He assumed he had won, so he took the opportunity to monologue about how good a manipulator he was, how all my actions had been controlled by him.
So I pulled out my gun and shot him.
He fell to his knees, holding the new hole in his stomach, and I guess he'd rubbed off on me, as I decided to monologue as well.
"You assholes don't get it, real life isn't a game, there aren't rules about how humans have to react, we can-"
He pulled a gun from somewhere and shot me back.
And I mean, fair play.
Sally and Gareth had the perfect set-up going. They'd stake out the place they wanted to hit for a few moments, until they were fairly confident as to the sexual orientation of the clerk. Then, whichever way they swung, one of them would be outside and act sexy, before the other would hit the store and escape. There wasn't any good description of either of them, as the clerks would always be too obsessed with the 'unrelated' person outside.
This worked well until, after a scare with a bisexual clerk, they made the mistake of hitting an asexual one instead.
I was watching them through the bug in their glasses. I had it on good authority that they were the best hacker available, but I still didn't trust them. Plus I needed to make sure all the work done to get them in the room was worth it.
So I watched them use the ID card, the keypass, and the doorcode to get into the room. I spoke through the earpiece.
"Remember, the password is 36 symbols long, and is-"
They typed it in perfectly.
"You ARE good!"
A finger tapped the post-it note on the edge of the monitor.
He'd planned out every possible outcome and ensured they'd benefit him. Sure, some were better than others (he would much rather one of the many outcomes where he was ruling everything rather than an outcome where he was remembered as a martyr by his children who now ruled), but no matter what the rag-tag bunch of misfits trying to stop him did, he knew he'd win.
So when they burst into his throne room, he sighed, and prepared for one of the lesserly optimal outcomes.
Then they tossed paint over him.
Fine, just adjust the "defeat them epically" plan slightly...
Sister Grace found her new posting to an outreach center in the middle of central Africa rewarding, but as the days turned into weeks, she became more concerned.
The only other white person for miles was a man who was called Tonto, and who seemed to live on the general store's steps. With every greeting he gave her, she was sure he must be hiding from some vicious crime.
So in her messages back, she requested help from the authorities.
When the reply came that he was the local authorities, as far as they knew, she was graceless about it.
The Wizard clearly didn't get a lot of visitors, so I tried to look interested as he showed me a bunch of his devices. I don't think he would have noticed either way, until he showed me a simple silver ring with a pearl on it.
"And this is my Ring of Truth. If you wear it and lie, it glows."
I paused.
"Is that based on intent or fact?"
"What do you mean?"
"If I think I'm lying, but I'm not...?"
"It doesn't glow."
I put it on.
"My wife isn't cheating on me."
I didn't like the answer.
The two snipers were stuck in a dilemma, as both of them had their weapons trained in roughly where the other one was. But neither knew exactly, they needed the other to move enough to target. But both of them would only move once they were about to take the shot, and they wouldn't do that until they'd spotted the other.
So they were stuck, waiting for something, anything, to break the stalemate. A wild animal, an uncontrollable bodily function, anything.
A rainstorm wasn't really enough, at first, but then a couple simultaneous lightning bolts sniped the problem quite cleanly.
We managed to shut the door behind us quickly enough that they didn't get through, but they instead began to bang on the door, which would probably break sooner or later, even as we leant against it.
We both saw the warning symbols, the detailed signs saying how bad an idea it was to open the door in front of us.
We looked at each other, and silently we agreed that better the chance it'd take them out first.
We jumped forward and opened the door ahead as the door behind burst open.
The next few minutes were... Complicated.
Nicely.
Time slowed as the two spellcasters battled.
That's not a metaphor, it threw out all cosmic calculations for a few weeks until we learned the required compensation changes.
The fabric of space and time was torn asunder by the forces they brought to bear.
Also not a metaphor, luckily a few repair enchantments kicked in and the resulting reality loss was fairly minimal, relatively.
The battle was for the heart of the Archangel Glorania.
I wish that was a metaphor.
But in the end, the simplest magic trick won the day.
I guess that's a metaphor, for a right hook.
Heaven was... Nice.
But after being shown around, they finished the tour at the Oracle Of All Current Knowledge. Due to free will, they couldn't tell me anything about the future, only what had happened or was current. And time didn't flow differently in Heaven.
But that was fine, as the only question I had was about the past. I took a coin from the bowl and slid it into the slot abd asked.
"The relationships that I ended, how many times was that the right move?"
The... Thing in the box answered, simply, "Zero times."
So, Heaven WAS nice...
It was known as "E.P.C.S", Explorer Personality Control Syndrome. Explorers, for cost issues, explored deep space on solo vessels, and to avoid isolation issues, multiple A.I.s would accompany them on the computers.
Made sense, and often it would go fine. But explorers would often start to alter and change the A.I.s for... 'improvements'.
But then they'd return to base, return to other people. And they'd get angry when other people didn't act how they wanted.
Those that didn't end up getting arrested often went out on more missions, which is why the problem's not actually a problem, to the Fleet.
I'm sure when it was built, the stairwell was warm and inviting. But after decades of use and then decades without use, it was now dark, foreboding, scary...
And what I now had to climb up.
I thought about using my phone as a torch, but with a battery life in the single digits, I couldn't risk it. Instead, I just started to climb.
At first, it didn't seem that bad, once I got used to the slime that was growing underfoot, I just had to make sure I took each step slowly and forcefully.
Until there was the nail.
So I knew that there was some practically impossible but technically plausible way for my hand to pass through a solid object, every molecule, atom, and sub-atomic particle just had to miss every other one. It'd never happened, far as I knew, but physics said it was possible.
I had that factoid buried in the same place in my mind as what badgers, snakes, and mushrooms had in common, something I knew but didnt think about.
But as I stared at my hand and the table it just went through, I kept trying to think of an alternative.
Still thinking.
I managed to get him to sit down in a booth with an expensive drink he clearly didn't appreciate and explain that he needed to calm down. I gave him a cliff notes version of the power struggle in the night-life section of the city. But before I could get to offering suggestions, he gulped down another few hundred dollars and stood up, looking excited.
"Sounds like to me a bunch of fucking pussies who won't know what hit 'em!"
He left, and I presume went and hit them, considering how many parts they found him in the following morning.
So as a storyteller, which is what I think I am when I'm either really pleased with myself or drunk, or both, there are areas I can and do tell stories in. These Drabbles, wrestling matches, DMing tabletop RPGs, stuff like that.
But I do get other ideas, ones involving properties I'll never get to touch officially (probably).
And I've noticed a pattern, in that most of the time, I want to take comedic foils and turn them into absolute fucking monsters, to prove funny doesn't mean weak.
Which is kinda weird, as I'm a funny guy, I feel like...
He led me to his inner sanctum rather excitedly, assuring me he'd found a way to defeat the impending Orc invasion.
There was a man in a strange green robe, with a few boxes made of metal. When my Master introduced me, it took a minute for my translation spell to kick in, and another for me to realise I'd heard him correctly refer to me as a fellow Master.
Before I could ask what was going on, he ordered me to start casting a mass gold making spell, which I did, as he examined his new "rocket launcher" staff.
When the Humans first got to see the Alliance Galactic map, they were confused. Trying to remain diplomatic, they asked why there were so many sections and areas the Alliance was surrounding but didn't control.
It was explained that when a society wasn't accepted into the Alliance for being too warlike or discriminatory, it was left alone.
The Humans were aghast, asking how the Alliance could let such security risks remain.
That led the invitation to the Humans being rescinded, which then led Humans to reach out and coordinate a new alliance the Alliance never saw coming, for some reason.
I hadn't intended to trauma dump onto the old man at the bar, but he asked enough questions to basically get everything out of me.
When I finally realised what I'd done, I began to stammer out an apology when he spoke.
"Now, I can't say that I understood everything you said just then, young man, but I understood your pain. I've felt similar, and you know what got me through it?"
I braced myself for this to become religious, or possibly just multi-level marketing.
"Beer. Makes everything better."
Not a good answer, but better than a lot of others.
I thought I'd managed to forget her well, considering how deep I'd fallen for her. I managed to block out what I thought was every memory trigger, through a lot of work in breaking the mental connection
Her perfume was just a flowery smell.
Her hairstyle was just a haircut that didn't suit most women who wore it.
Her pasta sauce was just a dish that needed more garlic.
Her ringtone was just 'Gentle_Waves.wav'.
Her touch, well, I never had to experience that, so that wouldn't matter.
...
One meeting, one grasp of my wrist, and it all came flooding back...
It was always called "Westward Road Cliff Bend" in the government documents, but the locals just called it Dead Man's Bend. Because, as you might have guessed, people tended to die there.
For thirty years, every safety measure they installed wasn't enough, as cars and motorcycles would somehow still end up going over and crashing below on the rocks.
They tried the traditional methods, then the extreme measures, even the experimental ones. And they still don't know what it was that fixed it, crashes just stopped after local 'Legitimate Businessman' Garry Dante was found crushed beneath a 'friend's' new car.
They both saw the knife. They both lunged for it, and it skitted across the metal grating they were fighting on.
After several strikes back and forth, he got leverage and threw her away from the knife, and then he scrambled towards it.
He got a hold of it, only to then feel the lead pipe come down across his neck, as his vision filled with stars and pretty colors. The next pipe shot replaced both with pain.
The third never landed, as he managed to throw the knife upwards, missing her, but hitting the rope holding back the girder.
Important Conversations are often already decided upon before they happen. Days and weeks of careful negotiation by underlings lead to the Important Conversation where the Important People agree to what has already been agreed to.
Sometimes the Important Conversation goes awry, certainly, but usually not.
But Important Conversations do sometimes happen without this, usually when someone destined to be an Important Person is put on or off the right track.
But in all history, the most Important Conversation between Important People was in a cave, between someone playing with new toys, and someone telling them to put down THE ITEMS.
The running joke is that every wizard spell was created for sex. Helping hand? Originally a sex thing. Summon demon? Summon succubus you mean? Create liquid? Well the first liquid created wasn't water, I bet, nudge nudge, so on and so forth.
Now, the reason this is so funny is that everybody knows that there aren't any actual sexual spells. Hence the comedy, since it's obviously false.
Thing is, there are possible sex spells out there, and they are discovered relatively regularly.
As are the discovery of dead wizards who've been drained of energy by some unknown force no-one knows...
He waited, deliberately, until I was taking my first gulp of my energy drink to speak.
"She was totally flirting with you."
Once the coughing had subsided, I glared at him.
"No, she was in a service industry job, they're supposed to be friendly."
"Dude, there's the plastic 'HiwhatcanIgetyou' smile, and there's genuine flirting. That was the latter."
I tried to think of a response, then I got it, as I shook my half empty can.
"Clearly I need another one."
I turned around, walked back inside, and asked her directly.
I was stuck when she said she had been.
After I explained what had happened, amd how I felt terrible for setting him off, she was silent for a moment, and then gestured out of the window to the mountain in the distance.
"Remember a few seasons ago when there was that avalanche? Thousands of pounds of snow and rocks swept down the mountain and damaged so much. That was probably set off by a traveller stepping poorly.
So what caused it?"
"The traveller, obviously."
"No, it was caused by all that put the stones and rocks there, and didn't bother securing them. Never forget what set things up."
"Hello, Suicide Prevention Line, you're speaking to Susan, how-"
"You ever thought about it?"
"About what?"
"Guess."
"Well, who am I speaking to?"
"Call me... Phil."
"Well Phil, what are you asking about?"
"Suicide, obviously."
"Ah. Well, yes, I have actually."
"Did you do it?"
"Well, obviously not, how else would I-"
"I mean did you ever try to do it, then."
"Ah. No. I got close, but I stopped myself. And you can too, if you're-"
"I know I can stop. I'm not doing it."
"Well, that's excellent, can I-"
"Just getting your numbers up. Call you tomorrow.
Maybe."
The door chimed as it opened, without any actual bell.
The old man who slowly walked out of the back room had a smile that was "friendly salesperson" at one point in his life, but was now "technically sign of life".
"Welcome to my Magic Shop, what can I help you with today?"
He looked at the customer for a brief moment.
"Body modification, perhaps?"
The young man answered without answering.
"Ah, right. Well, true love is impossible, but I can give you one day of passion with them."
"That'll do!"
"You say that now" the old man didn't say.
I had introduced her to most of the ship's crew, but paused outside the science bay.
"Now, our final team member is Ges. They are... different."
"Different like K.A.R.L?"
"Goodness no, the reformed murderbot is miles less weird then Ges. Ges is, well, everyone. They cycle through everyone in the universe, every few seconds they change. But they keep their memory, so don't worry."
"I see... So Ges is short for Gestalt then?"
"Ha, no."
I opened the door, and she stared at them for several seconds.
"I thought-"
"Turns out this specfic guy is 99% of the universe's population..."
The Grim Reaper waved a bony hand, and suddenly the endless black desert was replaced by an endless corridor of mirrors.
"Here, you will remain, until you find the answer, and only then-"
"73."
I didn't think a skull could look deadpan, but it managed it.
"73?"
"Yeah, that's the answer."
"I don't think so."
"Well what's the question?"
"It's more metaphysical than-"
"Metaphysical questions are easy, any answer works for them. 73. Final answer."
The Grim Reaper sighed, then a small portal opened in its hand.
"73?"
There was a pause.
"I suppose if you count... Yeah, that'll do."
As I walked around the foreign city in the early hours of the morning (doesn't matter why), I came across a bridge, upon which were hundreds of padlocks, all engraved with initials and love messages. By the time my inebriated brain remembered about love locks, couples putting locks as symbols of their love on bridges, I noticed the man working on removing them, quietly, with a small electric saw.
I walked over with drunken confidence.
"I bet their damaging the bridge, so you're from the local council, right?"
He sighed, softly.
"No, if I can't be happy, why should they?"
I slowly made my way through the crowded bar, a drink in either hand. As I got to just near the door, my constant muttering of "excuse me, pardon me" was enough for the woman in front of me to turn around.
And it was my ex-partner, the woman I'd never gotten over.
Time stood still as we looked at each other, as I tried to think of something to say, and she seemed to be doing the same.
Until she saw the two drinks, sighed, and left, before I could even think to explain they were both for me.
Five people, ten guns.
Everyone had two trained on them, and no-one was quick enough to take the shot. After several long seconds, the tension was broken by a voice.
"Well this is a situation, huh?"
The voice seemed to be coming from the radio at the far side of the room. Everyone began to fidget.
"I don't have all day. Just end your fake partnership and let's be on our way."
The two married couples blinked and all four fired.
As they fell to the floor, the survivor was grateful they'd kept up their ventriloquism training all these years.
Before my death, I assumed nothing would happen after my death.
But then when I did die, and something did happen, I assumed it would be the Pearly Gates, angels, and so on. Or fire and pain, maybe, but I thought I lived an OK life.
Instead, I found myself in a void, grey, lifeless, alone. I called out, over and over again, until my voice gave out.
Eventually, a figure approached me slowly, a scythe on their bony hands. When they got to me, their voice was heavy, stone like.
"Wait, how did you get here?"
Didn't explain anything.
I had plenty of time to consider my options, but very few options to consider.
My bindings were just too tight to slip out of, so trying to do anything while the car was in transit wasn't an option.
So I'd have to try something when we arrived and they opened the trunk. I eventually decided on kicking up, and hopefully managing to knock them away long enough to hop out and then...
The car stopped, and I had to settle on that plan.
Unfortunately my sense of time passing was off and I eventually kicked my would-be rescuer instead.
They thought they were doing the right thing. A God of Stories, trapped by the other gods and goddesses, it had to be because of mortals and their fate to one day overthrow the gods.
So, the group trained, studied, fought, and eventually broke the seals and released the God of Stories from their imprisonment.
The God of Stories was grateful, and promised to make good, when they snapped their fingers and remade the world in a 'proper' way. One where they were important characters, but in someone else's story, the final bosses to a true, proper hero's glorious success.
He approached the small hot dog trolley.
"Basic Deluxe."
She nodded and quickly assembled the dish, putting each topping on with fast but exact movements, then took the offered money and handed it over.
He took it, and paused, staring at the slightly steaming maybe-sandwich.
"Something wrong?"
He half nodded, and then shook his head.
"I... Today sucked. Not quite total catastrophe, but it was not good.
And yet, here and now, this..."
He took a big bite and chewed, smiling.
"This makes things better. Thank you."
She considered her words.
"You're welcome, I guess? It's just a hot dog."
Marcy.
I'm writing you this, while I still can, because tomorrow morning I may well not be able to.
I know you've told me to stop using it, but you, none of us would be alive right now if I didn't use it in the past, and there's no way tomorrow will be any safer for us, not while the monsters are still out there.
So, tomorrow, I might be a little dumber, a little less me, a little more like them. And eventually, a lot like them.
And when that happens, just accept it, rather than use the device.
"So what would you tell your 18 year old self?"
"The winning lottery numbers for that week."
"No jokes, I'm being serious."
"So am I."
"You really can't think of any life lessons that you want to pass on?"
"Oh, plenty. I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life, most revolving around not taking risks, not chasing my dreams."
"Well there you go, why not tell your younger self that?"
"Because I know my younger self, and he wouldn't listen to anything I said unless I proved myself worth listening to."
"How?"
"By giving the winning lottery numbers."
My second in command ripped the hoods off the three of them, and they all saw me and began to panic. As they began to struggle against their bonds, I explained that someone in this room had stolen from me, and more importantly The Family, and no-one was leaving until justice was done.
They all pleaded their ignorance, but as I laid out the evidence my second in command had provided, they fell silent.
After a moment, I told them that it wasn't personal, but I had to be sure of things.
I then killed my former second in command.
Every so often (usually right after that old Strangelove movie gets revived) someone puts for a proposal for the Earth Government to build a Last Resort device, something that would poison or destroy the Earth and as much of the surrounding space as possible, to act as a deterrent for invasion.
And while enough civilisations believe we'd use such a device, the issue is always that if we build it, someone will try to set it off instead.
So ideally, people would think we had one, but we actually didn't.
But that seemed hard, so Earth just made one anyway.
The Gods and Goddesses looked down upon the land that they had created, and lo, they began to argue and debate about it. The placement of the islands, the colors of the trees, every choice they had made impacted all the others, and soon they were locked in fierce debate about what to do.
As they debated and discussed, the Great Hero stuck into the Home of the Gods and Goddesses, and there, stole the blueprints of life.
And lo, they did return to the Earth and examined them, and yay, he did determine this was a right fuck up.
I woke up and went to open my phone, but I paused. I sat up from the sofa where I'd crashed and took a few deep breaths.
Despite all the setbacks and soul crushing disappointments I'd had over the past lifetime, some tiny part of my soul still had hope, still had a light in the darkness.
And so, as I breathed and paused, I tried to protect that light with cynicism and pessimistic pattern recognition before I turned on my phone and went to the news app.
I saw the headlines.
The light glowed just a little bit brighter.
"Givnosia Elebactum Sansoifia Grees!"
"You learned Demonic from Fino The Dark's text, huh?"
I turned around, pushing the air out of the way as I did so, time having stopped.
"Who-"
"They got their pronunciation wrong, its a short e, not the long ee. Minor spells, doesn't matter, but something like this, it causes a ripple cascade. Destroys the universe."
"I... So who are you?"
"Oh, I'm just the poor sucker who's job is to stop and fix stuff like this."
"OK, I'll pronounce it correctly this time."
"That's not how this goes."
They swung the device to unexist someone.
I stared at the sandwich in the frypan, somehow able to count the seconds as well as count all the ways my life was going wrong.
I got to 250 in both before I flipped the sandwich. Little dark on that side, but still good.
I probably could consolidate some of those ways, I'd gotten it down to a more concise 150 when the other side was done.
I turned off the heat, slid the sandwich onto a plate, cut it in half, and took a bite, burning my mouth.
So 151 ways things had gone wrong, it turned out.
The service was solemn and dignified, albeit scarcely attended. Afterwards, my uncle's lawyer spoke to me briefly to ensure I was coming to see him the next day to deal with his will.
When I got there, I was briefly surprised to find I was alone, until the lawyer explained I was the sole heir.
"But there is a complication. Your uncle wanted to ensure you were, quote, 'worthy' of his estate, and insisted you must solve a puzzle to receive it."
He slid a page towards me. I looked at it.
"2?"
"Correct. Your uncle didn't specify difficulty, thankfully."
After the initial few cycles, once I was convinced I was in one of these Groundhog Day type cycles, I did what you'd expect. I found a pretty solid betting loop to get lots of cash in a couple hours, did that for a few decades.
Then I fell into a funk, just like in the movie. But I only tried to off myself once, when that didn't work, I skipped ahead a bit, I didn't try multiple times.
But I didn't bother trying to improve myself either.
I'm still finding new ways to kill people, it's still so fulfilling...
The car pulled into the parking lot at quite a clip, braking hard just before hitting the dumpster.
After a minute a woman staggered out, blood dripping off one arm, her dress torn, a shotgun gripped in her good arm. She limped into the store, grabbing a bottle of 'Premium' rotgut, and a then a bag of gummi fruits that was half off since they were three weeks out of date.
She slammed them down on the counter and then threw a twenty next to them, the numbers only just visible through the blood.
We made eye contact, and we had quite a conversation in that moment, with no words. At least, I assume I understood her, I wasn't going to risk actually speaking to seek clarification, given the shotgun that she held tighter than anything other than the pack of gummis.
I rang the purchase up, gave her her change, which she put into the charity tin, along with a few more drops of her blood, and then she took her purchases and left.
Of course, none of that happened, as you can see on the security camera footage, other than the few minutes where it stopped working, somehow.
At first, it didn't matter that the lake wasn't technically part of the four countries that would have met in the middle of it. In fact, not belonging to any of them solved the problem about deciding who owned fishing rights.
Then came the earth tremor, and the lake drained. And before anyone could even set a date for a meeting, someone had staked a tent and was quickly building a home where the lake had been.
This shouldn't have been a problem either, as he was a troublemaker, and no-one wanted to claim him either.
Then the oil flowed...
I watched the sun drop behind the horizon, and considered my options.
Getting an antidote was out of the question, there was none within walking distance, at least the few steps I had left. Any substantial increase in my heart rate would be enough to spread the poison around enough.
But obviously sitting here all night seemed like a terrible idea, but then again, it was clear that it was the only one I had left.
Unless I-
A branch snapped behind me, a heavy footstep ringing out, causing me to swivel in shock and then slowly slump down, dead.
I placed the last idol on the correct plinth and waited.
Just as I began to fear that I'd made a mistake, I heard the rumbling of ancient gears turning. The wall began to slowly lower, and I prepared to see the fruits of years of research.
I found the chamber, yes, but there were also about a dozen or so skeletons, and none of the relics, at least at first glance.
Then I saw the rucksack, bulging with relics.
...
I was surely quicker and more nimble then these losers, right?
I jumped forward at a not quick enough run.
I opened the door, expecting a door to door scam artist or something.
Instead it was him. Holding a large, thin box. He opened it after a moment, revealing a sheet cake, with a short message of apology on it.
His expression slowly switched from pride to confusion to worry. Eventually, I sighed, then spoke.
"You honestly think this is enough?"
"Well it's a start, isn't it?"
"I don't need a start. I would need to know, to truly know, that you wouldn't break my heart again.
Can you put that on a cake?"
"Yes?"
I closed the door quickly.
The two heroes had thwarted all of his evil plans, so after another last second escape, he planned, and he used his master stroke.
One of them, he stuck in space, lost in time, and the other he stuck in time, lost in space. Forever separating them, and ensuring he could carry out his diabolical plans in peace.
Except...
He didn't really think through having someone able to see all of time freely, having another able to be anywhere at one point in time, and the two able to meet up, communicate, and just keep changing the timeline for good.
She left the note on the hook where i hung my keys, ensuring I saw it first thing.
I read it, growing increasingly stunned as I realised this was a 'Dear John' letter about my being too boring for her. It ended with her saying she was heading back home.
As I rushed to my car, I quickly worked out how she'd get there. Given her fear of flying, her inability to drive, and her lack of funds, had to be a bus. So I rushed to the terminal.
Thus, not noticing the discount train ticket flyer in the trash.
Enough of the members of the Alliance had day/night cycles that all Alliance starships ran on a 10 on, 10 off system that didn't suit anyone but didn't ruin anyone either.
This would cause problems, as in space, most things didn't care about doing things on such a schedule.
So it evolved into less a day/night cycle and just two equal teams taking turns running the ship.
Unfortunately, as much as day/night cycles were ubiquitous enough to warrant their implementation, the only thing more ubiquitous was arbitrary divisions leading to competition, which inevitably led to attempted sabotage.
I held my breath as the stomping got closer to the door.
The stomping stopped just outside the door, and I could feel the floor shift as the creature stood just outside the closet, the floorboards raising slightly under my feet, but not by much.
My heart skipped a beat as the handle rattled, the creature trying, with difficulty, to open the door.
I quickly tried to consider my options. The only thing I could think of was-
The door opened, and the creature looked up at me.
"Found you Daddy! Now you look for me!"
It ran off quickly.
I placed the bottle on the table, and then drank the contents of my glass in one long, slow gulp.
As I put the glass down, she picked up the bottle and rotated it in her hands.
"I don't understand how you humans drink poison for pleasure."
"It's not poison. Not really. Alcohol makes things just feel... Better. Loosens the inhibitions, lowers pain..."
She stared at the bottle for a moment, considering my words.
"And the cyanide is, what do you call it, a chaser?"
"What?" I asked, slurring, as I fell over to the floor.
"That good?" She asked.
So it'll be April 1st in a little bit.
I hate April 1st.
I wish it was for some personal, understandable reason like I lost a loved one or something, but no, like a lot of people, I really hate April Fools Day.
And with that, i know a lot of people will tell me to take a joke, to lighten up, to have a bit of fun. But screw that, it's stupid, and I'm right to hate it, and you're wrong to like it.
...
April Fools!
...
You see how stupid that is? Why are we still doing this crap?
I sat out in the rain, waiting.
Not for either of them to apologise, I knew that wasn't happening.
Nor for either of them to realise that they were both wrong. No chance of that.
I wasn't waiting for some fourth party to intervene and solve the issue with diplomacy. Chances of that were small enough to be practically impossible.
And I certainly wasn't waiting for some sort of divine report card to win on points.
No, I sat in the rain and waited long enough to make sure the gas leak lasted long enough to do its job inside.
I approached the board, and three different muscular arms suddenly blocked my path. After a couple false starts where all three owners of said arms spoke at once, the closest to me ended up becoming spokesman.
"Beginner's Cup is over by the bathroom, Newbie."
I shrugged.
"I know, but I want to put my name down for the Open Challenge, it's open to all members of the Hunter's Guild, isn't it?"
There was much laughing, and then they let me put my name down.
Proof of kill being a pelt was changed after they found out I had a farm.
I stood at the Pearly Gates, trying to comprehend what I was being told.
"OK, let me get this straight."
"Sure!"
"When we die, we're judged, ok, not unexpected."
"Agreed!"
"But we're not judged on any one religion's moral structure?"
"Of course!"
"But rather we're judged as compared against a hypothetical best version of ourselves?"
"Gotta be fair about it!"
"OK, yeah, that all makes sense. But then it seems to me that you're giving everyone a fail!"
"Well it's not our fault none of you are discovering how to time travel, anyone can do that at any time.
Bye!"
The idea of two gunslingers meeting in the street at High Noon for a quick draw duel is more common in penny reels and pulp westerns than in real life. Most gun fights in town were dirty and undignified, someone pulls a gun and fires before the other one even knows what's happening.
But there was one time, Black Thompson managed to convince the US Ranger to a duel, whole nine yards.
And when the two men met in the street, the quickest draw won, in this case the Ranger's backup drawing on Thompson's hidden assassin behind the public bath.
I asked for silence, but got more noise instead.
I gave it a moment, then asked for silence, again, a little louder. The noise got louder in response.
I debated my next step carefully. Just raising my volume a second time would be pointless, that clearly wasn't going to work.
I decided, instead, on starting my prepared statements, hoping that ot would become obvious to all that they should stop talking at this point.
I'd gotten halfway before there was any noticeable change to the volume of the crowd.
Unfortunately, it was a change towards a still higher volume level.
As one of the content moderators for a major social media platform, he was often on deck whenever a supervillian or natural disaster broke out. And he'd almost always head to the bathroom or find some other excuse to head off, and then the Custodians and other superheroes would turn up and save the day, and he'd return after everything was settled.
Naturally, this led to the office joke that he was secretly Greatguy or Fastperson. But then the jokes turned serious, and they forced him to stay.
And found out he wasn't a superhero, just violently ill over death.
It was something every newbie to the block asked about. The power dynamics of the gangs in the jail were fairly obvious, except that one weedy looking guy who worked all day in the prisoner library. Everyone gave him respect.
When asked, old hands would tell a story about how when he came in, someone tried to mess with him and he enacted such violence that everyone left him alone.
But one guy asked multiple people, got different stories, assumed it was bullshit and messed with him.
Turns out all the stories were true, and now there was another one.
He was bored, sitting on the beach, looking out at the waves. So he picked up a rock and threw it out into the waves.
A moment later, a tenticle emerged from the choppy water, holding the rock. With a whip like motion, it threw the rock back, embedding in the wet sand with a small explosion of damp sand clumps.
The man was close enough to the impact to get hit by the flying sand, and so he got up and ran off.
And that's why the octopus waits in the bay, for the game of catch to continue.
The stewardess practically pushed me into the pilot's seat, and I tried my best not to think about the blood of the now former pilot I was sitting in. She then desperately shoved the headset on, backwards, but I sorted it out.
"Ground control to flight 613-"
"We're here! Hello?"
"Are you the passenger with flying experience we were told about?"
"I mean, I've logged 10 hours in a single engine-"
"That'll do. The plane will do most of the work. But have you restrained the stewardess who killed the last pilots?"
"Wait, she-"
Everything went dark for me then.
I didn't get up today.
OK, technically that's wrong, as I did go to the bathroom a couple times to go to the bathroom. But that doesn't count, I carried my staying in bedness with me.
I'm not sick, at least physically. And to be honest, I don't think I'm mentally ill either. Because I would argue that, if you look at everything that is going on in the world, staying in bed is in fact the sane thing to do. After all, it's sane to not soil where I sleep, so clearly I'm the right one here, shut up.
He strode in, clearly trying to portray that he had little time for me.
"You have 90 seconds."
I took 3 to consider how best to do this, speaking just as he went to cut me off again. I took 17 seconds to give what I thought was the most concise but still accurate explanation for what was going on in his company.
We spent the next 50 seconds going back and forth with his disbelief and the evidence I showed him quickly.
He spent 10 seconds considering the issue.
The last 10 were spent thanking and then firing me.
In a flash of blinding white light, the Angel appeared inside the salt circle. After a moment, it cycled through a few appearances before settling on the classic wings, halo, otherwise human looking. It then focused on me and Garion.
"Mortals, what do you think you're doing?
"Winning a bet."
Garion finished counting out gold coins as the Angel looked confused.
"What sort of gambling is this?"
"Oh, well, see, if Demons are fallen Angels, then it stood to reason that you could use the same summoning ritual to summon an Angel.
Now for the second half of the bet."
I spun the baseball bat on its tip on the floor, never letting it lose too much momentum.
After a moment, he laughed, his chains clinking.
"You think YOU are going to intimidate me? I've trained my entire life to withstand physical pain. You can't scare me!"
I ignored him as I continued to spin the bat. His attitude remained flippant until I spoke.
"See, I'm sure physical pain doesn't bother you..."
I leaned down and lit a match from the friction.
"But how about emotional pain? See, unless you talk, I'm going to set you on fire."
"I'm not afraid of burning, I can handle-"
"Chemically enhanced fire."
As I lit a small fire in a bowl on the desk, he paused, before laughing again.
"I can take it, and I'm not afraid of death."
"What the death of love? What about every day seeing the love drain from those who care for you as they're forced to care for your mangled, disgusting face and body? You think your woman will still love you when she has to wipe your ads every day?"
He blinked, faltering.
"I knew you were ablest." I said as I poured chemicals over him.
I reviewed the situation as I saw it. With there being no free cryopod, given I wasn't willing to commit murder, I was stuck taking the years trip to the destination system awake.
There was enough rations for this, provided I followed procedure and I spent most of my days tending to the garden and water reclamation systems.
I considered the irony, stuck in the most advanced spaceship ever, forced to live like a medieval peasant.
I took a deep breath, and tried the comm-unit to home.
Static.
...
I quickly reconsidered my earlier stance on murder, reaching a different conclusion.
Someone once said that if anyone wanted to become ruler, and had the capability to do so, under no circumstances should they be allowed to do the job.
Certainly, the evidence mostly supports that, given how few rulers have turned out well, as opposed to leaders.
But there is a counterpoint to that, I think. Because I feel like if you did take someone who didn't want the job and couldn't gain it by any reasonable means, is quite probably going to either run away or ruin everything, or do nothing.
So you're left with like 12 people.
They're busy.
After having pulled both cords, I was now forced to deal with the fact that I was rapidly falling to the ground with no way to slow my approach.
Not a good situation to be in.
As I continued to try both cords, I looked down and tried to choose the least worst option.
The hill was an early, if unpleasant, choice, rolling down it might help.
But then I saw the swimming center.
OK, hitting the diving pool was a risk, but what choice did I have?
I aimed, just as the chute opened and threw me off course.
On Friday night, I slumped into chair with a louder than usual sigh. She waited a moment before asking.
"Personal or cultural?"
"Both. I mean, you've seen what's going down, right? And then the usual work shit..."
"OK then. You want to play a board game?"
I nodded slowly, as she knew how to cheer me up. She walked over to the game bookcase.
"So... Twilight Struggle?"
"I really don't want to have to think about Russia right now."
"Morabaraba? Is that how it's pronounced."
"A South African game? No thanks."
"Monopoly then?"
"I hate Monopoly.
...
I'll be the cat."
His domain was a small pocket dimension, sandwiched between two universes (both of them infinite stretches of sandwiches, one Ruben, one Cuban).
He made it after he was defeated by a plucky rag-tag group of misfit adventurers, and his goal was to study the multiverse and work out how to avoid losing again.
Unfortunately, all he found was more ways to lose. So many universes had books or weapons that empowered those that touched them, many more with destined heroes, for some reason.
There were ways for evil to win that he found, sure, but they were all so dull.
The two men both slipped into the alleyway, through opposite doors. The one who came through the door with blaring music was dressed to the nines, the other who came through the door in the back of the wine bar was wearing stuff that was at least clean.
In any other circumstance, they'd have not bothered to look at the other. But right now, both saw a reflection of their own face in the other. Silently, they nodded, before they shared a silent cigarette together.
Until both doors reopened and a woman came through both, both of them looking furious.
I assume my grandfather wanted to ensure the home he'd built with his own two hands would remain in the family because he thought of it as the thing that would last. But the way he wrote the will out, it became a problem, as someone had to take it for anyone to get anything, but taking it meant you wouldn't get any of the millions.
Eventually, just to end the bickering, I took it.
If this was a story, he'd have hidden millions in it.
But instead, I just lucked out with an intended motorway led to enforced buyout.
The Lifeflame is the spark of all life on Goleium, the thing from which all the Gods, Demi-Gods, and Demons emerged, who then created all other life.
It is said that if it ever was expunged, that all of life would go with it. Naturally, this has led to it having to be defended by glass, dozens of magical wards, and a standing army of 1000 warriors, because if there's a "Kill Everything" switch in the world, lots of people will want to use it.
It's also a fake, which is good, since it's gone out eighty-four times so far.
The issue with faster than light travel was that it was expensive and needed a lot of power.
This seems intuitive, but it did mean communication was an issue. Sending a message back to Earth took years to send, if you didn't have the time, resources, and power to send a ship.
But there's always people wanting to live on the frontier. So when the first colony got into trouble, they sent a highly compressed message to Earth, and then waited.
Unfortunately, by the time it arrived, Earth no longer had the technology to detect it, let alone understand it.
"All-In."
'Texas' Sampson shoved his chips into the center of the pot and leaned back in his chair, his sunglasses covering his face, as those watching at home all gasped.
His last opponent, George Cowers, waited for a chip count, 'Texas' unmoving, as it was counted. 'Texas' was just ahead, but George couldn't get a read on 'Texas', but eventually, he called.
'Texas' didn't flip his cards, forcing the dealer to, a typical power play, and the hand was dealt, George winning.
Which raised the question, could we assume 'Texas' would have bet once again if he was still alive?
I've been thinking about the whole "you die a hero or live long enough to become the villian" thing recently, for some reason.
Now, I get the original idea, obviously no-one is perfect, but it's easier to pretend when someone is no longer capable of messing up.
But then again, there's another aspect, in that you can do everything right, but there's always someone else's story, where you're not the main character. And if you're not the main character, eventually, you're in the way.
But in any case, you see John Cena turn heel today? Man, that was crazy, right?
You want someone dead, you hire a Killer. But if you want someone gone, you hire an Assassin. And if you can't tell the difference between those, you shouldn't mess with either.
Killers are unpredictable, whereas Assassins have codes of honor and rules to the game. These make them easy to predict but impossible to deal with, as if you break the rules, they all come after you.
But I found a way to keep at bay. Be pathetic enough to not be brag-aboutable, and offer a low enough standing contract on yourself that you're not worh anyone's precious time.
If you want to to frame someone in a criminal organisation as being a cop, it can be easier to do so coming in fresh, if the circumstances are right.
If the person you're framing is the new hotness (at least until you came in), is rising up the ranks and is eager to take on more work, if they're playing the helpful rising star, then all you gotta do is fake some evidence an outsider could have, and present it, people's natural suspicion will fill in the blanks.
Of course, sometimes they WILL be cops, which makes it easier.
You know who I feel sorry for? All the monsters and cryptids that dip back and forth in our universe across years, let alone decades.
Not that I'm defending them about killing or eating people, or whatever it is that they're doing, that's bad that they're doing that, obviously.
But think about it, if they're coming back to our world or waking up after a couple decades, let alone centuries, suddenly now they're gonna have to deal with being all over social media when they attack someone. And to be frank, I wouldn't wish viral attention like that on anyone.
All the Gods and Goddesses and the... Other things that are like them are still at war, as they have been for all time, but it's now a cold war. There's too many mortals who are just powerful enough to cause ab issue, so the entities use Clerics, Warlocks, Touched Ones, and assorted other semi-powerful beings to do their bidding.
This has led to centuries of relative peace and prosperity for the mortals, while the Divine become weaker and in some cases forgotten.
Which unfortunately means some of them are no longer worried about things heating up around the mortals.
I stared at the screen for several moments, then turned to the scientist.
"So how is this creature going to 'destroy all our enemies' by laying in a tree and eating fruit?"
The scientist finally found his voice.
"I don't... We spent months torturing it, breaking it, it would snarl and attack anyone who came near it!"
I thought it over for a moment.
"And by anyone you mean all your fellow scientists and no-one else?"
"Well, some of your troops too."
"Anyone dressed like our enemies?"
"No?"
"Great, we just need our enemies to all wear lab coats then."
So everyone knows that the number floating over your head is the number of days you have left to live. Most people know that this number is displayed as how the person involved thinks of numbers. Hence the party trick of some people to make the number binary or something. And why babies have the haze, since they don't understand numbers. But that goes away eventually.
Except for Bob.
He can count, sure, but he still has a haze.
Until you look closer, and you see it's a number with a million digits.
Least we know there's a space limit?
I woke up in the hotel room. Once I recognised that, I sat up, suddenly very awake.
I scrambled to my phone and saw several angry messages from everyone I'd stolen money from to pay for the drunken night of partying I'd just done.
Just as I began to panic, suddenly my ex appeared before me, smiling as she saw my panic.
"Oh, did your Groundhog Day loop end suddenly?"
"You... Why now? Why this cycle?"
"Oh, no, every cycle sees you wake up the next day, as well as go again. Every day, another disaster to see you in..."
The door to the Wizard's tower opened, and the Chosen One limped in, looking bloody but victorious.
As he slumped onto a chair, the Wizard came down and froze when he saw the Chosen One.
"What happened?"
"Oh, this book you said would give me power did nothing, but luckily there was ab uprising brewing in the peasants, and I did sword fighting on weekends back home for LARPs, so I ended the evil King's rule with bloodshed!"
The Wizard tried to work out how to explain that he was supposed to be a great negotiator, but was too scared.
I went to sleep annoyed, tired, but above all, in my own bed.
I woke up when I hit the water, thankfully, and managed to keep my head above water.
I looked around, as much to find somewhere to signal or head to as it was to try and determine where the hell I'd just come from, but I saw nothing.
So, I shrugged, quickly worked out where the current was heading, and headed along with it.
I eventually found a ship, and got rescued, but I still don't know how i got there.
Or why it took three weeks.
Ganzel had a lot of spells in his spell book, and the one he cast the most was one of the weaker ones. He'd found it in a recently abandoned shack, labelled "Dane's Luck Spell". It was a simple enough spell, using only a little energy, but it made him a little bit luckier the next day. So every night, he'd use up any left over magical energy inside himself to cast it two, ten, thirty times, and enjoy a more lucky day.
Until the day Dane tracked him down, and Ganzel learned he was transferring bad luck to Dane...
I tried to sneak in without making any noise, but she was sitting on the stairs, looking disapprovingly at me.
I tried to make a joke about how long she must have been sitting there. That didn't work.
I tried to explain why I was so late, explaining about the work thing, and what the boss had expected. That didn't work.
I tried to apologise, acknowledging her right to be upset and angry, and swearing I'd be better. That didn't work.
Finally, I asked her what she wanted.
Turns out she'd gotten drunker than I was and needed help up.
Another Valentine's Day.
Every marketing guru says you gotta do themed stuff when it's appropriate, and so around this time should be the love stuff.
Problem is, I've done all of it. I've done straight romance, when I had a partner, I've done the cold anti-romance, when I've not had a partner.
I've done fun, I've done sad, I don't think I've done straight porn, at least on here.
Pretty much every (publishable) take on romance, I've done here. So ironic detached meta-commentary is all that's left.
But who the hell would want to read that, on this day? Who?
"And this is for the physical attacker!"
The magic-weaver tossed the metal object at the fighter, who stepped back and let it land on the stone floor. After a moment they picked it up and turned it over in a hand, blades and heavy balls rolling around in a caged part.
"And what is this?"
"A weapon, the guard there was using it."
"And you expect me to just know how to use this?'
"Well you are the person who-"
One of the guards sat up suddenly, and thr fighter swung instinctively, killing him fully.
"There, you see!"
"Lucky coincidence!"
The old man sighed as he watched me deleting the files.
"Man, it used to be so much cooler destroying this stuff."
I kept working but looked over at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Well back in the day, blackmail material would be film, or photos, maybe a cassette. So we'd have to burn or melt them, was a lot more satisfying than just pressing buttons. Why I let you talk me back to-"
I shut the laptop and handed it over.
"Now then online stuff is gone, we gotta melt the hard drives."
The smile on his old face...
On Serallia, they had Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, Goblins. On Seral 7, they had Humans, Elvians, Gravtons, Trashfolk.
On Serallia, powerful magic spells required harnessing Ener Krystals. On Seral 7, powerful technological devices required Ener Crystals as a power source.
On Serallia, the fate of the world rested on the interplay of Kings, Queens, Traders, Priests, Mages. On Seral 7, the fate of the sector rested on the interplay of Rulers, Presidents, Businesspeople, Psychics, Scientists.
On Serallia, a miscast spell opened a portal. On Seral 7, a misaligned experiment opened a portal.
On both Serallia and Seral 7, War was War.
"And in our special surprise main event, ladies and gentlemen, sees our King fight!"
As the crowd around the fighting arena cheered, the King's Adviser leaned over to the Queen and whispered in her ear.
"Did you really think you could hide your lover from us?"
She blanched.
"Now watch as your husband kills the man you love!"
As the King geared up and she saw his opponent, the Queen laughed.
"You laugh at this?"
"That's not my lover. That's the very talented Assassin I was hiring to kill my husband."
The Adviser blanched as the crowd soon cheered loudly.
It's not very well known outside of it, but Goblin society is highly stratified, with over a hundred different levels of status, and over a thousand different ways of ranking the different levels.
It's complicated, but pretty much all Goblins understand it completely, which does make things easier in times of natural disaster and other high stress situations, there's no comparing of rankings or title or other power struggles, Goblins just get on with.
Which is part of the reason no-one outside Goblin society knows, they only ever interact when Goblins are in "defend everyone from the invading non-Goblins" mode.
As far as pieces of crap cars went, it was middle of the field. The paintwork had scratches, but no missing bits. The windows didn't work, but the aircon did, kinda. It was a couple decades old, but not enough to be vintage. It worked, but needed a minute to warm up.
Most everyone assumed I just couldn't afford a better one, but the fact was, I used it as a litmus test. If you made a comment, you were either a car person, or you thought I'd care about your opinion.
And I really hate talking about bloody cars.
The first contact with extraterrestrial beings was going fairly well, until they asked a question through their translation device.
"Why do you say this is first contact? What happened to our previous emissary?"
There was a brief pause as the humans all looked at each other.
"You mean the one 70 revolutions or so ago, in Roswell?"
"No?"
The humans blinked.
"100 cycles ago, in Russia, there was an explosion-"
"No, not then."
"...
Jesus Christ???"
"No, the advance scout last week!"
We eventually tracked them down in Ibiza, where they were having a fun time, which helped smooth things over.
I moved as quickly as I could, while remaining silent, and got into the car before any of the zombies could get me.
Yes, I know that's not what we're supposed to call them, but really, dead brain eaters, what else do we call them?
As I thought about my next move, I saw that the keys were still in the ignition.
I had a choice. If the car worked, I could drive away. But if it stalled, I'd just draw attention. I weighed up my options.
I turned the key.
My inability to drive should have had more weight.
You can see the problem fairly easily.
I'm unhappy, as I don't have any real love in my life, at best just acquaintances that tolerate me.
So I try the methods that society tells me to. I go out and try to meet people, I join clubs, go to bars, everything.
And eventually, I find someone.
And things go ok, at first. But then, inevitably, because I'm not used to this, I fuck up, they leave, and I'm back at square one.
So you see the problem, right?
What? No, not my problem, the problem of all these people sucking.
The twins had been running through the forest for what felt like hours, until they stumbled upon a cottage hidden behind some mossy stones.
They'd have kept running, but the delicious smell coming from it made their stomachs growl, and they slowly approached.
As they reached the door, it opened, and an ancient looking woman in black looked at them.
"Are you the witch?" The girl asked.
"That's what some people call me. They're right, in a way.
"Do you eat people?"
"That's what some people say. They're wrong."
The twins missed her mumble "in a way" under her breath.
As she began the take-off procedure and pulled away from the spacedock, he looked at the box and then back at her.
"You do realise that the entire Citystation will be after us now, yes?"
"I do, but I also realise three other things.
One, it'll take a few minutes for the various powerful people to realise I don't work for any of them.
Two, this Citystation was built over centuries, piecemeal, hence the wildly different sections joined by several, but not many, linking chambers."
Explosion reports flashed on the screen.
"And Three, Crazy Boc'la-Ack had discounted shape charges today."
How long do you grieve the future?
Time will continue, probably, there will be a day after today, and another, a future still exists.
But the future I expected, it wasn't grand or spectacular. Things would mostly stay calm, progress would be slow, too slow, but it would at least happen.
That's gone now.
And what's worse, is that I, we, have gone through this before. We survived, many didn't, but at least we thought we had learned, and would do better now and in the future.
But here we are. And here we will remain.
If we are lucky.
"Strike 2!"
He tapped his bat against his cleats, less to knock off any dirt and more to give himself something to do while he tried to ignore the crowd.
While he knew the "loaded bases, 2 outs, bottom of the ninth" cliche wasn't nearly as common in real life as it was in the movies, it still happened occasionally. Like, right now.
He stepped up to the plate and tried to focus, tried to drown out the fans and-
"Ball 4, walk!"
He blinked, as he realised he'd disassociated. But hey, now it was up to...
Gary.
Fucking hell.
The tech-heads told me that they'd run every test to make sure that no-one could crack the code, even the 'Rainman' test. I asked what that one was.
Apparently they made up a message to ring a number for a prize in the code and stuck it in some puzzle magazine, with a fake answer in the back.
And no-one had called, so they advised that we could go ahead and use it.
Unfortunately, they didn't think of how maybe someone who could crack it wasn't allowed near a phone, just given puzzle books and dull crayons to write with.
I poisoned both glasses, switched them around a few times, then turned back and placed one in front of him, and one in front of me.
"I see you're a fan of the classics."
"Guilty as charged. Now pick one."
He sighed, and looked at them for a long moment, then grabbed both, poured one into the other, and then swirled it together before placing it back on the table.
He watched me for a long moment as I glanced between the glass and him.
"You're not worried, so they were both poisoned."
"Well done. I still have the gun."
The Madam entered the small meeting room and looked at him slightly puzzled.
"May I ask why you came here?'
He looked at her, equally puzzled.
"I thought it was obvious, you-"
"Let me rephrase, why this establishment? I have complete faith in my girls, but we here at Corde Pliée usually cater to clients with unusual and particular tastes, hence our prices. If you want 'vanilla sex', which is perfectly valid, I can recommend cheaper..."
She trailed off when she saw what was in his bag.
"Oh, food play, you'll want Diamond, I'll go get her now for you."
I poured half the bottle into the giant plastic cup, tossed in a few ice cubes, and then sat down at my computer.
I placed my hand on the mouse, then let go and grabbed the cup and knocked back a few gulps of the barely cooled liquor.
After the burning subsided, I went back to the house and managed to open the email program before I needed a few more gulps.
I managed to force myself to move to the email and open it without any more booze.
"Hello Robert, we're happy to offer you-"
I threw up, happily.
When I was a kid, I wanted my future self to travel back in time and tell me how my favorite comic book series would go.
When I was a teenager, I wanted my future self to travel back in time and tell me what I should do to get girls.
When I was an adult, I wanted my future self to travel back in time and tell me winning lottery numbers, or do the Sports Almanac trick.
Now, as an old man, my future self finally does travel back in time just to kill me and make a paradox.
I had one more rational bar, my shield was cracked, and my sword was bent at 45 degrees halfway along. But for lack of any better option, I turned another corner in this fucking maze.
"Welcome to Psally's Shoppe! Extra p, extra e, low price, high excellence! What are you in the market for?"
I blinked through the sweat and tears.
"You accept...?"
"Most people choose to barter, but I also accept gold, jewels-"
I lifted my sword.
"That means you have a way out. Tell me."
"Oh, you want the Escape Package? A popular choice, but quite expensive, sadly..."
She was My All, but she did not see me as the one. I was the bit of fun, to use and bin.
I did try to fix it, to be for her day in, day out, but she saw Him as her One Man. She ran to him as I ran to her.
One big day, I had had it, and I did the yap.
"I ask you, how can I be The One for you? How?"
She was mum for a bit, but she did say.
"You can be a bit too ABC, 123."
I was so diminutive.
"So, to get to cable you need to hold this cable here at this angle while you hold down the SYS-ENG button until it registers, then you can let the cable go. Switching channels is fine, but if you want to turn the volume down you need to go all the way up to 100 then up again until it goes back to 0. I won't try to explain the DVR, that's a whole other kettle of fish, just don't bother trying, you get me?"
"...
Dude, why don't you get a new TV?"
"Huh? There's nothing wrong with this one!?"
I saw the photo online as part of a montage from some nightclub, taken from the New Year's party a couple days earlier.
The girl I had loved, until she had died. Looking remarkably alive, considering.
Naturally, I immediately confronted those I'd met through her, but they were all as shocked as I was, or they were all great liars. Given they might have been lying to me for years, that was a possibility.
It took me a lot of time, but I finally tracked down the woman I'd seen.
She proved to be a worse liar than her friends.
I waited eagerly as the smoke formimg in the chalk circle created...
A 'humanoid' monstrosity.
I looked between the book and the figure with confusion before it made what sounded like a sigh.
"Let me guess, you were trying to summon a succubus?"
"Incubus, actually."
"Ah.
Well, those are just different departments, we tend to swap around every few years."
"But you seduce people looking like this?"
It laughed, I think.
"Our job is to punish sinners. We stopped needing to create more of them centuries ago. So we-"
"Let yourselves go?"
It snapped a claw and the chalk vanished.
My Bag Of Holding was the first loot I ever got, from the adventurer that turned up dead on the doorstep of my mother's farm.
Well, near enough to dead.
But anyway, it was so useful, no matter how much cool stuff I'd find, or 'find', I could get it in there and carry back to a town to sell, and then it'd carry the gold!
Mages and the like that I travelled with were always wanting to examine it, sure it was evil or something.
I disagreed, until I reached in one day and felt a hand reaching back.
Eight months ago.
"So what brings you in today?"
"My ex-girlfriend."
"What do you mean?"
"Well she dumped me a few weeks ago-"
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Uh, thanks, but I had suspected it was gonna happen sooner or later. But in either case, in the breakup speech, she told me I was, well, 'fucked in the head', she said. I don't think I am, but I thought I better get it checked, you know?"
Now, today, I know that I shouldn't have bothered, but better to check and be sure, right?
By the way, can I borrow $10k?
I woke up alone.
Nothing unusual about that, but quickly I realised I was actually alone. Everything online that wasn't automated had stopped a few hours earlier.
I left my dump apartment and quickly drove downtown, passing crashes, empty cars, and abandoned items.
I got into town, and tried to think of what I should do, as I helped myself to the best stuff from the supermarket.
Eventually, I posted online on every platform I could think of, calling out for anyone to respond.
Turns out that when there's only one person posting, every bot gets very eager to post...
My grandfather always told me stories of war, he always made it sound so noble.
It was raining.
He talked about the camaraderie with his fellow soldiers, the good times in the trenches.
We were both tired and bleeding before we found each other in the mud.
He talked about how proud he was of all the latest tech he had given to him.
Both of our guns jammed because of the mud, so we grabbed knives.
He never mentioned blood or death.
I suffered the first, and caused the second.
And I understood why he discussed what he did.
It took me a while to track down the legendary bard Pippen Poken, and even longer to convince him to give me training in how to bard.
We found a secluded place as he looked through his magic bag.
"The first secret to being a good bard is choosing an instrument you can afford to lose."
He handed me a hand-drum.
"You focus on percussion, and then you lose the instrument, you still have this."
He tapped a rhythm on his chest.
"Is that where the idea you went round banging everyone came from?"
"The second secret is these condoms."
I led the wizard to the beginning of the secret path through the mountains, as far as they knew, and there we met the frost troll I had told them about.
"My erstwhile guide says you won't let us pass unless I perform a task for you, apparently?"
"Yes. I am in love with a fire nymph, and I need a way to protect me from her flames when I'm near her.
I awaited the wizard to cast a spell.
"How did you fall in love if you couldn't be near her?"
"Uh... From afar?"
They cast a Firedeath spell.
I knew a bullet was the only way out, and I knew I didn't have the guts to use it. I'd spun so many lies to enough powerful and/or dangerous people that the webs were getting entangled.
Didn't matter if it was one of them pulling on a loose thread or a couple grabbing a handful and tearing, the next change was going to lead to my end.
And then the door flew across the room.
"POLICE!"
OK, maybe ratting everyone out might-
The SWAT member that entered first immediately opened fire, a bullet going straight through my head.
I finally managed to get the orc away from its axe, and after enough cuts brought it down, I stood over it, ready to plunge my sword down, when I heard a whistle, followed by the soft but unmistakable sound of a bowstring being pulled taut behind me.
"Just so you know, this is a magically enhanced blow, not that I need it, at this range."
Neither of us moved until I spoke.
"You sound like an elf. Why did you care about this orc?"
"Well that's a long-"
Finally my ally made their move and took the elf out.
From my point of view, it was a sudden flip, as she suddenly stood up and glared at me.
"Look, are we doing this or not?"
I tried to think, but couldn't think of anything before my mouth spoke.
"I mean, we're only two episodes in, and-"
"Fine, we're not going to, whatever."
She grabbed her coat and left. I was confused, but went back to watching the show.
I later heard through a mutual friend that she was expecting a romantic evening. My thinking that it was probably better she leave then rather than more disappointment later wasn't popular.
The prophecy was clear, that someone brought into this world of magic and chose from a world of rules and order would defeat the Dark Sorcerer Beroska.
So, the Semi-Wizard Jofti opened a portal, and a young person came through. He told them they were chosen one of the prophecy, they believed him, sent off to defeat the evil, and was quickly killed by a random goblin thief.
Unperturbed, Jofti tried again. And again.
He lost track around 200 or so, but one of them was bound to work, right?
Well, yes, but only when he summoned a competent general.
The distress beacon got picked up by the third shift crew, and they set in a course. By the time I woke up and was informed, we were already approaching the damaged vessel, and I had a tough decision to make.
My orders had been clear, we were supposed to arrive at Starbase Alpha78 within 3 days to deliver the secret cargo hiding in the storage bay. But standing orders were to assist damaged vessels.
So I looked at the distress beacon message, declared it a trap, destroyed the ship and left.
Later on, I found out I was right.
She opened the door to my room and spoke with extra enthusiasm, even for her.
"Good morning! Ready for the new year!"
I grunted, which I hoped, in vain, would be enough of a response for her to leave.
"Come on! It's a new year, time to make new resolutions!"
I sighed and pulled my head out of my pillow.
"It's an arbitrary counting turnover point. There's nothing special about today as compared to yesterday. So what's the point?"
"Because any excuse to make a positive change is a good one!"
"Fine, I'll start, tomorrow... tomorrow.
Or tomorrow's tomorrow's tomorrow."
