Original Purpose

The church was small, barely able to hold fifty people. It was built when the town was only forty or so people, but with the Willis family and the Thompson family moving in, it was quickly overwhelmed.

Shortly after, a new one was built, large enough to handle things for decades, but the old one remained, unused.

Every so often, someone would try to come up with a new plan to use the building for something, but it had to remain a church, they said.

So I came in with the Church of Sin.

Surprisingly, they were cool with it.

Data Mining

Out here on the edge of the known galaxy, you learned to just put up with crazy shit. So when I cracked the asteroid and the alien ghost attached herself to me, I just learned to put up with her.

If anything, it did give me someone to talk to on the 24 hour mining shifts. Although she didn't like me taking the Buzzshots to stay awake, but she understood.

She also didn't like me spending most of my credits on Calmshots, but she understood.

Eventually, she understood enough to no longer need me.

Although she needed my body, naturally. 

The Cost

I crawled out of my tent, expecting to see a sunrise. Instead I found an angry woman with pointed ears and small wings staring at me.

"Uh... Did I mix up my mushrooms?"

She tilted her head, mouthing the words, then speaking.

"Human, you slept in the Forbidden Valley!"

"I what?

No, wait, I can't be the first person to sleep here!"

"I didn't say you were the first. Now the cost must be paid!"

"You can't have my name!"

"Fine, no name, how about your tongue instead?"

"Fine.

Wait!"

She spun her hand and gjdafv bkjfx dyijcsfb...

Lougljf!

HTUJVDY!!!

Chain Of Command

"Fine, fuck it, I'll do it myself."

The captain strode off the bridge and down to engineering, just before the power conversion coil exploded and took out all biological officers on the deck.

"Navigation, take the chair!"

The first officer ran to the missile bay, just before the launcher malfunctioned and it blew up.

"You have command!"

The navigation officer said this and ran to the escape pod, unaware it had already left and sucked him out into deep space.

Then, the enemy vanished and I was alone for the last five years, as I told the other investigation team.

Missed Heart

The assassin ended up standing between the target and their client, guns trained on both of them.

"You lied to me!"

The client shook their head.

"I never said the client wasn't a child. You never asked. So now you have a choice, do you break your stupid personal rule, or do you break the contract? Choices, choices..."

The assassin glared between the two of them, before finally turning to the target, and shot the target in the chest.

"We done?"

The client nodded.

The assassin then shot the client multiple times, and then began first aid on the child.

Pass It On

As he went to shoot me, I thrust forward with the broken umbrella, piercing his heart with it.

He dropped the gun, and lacked the ability to pick it up, as he felt himself taking his last breaths.

Instead, he managed to pull off his sunglasses and held them out to me.

"Given to me by my first true kill..."

He died. I took the sunglasses, and went to put them on when I saw the small bomb hidden inside it, so I passed it out the window where it exploded harmlessly.

I'd have told him off, but you know. 

Mislabelled

I opened the storage unit with trepidation, unsure what to expect. I was somewhat surprised to find it neatly organised and laid out. Having been used to dealing with disorganised messes, it was a nice change.

But as I began to sort through it, the labels kept being wrong. The sofa was labelled as the dining room set, a lamp with a label saying it was clothing.

And then it got weird. A pack of plates was, apparently, 'Spot (Dalmatian)', and so on.

I checked the will again, and suddenly realised they had wanted to hide their wishes while alive.

The Broken Step

The step was broken.

I knew that, I was the one that had noticed it in the first place, back when the crack was small and insignificant. I'd logged it in the correct folder, and thus it was no longer my problem, it was the responsibility of the boss.

The step was still broken.

When I remembered it, I would avoid it, stepping over it. But that was rare, as most of the time, I was too busy working to think about it.

But the step was still broken.

And when it completely broke under me, I also became broken.

100 Days

When compared to other achievements, I know it's not that important. There are taller mountains, climbed by those with harder paths. People do more, then use it as a launching platform for even higher achievements.

It's nothing, really, compared to those. Just a round number of days, all of them without a type of action. An action that was hurting me, hurting those I loved. So not doing it is the sane, logical, obvious thing to do. So why the fuck should I celebrate?

Because these 100 days were mine, not theirs.

And because there's another 100 days to come.

They/Them

Thankfully the aliens had a translation device.

In my first meeting, as I sat down, the alien opposite me said something

<This one asks for opposite's pronouns, yes?>

I blinked, and carefully weighed things.

"Yes, and mine are They/Them."

The device beeped, and then began to talk in their language for over a minute, more as I got embarrassed and tried to get it to stop and ask what was going on.

The alien responded, and the translation explained.

<This device translate context and true meaning.

This one wishes to offer opposite a hug?>

That hug didn't need translation.

The Scientific Method

As soon as I broke through the barrier at the edge of the universe, the being was there, reaching out for me.

"Help me!" it said, after a moment of staring at me.

"You speak my language?"

"You've broken through to a place beyond existence and you're worried about that?"

"Well yes, I know the science that got me here, I understand it. I don't understand this."

The being looked at me oddly, I think, and shook its head.

"Another scientist. Well, I'll leave you before It notices you."

I was confused, until It arrived, and punished me quite quickly.

Save Skin

As my daughter rubbed behind Fido's ears, she saved the file and then looked over at me.

"Why is it that symbol, anyway?"

I glance over from my screen.

"What is it, sweetie?"

"Saving files on devices, it's always that odd shaped square thingy. Why is that the save symbol?"

I took a deep breath as I pushed away from the desk.

"I'm old.

That's a floppy disk, which used to be what you put files on. Often stuff looks like things that are old-fashioned, don't worry."

Fido, our cleaning robot, barked and then went off to keep cleaning things.

The Three Tribes

Long before the Three Tribes, here where the rivers Triff, Toof, and Helda all flowed into the Lake of Life, there were three villages, each with skills unique to them. One village was skilled at fishing from the lake, one skilled at harvesting the plants, and one skilled at attacking the other two and gaining tribute.

Some think that the Three Tribes came from those three villages, but no.

Each of the first two tribes hired mercenary squads to stop the other one. These two squads then immediately took over the villages, and that's where the Three Tribes came from.

Fixing The File

Data files would come in in various levels of corruption and degradation, and I would do my best to fix them.

Most people thought people like me just ran a couple AI programs over the files and called it a day. But there was a lot more to it, on some files at least.

When they were badly damaged, I'd end up having to go line by line and fix it, however possible.

But this did mean I had to guess the contents, and sometimes I get it wrong.

"She's not cheating" vs "She's cheating" is just one word difference... 

Keys And Coins

The ship had been becalmed for twenty days, at least. The crew was getting stir crazy, and the Captain and the Quartermaster both tasked me with finding a way to fix this.

It took me a day, mostly because I was hoping for the wind to pick up. But when it didn't, I introduced the crew to the ancient game of Keys and Coins.

The crew got into it as I explained the ancient rules, as quickly as I could come up with them.

Ending up stabbed over losing one too many bluff rounds was a little disheartening, on reflection.

Good Penmanship

On the thirtieth night after she left, there was a knock on my door.

That morning, I had given up her coming back to me. But as soon as that knock came, my hopes rushed back in, as I stood up, gathered myself together, and then opened the door.

There was a young woman standing there, but it wasn't her.

She asked me if I was me, and when I confirmed it, she handed me a letter.

I opened it and read it quickly.

I looked up at her, and my heart, while not healing, certainly felt a little better.

Drawing Lines

"Putting to one side the issue of-"

"Putting to one side? We're not putting anything to one side! This is-"

The resolution adjudicator sighed and leaned forward.

"As I explained at the start, we need to work together to-"

"Shut up, this bitch is-"

"Bitch, you son of a bastard? Fuck you, you-"

The adjudicator sighed and leaned back, counting to ten as the two neighbours yelled at each other, and then stood up and let loose with a string of profanities.

They hoped a mutual enemy might get the neighbours aligned.

Instead, they both sued the adjudicator for distress. 

Confessed

The detective walked into the interview room and sat down opposite me, pushing the table into me in an obvious attempt to intimidate me.

"So you wanna confess now?"

I made a show of looking at the seat next to me, with the lack of my attorney there.

"We don't need to bother them, surely?"

I sighed and leaned back in the chair.

"Got a pen and paper?"

He fetched them, and tossed them onto the table. I saw that a confession was already written.

I tore it off, and wrote two words on the new page.

He wasn't happy.

Vendor Trash

One day I found a quarter on the ground as I was waiting for the bus. I thought about keeping it, but instead, on a lark, I popped it into the old school vending machine, and pulled out a capsule. Inside of it was a small red car toy, with "8/99" stamped on the bottom.

So, of course, I was soon putting in a quarter every day, as I wanted the full set, as I got 1 through 12, but then just got doubles.

Until I found a new one stamped "1/00" and I saw it was dates.

The Crops And The Wife

The young man was running the tiller through his field when the nobleman rode up on a fine horse, a couple more noblemen arriving a second later.

"Peasant!"

The young man looked up and saw it was the Duke's son.

"Yes, Sirs?"

"Have you ever considered the beauty inherent in natural order?"

The young man stared, before finally answering.

"Not really, Sir. I just have time to tend to my crops and the wife."

The noblemen rode off, arguing, while the peasant made a mental note to ask the Duke Son's Wife about this next time they were in bed. 

Double Or Nothing

I was trying very hard not to think about just how much money the pile of chips in front of me was worth. It was just numbers. And this number was smaller than the pile opposite, but not by much. If I went in and won, I'd double up. Or I could lose everything.

I checked my cards once more, then looked at the table, and I tried to think, to count, to determine.

But in the end, I just had to, and I called.

The cards flipped over, and my pile doubled.

Now I could think of the cash.

By Campfire

The camp-fire always drew attention. Usually it was a wolf or some other creature, looking for scraps. I rarely set one up in a location where large animals were likely to come calling.

But occasionally, another traveller would approach, looking to share the warmth of the fire. My sense of trust was solid enough that I allowed some to stay, then got up and walked away other occasions.

This night, the traveller was a stunning woman, and there was no one else around, so I allowed her to stay.

In the morning, I awoke to find she'd taken my fire.

By Hand

I hesitated, the final brick in my hand.

I drank the moment in, as I was almost finished. A decade of my life had been spent, mostly but not completely dedicated for building this, by myself, brick by brick. When I was an old man, I would tell my grandchildren how I'd done it, how I'd found purpose and meaning in the simple joy of building this-

Suddenly, there was a cracking noise as the riverbed shifted, and one of the walls fell down.

Part of me was happy for more work.

My foot, under the wall? Not so much.

Sending

The Wizard was insistent on being kept appraised of every step of the errand. He accomplished this by casting a communication spell at seemingly random times. Getting woken up by his huge face demanding information was bad enough, getting interrupted taking a shit was worse.

But he at least seemed to understand when most of the reports were about thr same.

And then his last message found me tied up by the underground creatures.

They were clearly stunned and were ready to worship him.

But if he had the social skills to pull that off, he wouldn't have needed me...

Both Worlds

It was a complicated few seconds. All I knew was that I was slowly drifting away from the spaceship, my tether cut, with only a gun in my hand.

I knew my physics, if I fired the gun behind me until it was out of projectiles, then threw the gun, I'd have a chance at staying close enough to be found and saved.

But in front of me, the alien who presumably cut my tether was slowly breaking into the craft.

I fired every bullet into the alien. They all bounced off, as I drifted away.

Worst of both worlds.

Worthy Run

It was a quarter to six in the morning, and I wanted to be in bed, warm, safe, asleep.

But no, I had to run, now, since I had no time later, nor would I have energy for when I did have the time.

So as I started off, my feet quickly aching, I knew that this was supposed to help me in the long run, that maintaining my schedule would help keep me healthy and strong.

But as the wind cut into my skin, and it began to rain, I considered it if was worth it.

It was not.

Ignorance

I put in my 2 weeks notice, and all hell broke loose.

I was able to ignore all the complaining from those who reported to me that they would get stuck with a worse manager.

I was able to ignore all the questions from my co-workers about why I would leave, where I was going, what was going to happen.

And I was even able to ignore all the efforts from my superiors to keep me where I was, all the bonuses they offered.

Because I couldn't ignore the ongoing expenses investigation HR was undertaking and was getting too close.

Population Growth

Building the settlement took years, as most of the building was only able to be done by one or two people for an hour or so a day, with the rest of their days spent gathering the food and water to survive.

But eventually, everyone had a home, and there was storage enough to survive even the toughest winter.

It felt good, to be at the point where things were good.

It lasted a month.

I had hoped the changes would come due to population growth. And in a way it was.

Just of termites, rather than of human beings.

The Old One

Once I arrived on the oil rig, I approached the supervisor. It took a while to get the story out of him, but eventually he explained that some of his workers had heard a few odd noises from the drilling hole. Then two of them broke into a fight, one dying to his injuries.

I insisted on speaking to the survivor. Luckily the ship hadn't left, and I was about to speak to them.

After a few questions, the guard left, and I was able to work out if this was the servant of Stonoma or not.

Sadly, it wasn't.