie - don’t make me laugh. Rebecca looked worried. Irina had shouldered her rifle. I was too confused to read their emotions clearly, could only go by the concern on their faces. Seconds of indecision ticked away, and more people died in space. Again, the only thing that could possibly pull me through this was Empathy. I put on my sternest face, held up my hand. Affected a mask of heavy concentration. Then, when they had calmed down a bit, actually concentrated. Focused my Empathy on the enemy, but not to influence their souls. I let them get to me. Started caring. This was Charly. She was a true believer in the Autonomy’s cause. Scoen, to her, was a tyrant who used his Empathy to bend the will of everyone under his influence. Resistance was only possible by staying fiercely independent, both individually and as a society. Nothing new, unfortunately wrong, next. The next was Marcel. Very young. Had joined the Autonomy because of an unrequited crush. Saw the moonbase posting as a perhaps deserved punishment for a bit of a transgression towards her. I decided I hated him too viscerally after this seeing what he had done, and how little remorse he felt, to get anywhere with him. Third in line, Michelle. Not a soldier! She was a janitor. But there had been a free rifle, and she really wanted to defend the Necklace controls. Her cousin on the Pearl’s surface was a subgroup leader of the fanatic - even for the Autonomy - sect of Anarchists, who scoffed even at the democratic government of the Authority, but were willing to cooperate as long as they had the common enemy of Scoen’s Sovereignty. Michelle did not share her cousin’s views, but cared about him deeply, and knew that if Scoen were to take Mother of Pearl, the Anarchists would be first against the wall. I disagreed, we would surely offer them many chances of surrender and redemption in Scoen’s benevolent embrace. Beside the point, however. Michelle was perhaps the bravest of the ten standing against us, and galvanized my conviction to spare them if at all possible. I admired her defiance, holding a weapon she barely knew how to use. Still, she had one fear that made her quiver. If we discovered the maintenance crawlspace that led directly into the control room, the ten brave defenders would be done for. I snapped out of my concentration; the entire affair had taken perhaps ten seconds, thank the souls. I know how to get behind them, I told my team with all the confidence I could project. Crawlspace, entrance - I dove deeper into Michelle’s mind, opened by her fear - back there. Raul, could you open it? I’ll use it to backstab them. When they’re pincered, they will have to surrender. Over in seconds, no risk, no bloodshed. You with me? Emile clutched his shotgun like a life preserver. He glanced at his grenade belt. “If anything goes wrong,” he whispered, “I throw three of these.” I held everyone else’s gaze for a moment each. “We’re in agreement then”, I said softly. Raul presented me with an open hole. Swallowing the claustrophobia of my childhood nightmares, I slid in, went up a ladder, and then I was in the ceiling above the corridor covered by the Autonomous forces. Wires threatened to entangle me. Poorly welded seams ripped at my suit. My foot slipped on something slick and wet, and then got stuck in something sticky. Sweat soaked my undershirt; I could not continue, but the foot was only part of it. I felt the tension between the two factions rise to an impossible degree. The ordered efficiency of the Sovereignty, every individual working towards the same goal of bending the universe to Scoen’s supreme vision. The raw and naive desire for freedom of the Autonomy, people who embraced their differences to prevent what they saw as a yoke landing on them. And me stuck between the poles, like a plasma particle trapped by the wire of the whip. Keep going, get behind them, make them surrender. Take the pearl, pluck the stars from the firmament! But I was paralyzed; before me, Michelle used her ideals to excel beyond her limits of bravery and competence. Behind me, Emile worshiped violence as the most efficient tool of subjugating dissidents. I was doing the right thing by keeping Michelle alive at least, surely? Another ship exploded. Another thousand…two thousand…ish souls screaming into the ether. As they lashed me, I grit my teeth and forced myself to come to terms with my own arrogance. Scoen was right! Shut them out! Shut Michelle out! Go on, and just finish this mission, without distraction! I withdrew my Empathy, dulled the screams of the dead until I could barely hear them anymore. Then I ripped my foot free. Whatever had glued the sole to the crawlspace wall made a sucking sound, amplified a hundredfold by the narrow metal walls. I froze again. But I had just convinced myself that pushing on was the only way to go. One hand, one knee before the other. And nothing happened. I crossed the halfway point, and further still, and then the souls of the Autonomous soldiers were beneath me, and I just had to go down one ladder - There were only nine souls. My eyes widened, as did my Empathy. I frantically scanned the nine I saw clearly, but of course, the one I had shut out specifically was missing. Where was Michelle? Had her fear finally gotten the better of her, had she fled back to a janitor’s closet, to await our inevitable victory? A rustling before me. Someone had heard my sound, and come up the crawlspace ladder to meet me. Buoyed by my last decision, I lunged forward instead of freezing again, and my thin gloves touched skin, I grabbed Michelle by the throat and pulled her close and held her down. But in this combative embrace, our souls overlapped, the direct contact flooding me with her being and hers with mine. Our opposing views battled in our minds. But I was an Empath, she was not. I poured my resolve into her, used all the techniques Scoen had taught me, and overwhelmed Michelle. She froze, unable to move. But still, her soul resisted. It shone with a clear conviction: freedom above all, a goal worth having one’s life erased and forgotten as the soul went on to join their collective. She’d sacrifice her own individuality to protect the ones of her cousin and all the others in the Autonomy. Because she believed that under Scoen, nobody was allowed to be themselves. I tried to make her see reason, showed her my memories of Scoen, how much freedom granted to the Empaths he mentored. But that just made her resist more, she tried to slip my grasp, utter just one sound, tell the other nine that she had stopped me in the crawlspace. She sent me an image as well: they had already raised their weapons to the ceiling - one sound, and we both would be riddled by laser blasts. My eyes widened when I realized that she had told her comrades to shoot her as well - and they would do it, so strongly shone their hate for Scoen. I could not hope to sway Michelle. Her indoctrination too strong. My powers too weak. Again, I had reached beyond my abilities too quickly. I was not the best of Scoen’s apprentices - I was merely the Empath with the fastest learning curve. But in this situation, what did it help me? Michelle’s mouth slowly opened. I felt her throat constrict, her vocal chords begin to quiver, about to form a sound. Even during this fraction of a second, another two ships burst, spilling their human contents, releasing souls by the thousands to barrage me with the weight of my inadequacy. Another thousand, another ten thousand, another million - or this one? I flicked my wrist. Silently, the whip sprung to life, and plasma went through Michelle. With a burning sigh, her soul escaped her body - and it stopped just before me, still touching my own soul, determined beyond death. Her indomitable will kept her from joining the souls’ collective. For about a second. Then her fierce expression broke. Her face shattered into a kaleidoscope of sadness. It dissolved, and so did the rest of her, and her personality faded, her love for her cousin, her dreams of a Mother of Pearl free from the Sovereignty’s constant attacks, her hopes of using the money earned on the moonbase for a decent education, and so much more, her first crush her struggle with her self-image her first pet she had accidentally killed and never told anyone her deepest secrets her everything gone For this brief moment, I had become her, seen her full self, perfect Empathy, but I was only human; I could barely hold on to my own memories. Her entire life so far, same age as me, a young twenty, was too much. I could only remember her name, her face as it faded away, and her belief that burned so strong that she was willing to die in its own flames. I grasped at the rest, but it was impossible. Michelle, the human, the unique person, everything she was, gone because of me, killed by my hand, the first time, the worst time, and only an infinitesimal fraction of her would stay forever with me. I knew at this moment that my life had irrevocably changed to the worse by ending hers, and this realization made me scream, a wail that echoed through the crawlspace, reaching both Autonomy and Sovereign soldiers at once, and freezing them like I had frozen before, as my Empathy made them feel the full depth of my despair over the loss of Michelle and my innocence. But some are more empathic than others. All nine souls remaining on the Autonomous side were moved deeply by being forced to share my turmoil. Rebecca was too. Irina, somehow, as well. Emile, not so much. His grenades sent nine more souls to join the collective, but first they went through me, and I just could not deal with Charly and Marcel and - I blacked out. ☼☼☼ When I came to, Scoen filled my vision. He radiated benevolent warmth - with just a bit of an edge to it. “Do you now realize why we have to close ourselves off to the feelings of others?” I looked around; the team had carried me to the Necklace’s control room beyond the corridor. Sovereign technicians were hard at work to reprogram the cannons. No trace of the forty-something civilian Autonomous souls that had been here before. I let myself be lifted up by Scoen’s strong hand. “One snuck up on me because I shut her out.” I knew this to be a hollow protest. “And if you had kept it up, you would have killed her with no harm to yourself.” I wrinkled my brow. “You were watching?” He chuckled in the mirthless way I knew meant danger, but usually not to myself. “I would not jeopardize my best apprentice by letting him unsupervised.” I gestured to the team, but Scoen shook his head and bowed down conspiratorially. “Empath issues need Empath supervision. What would these crude instruments of war know of our struggles?” He patted my back. “You have learned an important lesson today. Don’t let it get to you. Instead, savor the victory.” With a grand gesture, he turned away from me and towards the room. “All of you, we are going to celebrate! You have helped me pluck this pearl, a constant nuisance in my shell. The Autonomy doesn’t have much left. With this blow, they’ll crumble within months. Are the cannons under our control?” The technician Scoen had addressed practically groveled. “Yes, Sir! Of course, Sir! We have already flagged the Autonomous ships as targets!” Scoen’s smile could curdle milk. “Excellent. Well, there’s a way to see if you internalized today’s lesson, Silas. Everyone, please leave us.” Our technicians shuffled out. The team, to their credit, hesitated for a tiny moment - Rebecca caught my eye, but then cast her gaze down as Scoen glanced over, and they too left. I felt their souls fade into the distance. Just me and my mentor in the control room. “You know what to do?”, Scoen asked. “Wipe out their fleet with the Necklace,” I managed to croak out of a desert mouth. “Do you fear the hatred of their souls, Silas?” Scoen’s too-wide eyes filled my mind. I felt the pressure of his Empathy on my soul. He would detect any lie. So I told the truth. “No. They won’t hate me - just themselves, for having wasted their lives on a lost cause.” “Good way to put it! I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll join your team on their ship and watch the fireworks with them. There is a hunter waiting for you in the hangar you didn’t wreck after you’re done.” He turned to leave as well. I knew I should keep my mouth shut, silence my own soul’s screams. But a tension like the one between Autonomy and Sovereignty troops kept mounting between me and him - and he must have felt it. I wanted to scream that nobody had said anything about eradicating the Autonomous fleet. I wanted to plead with him to spare their lives. But I was no longer a naive and innocent boy. So I said something that was just harmless enough to not make him suspicious of my devotion, but harsh enough to explain the tension. “Was all of this a test?” He did not pause his stride. “It still is.” And then he was gone, and I stood over the Necklace’s controls, and its guns were pointed at the Autonomous fleet. One push of a button, and I’d personally kill hundreds of thousands of people. They were far away from me, and with Scoen’s teachings, I would easily be able to shut them out. But instead, I opened my Empathy as far as I could. The battle between the fleets was still raging. People still died. Many of them on the Sovereignty’s side. But Scoen wasted time getting into position to watch laser blasts paint supernovae on a torn canvas of souls. He had shut those lives out as well. I let my soul get buffeted by the blizzard of these deaths. I froze in the waste of lives on this and so many other battlefields. Take the stars, Silas. Scoen’s voice or mine echoing in me? The control room’s view screen showed me all the glittering jewels of the universe. Ships with thousands of people. Worlds with billions. My finger on the button. Snuff out this one, a ship - this one, another - this one, an actual star? My powers of Empathy would only grow. Eventually, I would probably start testing Scoen’s authority. Ironically, I would shut himself out of my soul, and killing him would not feel bad at all. But shouldn’t it feel bad every time? He was still watching me, I was sure of it. He had given me the illusion of choice, but he was really good at that. He did it on a daily basis to all of his citizens. And he had made it clear that he would not leave this up to chance. Someone else was watching me as well, however. Michelle’s face, with the infinite sadness of death chiseled into it. I shut my eyes again. Stretched my fingers, let them rest loosely on the buttons. “Guide me,” I whispered. And did my very best to shut out Scoen as I let my memory of Michelle, her iron will, dictate the path of my fingers. The Necklace re-aligned itself again. All of its cannons pointed at Scoen’s flagship, empty silhouette blotting out the stars. I had aimed for the souls on board. Scoen was now ready to watch the fireworks from the Drake shuttle, and watch them he would. I opened my mind to him again, so he could have a second of seeing Michelle’s legacy, her conviction burning in me. Then I pushed the button.
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Oct 25, 2020 11:17
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This is actually a pretty good album. I've been cleaning half the apartment to it. I'm in with Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits.
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Dec 2, 2020 19:25
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Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits Royal Wants, Worker Dreams 1496/1500 Words The light of the blind moon reflected off her carapace, giving it an infrablue sheen. Huddled together with him on the highest level of the farm-hive that offered them fragile shelter, she was at her most beautiful. Worker G-Uen-!Xa, his precious jewel dredged from the mud of the nutrient farms, with her thick forelegs, femur spikes polished by heavy use, the wide thorax supporting her four legs, thin and long like the delicate grass flutes of the court musicians. Drone-heir 3P’i-Z shivered from antenna tip to hindleg claw. His love echoed the movement in her larger body, and they buzzed softly together for a drawn-out moment. Then she turned her eyes, compounded frozen tears of the moon goddess, to him. “What is on your mind, Prince?” “This is like the day we met, Gwen. Hiding our forbidden embrace between nutrient balls ready for delivery, our racing thoughts silenced by the vibration of our bodies. But today, our hum won’t be loud enough.” She took his head gently between the joints between her claws, opened her mandibles a bit and he eagerly responded to her kiss. He heard her answer through a pleasant haze of her scent. “It is in your royal nature to worry, my love.” “Gwen!” He separated from her. “You saw the farm-head send a winged envoy. She has betrayed us to my mother, who will take me back and kill you. Should I just accept that?” She skittered back, raising her claws in a gesture of hurt. “You agreed to stay here rather than keep running. We have one last night, after wonderful months together.” He unfolded his weak forelimbs in a gesture of submission he knew she adored. “You were the one who could not accept my mother’s unjust rule. Broke ranks when I inspected your farm, and caught my eye.” She shook her head. “I managed to turn the heart and mind of a Drone-heir. My dreams, and life, are more than fulfilled.” “But I want…” She silenced him with a sudden pounce towards him. “Oh, Prince. ‘Want’ is a taboo word for a worker. Give me one last thing I want, and I’ll die happy.” They locked claws, she drew him in and off his feet into a desperate kiss. Prince felt a tingle running from his mandibles down to the very tip of his abdomen. Gwen must have noticed it too, and she skillfully raised her left foreleg to gently stroke him on the underside, below the wings. Her caress made him open his wings involuntarily. She pushed a little harder, and they sprang up all the way, exposing the part of his body, where his aedeagus, his penis, had already begun to extend. “Someone’s eager,” Gwen whispered in a voice so low in frequency that he almost couldn’t hear it. “And it’s me,” she continued. She put Prince down, turned around and slowly, slowly raised her wings, showing the edge, the softness and moistness and finally her entire vagina. Prince could no longer restrain himself, and he used his wings to pounce on Gwen, clasped her wide thorax with claws extended as far as he could, took less than a heartbeat to adjust his position, and entered her. For a few thrusts, immersed in the scent of her arousal, pheromones addling his mind, he did forget reality existed beyond their coupled genitals, as she twitched around him. Gwen vibrated her wings against his carapace, and he shivered in the same rhythm, and then she reached her first climax with a scream that shook the nutrient balls. He stopped thrusting, because he knew exactly what she wanted next. After a reluctant separation, Prince lay down, folding his wings to make a shimmering bed. She gently placed her legs in the gaps between, arced her abdomen down and mounted him, the perverted position made even dirtier by the signs of hard work on her femur-spikes, the spotting on her face where the sun hard burned away pigment spots, and he almost came before she even touched him again. But as she moved in for a more gentle second round, a gust of wind blew away the final remnants of her pheromone cloud, and a coherent thought forced itself on him: this is the last time. Prince raised his feeble claws, and barely managed to stop Gwen from uniting her heavy body with his. “What’s the matter?”, she gasped. “Too rough again?” “You are perfect as always.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I can’t let go of wanting to keep you forever.” “Always the entitled Drone-heir,” she cooed. “I’ll just work harder on making you relax then.” Gwen lowered her head towards his genitals. He watched her work her mandibles around his penis, enjoyed the pleasantly numbing sensation of her saliva, but he could not shake the image of her wondrous eyes reflecting the dead light of a blind moon with her head mounted on a traitor’s spike. The sharp wit from her sharp mouth forever lost, the ideas too big for her station gone from the world, and he in his heir-chambers whiling his life away until a suitable queen was chosen for him to impregnate. Even though the necessity of decentralized farming meant that workers were made fertile long ago. A terrible but mighty idea flashed through Prince’s mind. “Why don’t we do it the old way,” he whispered. Gwen halted her gentle assault on his penis and locked eyes with him. “Like, as role-play?” She smiled an evil smile. “I might like that.” He grabbed her head between his hindlegs. “For real, Gwen.” “You cannot possibly be serious.” “I love you, Gwen. I fled to the end of my world and beyond for you. I will always go all the way with you.” She shook off his grip easily and skittered up until she loomed over him like an old, dried-out hive about to collapse. “We aren’t animals anymore, you hopeless romantic.” “The stories say it's the ultimate thrill for both sexes,” he said with an intense ferocity that surprised even him. “It’s our last time. Let’s make it count.” He smiled his own wild smile. “gently caress accepting anything.” Her eyes shone with their own light, rivaling the moon. “I never expected to be more than a fling for you. But you do love me, don’t you?” His smile didn’t waver. She slammed his thorax to the ground. “I’ll do it, you royal boy gone completely mad for a farmhand. I’ll take you like the women in your romantic stories.” Before he could respond, she rammed the tip of her abdomen down on his, her opening wide enough to engulf his penis and then some. He was pinned to the ground like a display by the lepidopterist killer. He was almost scared by how quickly she had given into a base fervor. For just a second, his mother’s voice ridiculing his love for a “lower creature” entered his mind. But this was exactly why he was going to commit to this wild idea even more. He just hoped Gwen would eventually forgive him. Then she did a thing with her bottom that dissolved any and all sense from him, and he felt his own fervor rise, an urge way beyond the arousal she had caused him by merely putting her goods on display before. This was the real thing, not sex but mating, all stifling pretense of civilization, evolution, culture gone: they were animals, and giving into their instincts made their brains reward them with a pleasure some people spent their entire life chasing, but never achieving. She climaxed again, her opening vibrating around his bruised organ. The wonderful pain gave him a last moment of unwanted clarity. Gwen didn’t know that Prince’s only brothers 1P’i-F and 2P’i-O were long dead. He had accepted the consequences of this mating for himself, but was it fair to her? Too late to reconsider. He sent a prayer to the moon to make this a true gift for his rebellious worker. A deep peace filled Prince as he let go of any objection, thought and want, and released his semen into Gwen, an orgasm like a steam-powered engine venting all valves, but it did not stop there of course. She felt the Drone-heir’s precious fluid, usually reserved for queens, coat her eggs, and her body tensed up from abdomen through thorax into claws, she grasped her lover’s head between them, opened her mandibles painfully wide, and bit his neck apart. What should be pain was instead a wave of the most intense joy radiating up and down both of his segments, and as Prince’s head tumbled to the ground, a final vision shone through the wonderfully warm darkness he slowly faded into. Gwen, future mother of the last heirs to his mother’s kingdom, taking her first bites of his royal flesh. Prince dissolved into romantic bliss.
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Dec 6, 2020 15:00
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I wanted to focus on my novel this week but the rules are way too much fun so I'm in I guess! Assign me a story you personally are very satisfied with, please. I want to make you really angry by sullying it. Also I feel like I've been getting off easy as far as rules go, so my body is very ready to pay for my disrespect?!
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Dec 9, 2020 21:24
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Crit of Getaway trip by Staggy In your opening paragraphs, it's a bit tough to get the transition between "ignoring alarms" and "oh it's serious actually", not helped by "subliminal" speed, a planet out of nowhere and an ant drive. This could be a little tighter. Nothing against the ant engine, though; it's really fun, as are the words you use to describe it. Generally, word choice is unusual and top-notch in this story. The middle drags a little as you're making it clear again and again that only a queen will help with the situation; I feel like I get it, and that the queens all dying is an inevitability after a point that's earlier than the tension holds out for. After the plan with the honey is made, which I don't quite get honestly but whatever - drugs! - you have a very nice trip description, both the exhilaration and the body-weirdness parts. The story is sublime after that, and ends on a funny scene to imagine. Overall, it's a very fun piece that must have been a blast to write. It hits a bizarre tone very well that makes me forget very easily how little sense any of the individual pieces make. Mama as the ship('s computer?) is a bit hard to grasp as a character because of her nature, but the interactions with the protagonist are great. I enjoyed this!
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Dec 13, 2020 21:15
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Prompt: Week #282 - A Lyttony of Sorrows - start with terrible opening sentence and make a good story from it - your chosen genre (none chosen) - word count 1300, but: "Write a crit for a 20 Hellrules: - problem is resolved by a scientific solution that makes absolutely no sense - tasty cheeseburger Pringles thrown in Stuka 1500/1500 words The nights were getting longer and the days were getting shorter and on the plane there was a bomb. From the gallery above the lecture hall, a second story filled with even more students, it drifted down on the warm air from the heads burning with the exertion of thought below. First-year engineering students used the two-story setup of the hall to boast their skills; some professors were even vocally impressed by paper planes just consisting of a tube with a weighted front, the round shape forming a perfectly aerodynamic wing. Prof. Dr. Alkwin Wondraczek was a math professor who didn’t care about planes unless they were prefaced with eigen-. In other lectures, as the semester progressed deeper into winter, the atmosphere had become more serious and the planes petered out naturally. Wondraczek had made it very clear from the first minute on that he hated the tradition. And yet, two weeks before Christmas break, the plane, the bomb. Matthias watched it descend on the same trajectory as his academic success. His honeymoon period with the subject of inventors, architects and space explorers had been cut short somewhere between his first math lecture and the first exercise sheet. He was fine with Mechanics, excelled at technical drawings, programming - only math, the monolith of numbers, stood in his way. So when the professor picked up the plane, Matthias cherished the few seconds to clear his aching head. But then, the bomb exploded. The student who had sent down the plane had christened it, in typical fresh-out-of-school edgy humor, as Stuka. The German Sturzkampfbomber planes that had ravaged their victims in the second World War. For some reason, this really upset Wondraczek. Matthias was unsurprised. The dusty academic could never comprehend a joke he couldn’t put into formulas. What happened next, however, nobody had really expected: Wondraczek stopped the lecture, stood up straight and declared in a voice much clearer than his usual mumbling: “I will not continue until whoever sent this thing down leaves my lecture. You can come back later and I will try my best not to let my opinion of you influence your grades, but I want you out of my sight. Now.” Of course, nobody confessed by getting up. Matthias looked around him, scanning the hundreds of others on the gallery; did Wondraczek hope for peer pressure? From people who all hated his boring, unstructured lecture that was the direct cause of many of them failing engineering? True solidarity between victims here. Nobody stood up. The lecture stalled, as the professor stood his silent ground. Nervous murmurs and some giggles erupted, and some poor fools even began complaining that this would cause them to fall behind even more. How? Like Matthias, they couldn’t hope to learn a thing from such a subpar lecture! Suddenly, a commotion. One of the few women on the gallery had gotten up, walked to the front of the gallery, simply said “I’m sorry”, and left. Wondraczek crumpled the plane. “Thank you for that honesty at least,” he mumbled, as he deflated back to his bloodless lecture self. And then, to Matthias’ despair, math continued. === The next exercise sheet had been an even greater disaster. Matthias knew he needed to do something to keep studying his dream subject, and for that, he needed a better math lecture. So Wondraczek liked to crumple up planes? The next one would have an even hotter payload. The cafeteria was inside the chemistry building. While everybody was eating, Matthias procured a few milligrams of thallium chloride, made a plane from poisoned paper. If the professor crumpled this, his last sad tufts of hair would fall out. The old man would check himself into a hospital, and he’d have to be replaced by a different lecturer. Every one of the over 800 engineering students would breathe a sigh of relief. During the next lecture, Matthias waited for an opportunity. As usual, Wondraczek’s words just dripped off him like water off a lotus leaf. From his place in the front row of the gallery, Matthias could slip the plane through a gap in the fencing undetected. He was nervous, but mostly because he feared that during this maneuver, some of the thallium might crumble out onto his hands. Just in case, he had an antidote with him. Studying the professor’s face already creased with age, Matthias wondered about the dangers. What if he hadn’t calculated the dosage properly? But he’d be sitting in an inorganic chemistry lecture right now if the subject wasn’t so inglorious in the public’s eye. Matthias knew what he was doing. He scanned the crowd, feeling his tension mounting in sync with their stress level, as the equations on the blackboard grew increasingly complex. They would cheer with him when Wondraczek would be replaced, he was sure of it. Then Matthias saw her: the girl who had taken responsibility for the first plane. She was no longer up on the gallery; she sat in the first row, down in the main hall! Did she hope to soothe the professor’s anger by pretending to be an eager, attentive student now? Had he forced her into this position as a punishment? What a thankless spot to be in! Matthias knew that she was innocent; what a terrible injustice Wondraczek’s ultimatum had placed on her. This settled it. He let the plane go. It came down like Santa’s sleigh, carrying the gift of a comprehensible math lecture. A murmur rose through the crowd; someone had spotted the plane, called it out to someone else, and it made a wave way before reaching its destination. Hundreds of eyes followed it as it flew towards Wondraczek - And got caught by the girl in the front row. With just the slightest pause and nod, Wondraczek acknowledged the gesture and went on as if nothing had happened. Matthias sat there frozen. Why had she done this? Just to prove her innocence to the vengeful professor? She started to unfold the plane. Matthias jumped up. “Stop! It’s not meant for you!” The entire lecture hall awoke from a drowse, as all eyes fell on him. Wondraczek turned away from the blackboard, his back straight again, but he only silently looked at Matthias. As did the girl, with a gaze that forced a confession from him more efficiently than a medieval torture instrument. “I threw this plane. I also made the first one.” Wondraczek just sighed. “Your own shortcomings at math don’t give you the right to disrupt the lecture for everybody else.” Matthias felt his face become pale as the first snow outside. The people next to him moved away from him, and their looks echoed the professor’s: disappointment. Maybe a little contempt. Did they really just want the lecture to continue? Maybe they did have far less of a problem with it than Matthias had? He looked at the old professor with the Polish name who had been so hurt by the Stuka. The girl still cradled the thallium plane. “I’m sorry,” Matthias managed to squeak out. “I’m going to leave. But please, don’t unfold the plane, give it to me outside the hall. I don’t want to cause more harm.” Wondraczek just shrugged and turned back to the blackboard. The girl rolled her eyes, but complied. Matthias ran out, through a gallery of shaking heads, and down, and to the ground floor door. She had the plane in her hands, half-unfolded. Matthias’ heart skipped a beat, but it seemed like the thallium compartment was still intact. “I’m so sorry. Please, I’ll throw it out.” “I want to at least know what you wrote on it,” she said. “You owe me that laugh. Something about concentration camps?” She motioned to unfold it. Matthias had to think way too quickly for his liking. “No! It’s bad. Listen, I…” His brow was red-hot. “I’ll eat my words. Literally. As penance.” She arched an eyebrow, but then gave him the plane. “This might be more fun to watch. Well, go ahead.” He ripped off a small corner of the paper, but realized that this would not satisfy her. Fortunately, finally, he realized that he had the antidote with him. He dug around in his jacket with a hand that slipped off the artificial leather. He produced his staple peanut butter and Pringles sandwich. The lactic acid in the latter’s cheeseburger flavoring should complexate the thallium ions and make them harmless. With an expression he hoped read as a sheepish grin rather than a rictus grimace of terror, he crashed the plane of his ambitions into the sandwich, and began choking it down. She watched it happen with naked glee. “So, are you bad at math?” “He got me in one,” Matthias said with a desert mouth. “I think I might have more of a chance with chemistry.” She arched the other eyebrow. “You realize that you also need math for that?” Matthias started coughing heavily. She glared at him. “Finish your sandwich.”
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Dec 13, 2020 21:17
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Thank you for the extremely speedy judgement and crits! Disclaimer at this point: please do not gently caress around with thallium if you are ever in a position to do so. I based that part of my story on an urban legend that someone wanted to play a sick prank bro on someone, because thallium does cause hair loss; it's however also very toxic in addition to that. There was an actual case at a German university where someone laced orange juice with it and poisoned twelve people, motive still unclear. And no, you cannot neutralize it with cheese. Matthias is very wrong about chemistry.
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Dec 14, 2020 11:11
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Losertar: dying in Dark Souls Winning and allowing yourself/nice domers to buy it back: retrieving the Bloodstain
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Dec 23, 2020 09:30
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