Undeath Bay

The supply ships came at the start and end of summer, at the first point the bay unfroze, and the last point before it froze over.

So when the ship came in halfway through spring, I was confused. I approached, and was stunned at how many people were on the ship.

When they mentioned zombies, I laughed, but they showed me enough video to prove they were telling the truth.

Took me a few hours, but I managed to kill them all and destroy their bodies. Had to be sure they hadn't brought the virus with them, you understand, right?

True Appearance

After the human woman was captured, he appeared to her in a flash of hellfire in the form of a demon.

"Pathetic human, tremble before-"

"Demons aren't real."

He stared at her, then vanished, the room filling with mind wiping gas.

He appeared to her as a vampire.

"Hello, welcome-"

"Vampires aren't real."

Another beat, vanish, gas, reappear, this time as a liquid metal robot.

"Human, I have returned to this time to-"

"Why don't you go back to the demon, that was at least original."

He blinked.

"What the-"

She showed her true form to him, to his horror.

Finding Common Hates

She sat me down, looking upset with me.

"So, you know how I met Judy in my spin class, yeah?"

"Oh, yeah, how is she?"

"Well, she's fine. But she told me some stuff from when the two of you were dating. That you told her that you didn't want to have kids and settle down. But you told me that you did, and I'm just, I can't believe you'd lie, but she was so insistent, I-"

I held up a hand.

"You do understand that Judy caused me to hate things, that you helped me love?"

She calmed down.

Outpost Readout

When the call came in, I was asleep after drinking heavily the night before. But eventually the incessant ringing woke me up, and I grabbed it.

"Yeah?"

"Yes, I'm glad I caught you, I assume you were out recording the readings?"

Recognising the voice of my boss's boss's boss, I quickly coughed to get the hangover out of my voice.

"Yes sir, just doing my regular rounds, you know how it is!"

"While I admire your dedication, don't you think now is the time to instigate our emergency protocols?"

I glanced at the readouts, and cursed drinking everything last night.

Two Swordspeople

We chose our path together long before we truly understood what we were doing. We could have thought about it harder, but at the time, we just decided that we both needed a partner to get us through a rough patch.

But then the rough patch became smooth sailing, and with things going so well, why change things? But then things got worse again. So we needed to stick out the bad times, and good times wouldn't last, so milk them.

This led to us sticking together until we couldn't survive without the other one.

Which our simultaneous deaths proved.

Just One

She had her emotional outlets, wine, phone calls to her mother, triple choc ice cream.

But when she had truly strong emotions, she would head down into the basement, where she would fill a balloon with paint, and then throw it against a canvas she randomly pulled out of the stack of twenty she had down there. She would let it dry, then put back, and then do it again.

When she was an old woman, she finally looked at them, hoping they were all good.

As it turned out she 'randomly' picked the exact same canvas every single time.

The Old Methods

The days of sending a beautiful woman into the room to distract a target were mostly gone. Sure, there was the occasional horny old man who could be easily manipulated, and there was that Chinese businesswoman, but for the most part, we had to use more complex means to distract targets.

On this day, we used the fighting couple and the clumsy waitress to poison the target's drink, but then just before he drank, he dropped the drink, and we lost the chance.

On his way out, he made a call to his mistress.

So maybe we should go back.