Body Weight Betrayal

The only thing stopping me from falling a few dozen storeys was a thin sheet of plastic.

I went to roll over, but the plastic made a sound that I didn't like, given I was still under the effects of gravity.

So instead I lifted a leg, slowly, then reached out with it and tried to hook the floor where the plastic was held.

My pant leg hooked on, but at the expense of the plastic, which began to tear under my weight. But my pants would hold me up, right?

But my recent weight loss meant they were loose...

Growing Investment

I'd just started my shift, when the traveller leant on the fence, looking between me and the field.

"Having a break?" The traveller asked, using the entirely wrong stress points. But I withheld a laugh.

"No, just started."

"Doing what?"

"Watching."

"Watching... what?"

"The field here, I supervise its growing."

"Your job is to watch grass grow?"

"You sound confused, Traveller."

"It's just that the saying... Is this special grass?"

"As special as any other."

"This a religious thing?"

"I'm an atheist."

"Then why the hell do you watch grass grow?"

"Because it's my job, traveller."

I love being self-employed.

When The Rains Came

When the rains came, he told me. When the rains came, all would be solved, all would be well.

When the rains came, it became a state of mind, one that flowed through our whole lives. When the rains came, that was the key, so today wouldn't matter.

When the rains came, that day built up power, as it needed to fix so much, to make up for so much neglect. When the rains came.

When the rains came, it was much later than he thought, but they still came.

But when the rains came, they washed away everything.

Everything.

Difference Of Opinion

"I don't see how you can call our faiths the same. We pick our berries in the summer in tribute to the sun!"

"And we ban picking berries in the winter due to the Gods wanting them kept alone!"

"We don't eat birds because they carry the stars at night!"

"And we only eat food that doesn't fly, to remember our place below the Gods!"

"We praise Nature by ensuring women don't sully it!"

"And we praise the Gods by ensuring women aren't sullied, by keeping them under lock and key!

"See? Totally different! He's an idiot!"

"Says the idiot!"

Cold

The storm lashed the windows, the house lights flickering on and off with every gust of wind.

Every time the darkness came back, he pulled a little away from the circle, content to let them drink and smoke. Soon he was alone, exploring this house all by himself. The coat rack gave him a fright, as did the kitchen door.

But then, accompanied by a crash of lightning, he heard a scream, cut off. He rushed back to the party, and they were all dead.

He realised none of them had worn a jacket just as the killer struck him.

Time Flies

They're tiny little creatures, no bigger than your fist. Those who can see them say they're a faint blue color.

They're from the space between universes, and they feed on the fabric of spacetime, taking the energy of existence itself to prolong their own impossible existence.

For most, they do not exist, as they cannot sense or even comprehend them. For a few, they're pests, getting in the way as they live their powerful lives.

Me? They represent hope. Hope that since spacetime can be destroyed, it can therefore be altered, fixed.

It's been a decade since I lost them.

Sucked Out

They drilled it into us during training.

"Put every bullet in it's place, else you'll get sucked out into space!"

Poor rhyme structure aside, it is an important lesson to learn. When you're on a space station or ship, one misplaced shot and explosive decompression will kill everyone.

I took that lesson to heart, as I passed training, and began to serve on stations, working my way up the ladder.

So the day the alien began to tear apart the crew, I knew what to do.

Should have checked the wall I was firing at was an external wall first.

Space Station Saviour

The space station had begun with lofty goals of international cooperation leading to world-saving breakthroughs, but by the point of the blackout it was mostly a relic with just enough funding to keep itself going.

But then the world went dark, every signal below them suddenly gone, the last thing that was sent being a cut off message saying sorry.

The station's crew worked overtime, scanning, testing, sending message after message, trying to work out what happened, until the drifting creature sensed them and ate the station before leaving.

So the station did in fact save the world, sort of.

The Connection

She came to my door, like many before her, seeking the secret, begging me to teach her how to connect with the minds of animals. Like many before her, she didn't accept my refusals, and eventually I agreed. Like many before her, she took some time to grasp the keys to connection, but eventually she learnt. Like many before her, she made her first connection to a squirrel in the backyard. Like many before her, she was disappointed at how simple the animal's mind was, and left.

Like all the times before, I gave Mupson extra nuts for his help.

To Unify

The summit of the races was supposed to finally bring peace and unity to the lands, but the differences were apparently too great. The Elves insisted on the right to dam the rivers, regardless of if the Dwarves needed them to flow to survive. The Demonspawn insisted on Angelite mining to cease, the Starchildren insisted it continue.

But before some minor wars broke out, the Kobolds tabled that, given everyone had signed (fairly one sided) pacts with them, they were in a position to run things peacefully.

Which helped immensely, a common hated enemy to fight really brings beings together.

Safely Ignored

The signal was ignored for a long time. A long series of irregular beeps, dismissed as white noise from a binary star systems' complicated pulsar belt.

The occasional crackpot would pop up and claim it was proof of whatever theory they already assumed was true, but they were safely ignored.

Until a bored astronomer set up a program to record the beeping as a learning exercise, then forgot to turn it off.

And then the three year long pattern was discovered, and everyone began scrambling for analysis.

Bit too late, given the warfleet was already en route, per the message.

What Kept Him Alive

The Old Man stood in the middle of the bridge, so still that a hawk had perched on the top of his oversized weapon.

As the sun was setting, the man he was waiting for arrived on horseback. The younger, stronger fighter laughed as he dismounted and unsheathed his larger weapon.

"Ah, so they think you can stop me where so many more have failed. Stronger, faster, more exotic, I've bested them all. Your experience counts little, and you have what else?"

He swung, startling the hawk, which attacked, driving the fighter over the edge of the bridge.

"My luck."

There's A Mole

The take from the three robberies was substantial, each hit greater than the last as they panicked further and tried to move more money. Substantial, but hot as hell.

So it was buried, deep in the forest, in a leather  case with four locks on it, one per member. As they died, the keys would accumulate, and eventually the lucky last survivor would get the cash, they all decided.

Wheels, Buckshot, and Grifter all died at Blueprint's hand within a fortnight, and he left it five whole years.

Plenty of time for the moles to chew through leather, and bills.

What Causes Multiverses

You think the multiverse gives a damn about you, me, or humanity in general? Yes, universes split and diverge due to choices and decisions, but only the macro level. Is gravity this strong, or stronger? What speed does light travel at? Shit like that. What you have for breakfast means less than nothing to the universes.

Humanity does not matter, with one exception. If Humanity creates self-replicating nanobots or some other Universe ending catastrophe, that will have an impact, a split.

The fact that the vast majority of created universes are due to such factors is affirming, in a way.

Cyberbiohackers

After a few days in, my curiosity got the better of me. As we bombarded that day's target's internal neural network with DoS attacks, I asked him.

"Hey, Thomas, how can you still believe in God when-"

The rest of the group all groaned. Thomas remained calm until they stopped.

"The first major steps in biohacking were, as you may or may not know, were altering DNA strands to fool and attack DNA sequencing machines."

"Ok, and..."

"The most powerful and useful hacking subroutines discovered also turned veins silver. What else is that but proof of God?"

"Coincidence?"

He snorted.

Final Failsafe

It was the final failsafe, one that promised technical survival but a low chance of ever waking up. The passenger (it was only viable for one being) would go into stasis and the ship would go into deep sleep and drift. Hopefully towards a star, so when enough solar energy fed into the ship it could wake up and try for a rescue.

But otherwise, if there was a collision or a wake from a passing celestial body, well, one might never be awoken.

A terrible fate, considering that for most beings, stasis kept you alive, but awake, unmoving, still...

Grandpa's Trap

The trap was old, rusted, stiff, even before I was given it. Grandpa said I needed to know how to provide for myself, and the ranch backed onto woodland. So we walked out together, and he taught me how to oil the trap, plant it, how to secure it to a log just heavy enough for an animal to drag and tire themselves out, assuming their leg didn't break between the jaws.

Every day I come out here and check on the trap. For him, in his memory, and all he did.

But I never set it. That's for me.

Lures With Net

The Injun girl was sitting crosslegged on the boulder in the middle of my fields, oxen milling about her. A man, I'd just fired a couple warning shots at, but a girl, that was different.

As i approached, I saw her eyes were closed, and the wounds on her arms and legs. When I went to tell her to move on, she spoke.

"Had I come to your door, you would have ignored me. So instead I pose as an oddity. So you are here, where you need to be."

I readied my rifle, as the O'Malley boys rode in.

Cliff Edge Explanation

A slightly different set of chemicals in the primordial soup that started us off.

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs hitting slightly harder and wiping out a lot more life.

One of the successful empires being a bit more successful and then taking everyone down with them.

A virus being slightly more resistant to the level of medical knowledge we had relative to the time.

Certain scientists cracking certain weapons earlier.

Any number of judgement calls involving nukes.

Humanity has been so close to death so many times over the years.

You honestly think everyone else is equally lucky?

Eating A Supernova

Very few souls get to experience what it's like to take a supernova to the face.

Well, yes, actually lots do, but few experience it and then are able to think about and discuss it afterwards.

Usually you have to be a god, or near enough to make no difference, and either have people trying to stop you doing something, something so horrible any sacrifice is justified, or you are trying to die and eating a supernova sounds like a good plan to do so.

Or, in my case, be blissfully unaware of your power until everything is burning brightly.