Writing Prompts

[MdKBooM]

Tópico para compartilhar esse estilo de texto. Embora não seja um "Rome, sweet Rome", achei bacana:

[WP] You're midway into your flight when you, feeling bored, decided to surf the Internet. You read breaking news about another plane disappearance. You're on that flight.
http://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPromp...n_you_feeling/

Part I

"Philadelphia", the old man whispers in my ear, just as I open the headline on /r/news.
"What?" Is what I ask, looking from the words in front of me (New York bound United Airlines Flight Disappearance - Live Coverage) to the man on the seat behind me. He is smiling, looking straight ahead at his little Adam Sandler movie on my headrest. He doesn't seem to acknowledge me at all.
I shrug, and I look back at the article.
Flight 6674 of United Airlines, from Paris to New York, has been missing since 2:46 PM East Coast Time this Monday. Radio communications have been down for at least two hours, and the tower has been unable to communicate with any crew aboard the flight. The aircraft started deviating from its course at about 1:13 PM, heading south into the --
The article goes on, explaining exactly how it was that the plane I was taking now had disappeared and was missing from every radar in the world. I scratch my head.
"Philadelphia", I hear, in my ear again. Again I turn back. And the man is asleep, now.
"Excuse me", I say, to a passing by flight attendant. "Are we experiencing anything unusual?"
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Are we changing course? Avoiding a storm, or something?"
"Not that I am aware of, sir."
She's smiling in a funny way. Looking straight into my eyes, like she means the exact opposite of what a smile usually means.
"I'm talking about this", I say, and I'm about to turn my laptop towards her and show her the article when I notice her mouth. She's not smiling anymore.
She's mouthing the words "Shut up" in silence. Her eyes are locked on mine.
Then a second goes by and she's smiling again, and she keeps pulling her cart down the aisle like nothing has happened.
I look at the screen and the article now reads "Five Things You Had no Idea The Kardashians Are Up To."
I frown and I open Google. I search for 'Flight 6674'. Nothing. It's following its scheduled course, according to United Airlines website.
"You mean to tell me you never heard of the Philadelphia Experiment?" I hear, again from behind me.
I turn around. "Look, sir, I --"
I shut up. The old man is not an old man anymore. He's young -- easily thirty years younger. But he looks the same. Same eye color. Same face proportions. Same body and same clothes.
"The USS Eldridge", the young man says, smiling like I'm a child. "October 28, 1943."
"What?"
He shakes his head, then goes back to closing his eyes and resting his head.
I frown. I feel dizzy and lightheaded. I look around.
Thepeople around me carry on their affairs as usual, but it's...
There's something.
Something off about them.
The man listening to music. I follow the wire down his chest. The headphone doesn't seem to be connected to anything.
And wasn't the child by the fat woman's side a boy?
Wasn't the male flight attendant blonde? His hair is black now, as he rushes past the aisle and disappears towards first class.
An old lady looks straight at me from a couple of sits back, and she's scribbling something on a notepad on her lap.
The tall guy sleeping next to me. I check his wristwatch. The arrows are frozen at 1:13.
"Ladies and gentlemen please prepare for descent in the JFK airport. Fasten seat belts and please raise your seats to upright position."
I look out the window.
Gleaming beautifully against the afternoon sun are two tall, twin buildings, the way I remembered them from my childhood. Twin buildings tall reaching the sky the way I remember them being before September, 2001.
This can't be, I think, turning my head to face my laptop screen.
I try searching for "USS Eldridge. Philadelphia Experiment."
No internet connection.
"When we land", the young man-used-to-be-old man behind me whispers, in my ear. "Walk with me."

Part II

The experiment was allegedly based on an aspect of unified field theory; according to some accounts, unspecified "researchers" thought that some version of this field would enable using large electrical generators to bend light around an object via refraction, so that the object became completely invisible. The Navy regarded this of military value and, by the same accounts, it sponsored the experiment.
I rise my eyes from the paper, feeling lost like a prostitute's son on Father's day. "What is this?"
"This is the Wikipedia entry for the Philadelphia Experiment", the old-man-now-young replies. "Not that there is a Wikipedia yet, in the world. But there will be. Let's not get into the semantics of time travel, though."
"What -- I --"
"Look, they tried to make a ship invisible, ok?" The man tells me. "But it went awry. The ship actually disappeared. It showed up in Norfolk, Virginia. And the crew... well they showed up weird."
I look down at the paper again and I keep reading.
Some crew members were said to have been physically fused to the bulkheads, while others suffered mental disorders, some re-materialized inside out, and other still supposedly vanished.
"This is true?" I ask. "Sounds like something I'd read out of a Snopes page."
"What? That's the part you have trouble believing?" The man asks. "You're sitting in a park bench with a rejuvenated old man in 1986 New York, son."
He has a point, I think, looking around. We're in a park bench, resting in the shade of the WTC South Tower. All around us, people go about their business right and left; suited men with no cell phones to their ear; kids wearing long hair and leather bracelets and Aerosmith and Sex Pistols shirts; no iPads or gadgets on outside tables of cafés and a lot less Starbucks around.
I see a crazy bum screaming nonsense in the corner (because some things never change).
"They did something, that morning in Philadelphia. They messed with things they shouldn't have. They woke something powerful. Something they couldn't comprehend."
"Are we expecting Cthulhu anytime soon?" I ask.
(I use humor as a defense mechanism when I'm terrified. It's why I suck on first dates.)
"This is serious, son", the man replies. "Weird things have been happening ever since the Eldridge. Roswell. Area 51. JFK."
"What's weird about JFK?"
"Well, he didn't die. Not the first time around."
I look at him like what?
"I remember the shot missed him, and the guards caught Oswald. A couple months later I woke up and it was November 22 all over again. Same day. My wife said the same things to me at breakfast, and my coworkers made the same lame jokes. It was like Groundhog day, except at 12:30 pm, in Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald didn't miss the shot, and JFK died. From then on, the next couple of months were quite different. That's the story as you know it. That's what everyone remembers."
I blink repeatedly, trying to make sense of his words. I notice two men in trench coats standing by a corner on the other end of the park, staring at us, then back at their wristwatches in perfect sync, like they're NPC characters in a shitty RPG Maker game.
I wonder if I'm going a bit too paranoid.
"So... What? Things are changing all the time?"
"Well, 'time' is tricky word to use here, but yes... To sum it up, ever since Philadelphia, the linear progression of time in our world has experienced some... jumps, if you will. Sometimes it's minutes long. Sometimes hours. Sometimes years. And sooner or later after it, something changes. And I'm the only one who remembers it."
I rub my eyes. I look at the man. He lights a cigarette.
"How do you know all this? I mean... Why are you...no one else remembers JFK not being murdered."
The man looks at me, cigarette resting between his fingers and on his lips. He pulls it and speaks through thick, white smoke. "Because whenever there's a jump, I jump with it. If I'm in a car, I bring everyone with me. In a bus, ditto. Or on a plane." He pauses. "Though no one seems to remember anything, except for me. Well, and you, now."
This is all too insane. I would rise and get up and tell him to fuck himself right now, if what he was saying was more insane than the clearly 1986 New York landscape around me. But it's not.
It's about the same amount of insane. So I might as well listen to him.
"Who's doing this?" I ask. "Who is making the changes? Why haven't I aged? Why did it look like the flight attendant knew about this? And the old lady scribbling on the plane? The boy that turned into a girl?"
I feel like I'm living the plot of J.J. Abrams' new TV Show.
I hate J.J. Abrams.
"Those are questions I cannot help you with", the man tells me, getting up. "I have learned not to question these things a long time ago. I advise you to do the same."
He starts walking away. I get up. "Wait. How do you know all this? About the Eldridge ship on Philadelphia and everything?"
He turns back.
He pulls the cigarette from his mouth. "Because I was there, Psycho Alpaca. I was on that ship."
He turns around and keeps walking. With his back to me, he screams, in the distance:
"If you miss home, I suggest visiting the 77th Subway Station. Lovely there, this time of year."
I look back at the other end of the park.
The two men in trench coats are gone.
_________________________________________
Listen. I'm at 77th right now. This is where I'm posting this from. There's a hotspot here, don't ask me how that's even possible. I'm beginning to understand what the old-young man meant by Don't question these things.
Memories from the Future, that's the name of the network. No password required.
I'm trying to trace it to a source, see if I can find who the hell the connection belongs to.
I'll try to post more updates later. Wish me luck.

Part III

Ok. Ok. We need to chill here. Be cool. Let's get started.
I didn't trace the connection. The one on the subway station. On 77th. I tried, but I couldn't trace it.
It traced me, though.
I'll explain:
I slept on the subway tonight. Well, I tried. Got about as much sleep as you'd imagine someone who just traveled back in time by accident would get, which is not much, I assure you.
I slept there because I didn't want to stay away from the hotspot. I'm terrified of losing the connection to my home time. So I slept to the wooshing sound of trains coming and going and New Yorkers complaining about Ronald Reagan.
I woke up an hour ago. Hour and a half. I'm not really sure. It was deserted, the station, when I woke up.
Have you ever seen a deserted subway station in 1986 New York? It's terrifying. Really, really creepy the way you think of horror stories and stuff creepy.
But to the matter at hand. I woke up and I checked reddit, and oh boy were there a lot of notifications. Thank you for the kind words and for the support, everyone, I'll try to get through all the messages fast as I can. I didn't really have enough time, then.
I did, however, had to make time to answer one particular message, which was a PM, which I noticed in my inbox with the title "Memories from the Future". That PM almost made me soil myself, I have no shame in admitting.
(I did soil myself today, and I'll get to that in a moment. It wasn't just yet).
Here is what the PM said:
_________________________________________
from [UNDISCLOSED] sent 1 hour ago
Count to ten, then look to your right. A little gray mouse is going to pass by, sniff around under the Brooklyn subway map and disappear down the tunnel.
(Stay on 77th. We are coming.)
_________________________________________
And those ten seconds were the last ten seconds I remember not freaking out.
Yes, it's been an hour and I'm still freaking out, that's what I'm saying. Because the rat was there, and it did all those things it said on the PM. It sniffed and it disappeared down the tunnel, exactly like the message said it would.
Yes, the rat was there. Who wasn't there, for that matter, was me. I replied the message with a polite WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU AND WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON and got up, heading for the exit, laptop open in my arms as I walked.
An answer came before I could go far, though, and it read like this:
_________________________________________
from [UNDISCLOSED] sent 1 hour ago
Stop running and sit on the floor. Now.
_________________________________________
And I did. I don't know why, but there was something in that message that made me think that if I didn't do it, something awful would happen. Maybe it would. We'll never know, because I sat.
I stopped and I sat and where I was now was a long tubular corridor of "Red, White and You" Coke Ads, graffiti and faded red tiles. It was deserted, and even more freaky than the actual station where the trains come and go I was sleeping at.
And then, new message:
_________________________________________
from [UNDISCLOSED] sent 1 hour ago
Youtube. First recommendation.
_________________________________________
I did what it said. I opened Youtube, and the first recommendation video was entitled Psycho Alpaca.
There's really no way for me to actually described faithfully what happened then so you can feel exactly like I felt, but I'll try. Here we go:
The video opened on the face of an old man with a scar on his forehead. This wasn't the plane old man. I've never seen this old man in my life. He was a new old man.
Behind him were people working on computers and reading things and passing by here and there. The scenery and the technology was definitely 2015, not 1986. It looked like a lab of some sort.
The twin trench coat NPC dudes passed in the background, rushing left to right off focus behind the old man's face. The old man smiled, and then he begun talking.
"Psycho, I know this is confusing. I need you to listen to me. What you experienced yesterday was a time jump. It is something intentional, not an accident. Something we have been working on for quite a while."
"What the fuck do you mean by we?" I screamed to the computer, feeling like an insane person, because I knew fully well it wasn't going to answer back.
Then it answered back.
"Please calm down, Psycho. Everything will be explained in no time."
(This was the part where I soiled myself, if you were keeping tabs).
My voice trembled as I answered. "You can hear me?"
"Yes, I can. What you need to understand is that these changes we are making, they are for the best. We are working for the benefit of mankind, not the other way around. The man you met today, on the plane, he works with us. He was advised not to tell you anything, though. To pretend he didn't know what was going on. We felt it would be better for you to be brought up to speed by a familiar face."
"You?" I asked my computer screen. The man's face was not familiar to me at all.
"Please be patient. Everything will be explained in time. What I need you to do now, Psycho, is please look to your right."
So I did that. I looked to my right. Standing on the far end of the dark tunnel was a tall figure shadowed by shadow.
(I realize this is a shitty way to say someone was obscured by darkness, but to hell with it, I just traveled in time, I have no time for fancy descriptions.)
(I also realize I used the word 'time' twice in the same sentence and that it read weird, but I won't change it for the reasons aforementioned).
Anyway, the silhouette was standing there, freaking the bejesus out of me.
Then it took a step forward and I could see its face. And it was the old man with the scar. The one in the Youtube video. He extended his hand.
On the laptop screen, he said: "Please come with me."
So, naturally, I ran on the opposite direction.
He didn't go after me, far as I could tell. Granted, I only looked back once before making a turn and disappearing from his sight, but what I saw was him just standing there, hand still extended in silence, as if waiting for me to change my mind.
I didn't. I ran out of there and into the streets and what felt like the whole extension of Manhattan island.
Then, when I felt like I couldn't run another second, I stopped. I looked around, hands resting on my bended knees, trying to get a sense of where I was.
Where I was looked like a dark, deserted street.
I spotted a bus stop next to me, and I made way towards it. I noticed someone sitting on the bench but, from behind, all I could tell was that it was a female.
I made way around to the front and I stopped. The figure sitting on the bench was the flight attendant lady.
(the one that told me to shut up, back on the plane).
She looked up from a book on her lap to me. For a second, she didn't do anything. We just stood there, facing each other.
Then she turned her book my way, and I could read what she was reading.
Scribbled in pen over the words printed on the pages of the book were three letters.
RUN.
I looked from the book to her, feeling all the hair in my body rising like powdered iron exposed to a magnet. I whispered, under my breath:
"What?"
Then she opened her mouth and started screaming insanely. She didn't move a single other muscle on her face. Her eyes didn't wrinkle, her forehead didn't frown. She just opened her mouth and screamed the loudest scream I had ever heard. High pitched scream. Non-human sounding scream.
So I ran again.
And I feel like I'm running out of places to run to.
_________________________________________
All right, I finished typing this. Where I am now is on a back alley close to the 77th station. I got a NY Yankees blue cap and something I improvised as a scarf I found lying around behind a dumpster.
I look like a disguised celebrity.
I'm going to try and walk past 77th unrecognized, fast as I can. Get close enough so I can at least post this up on reddit. If you're reading this, then I did it. Yay me. I'll try to post more updates as soon as I can, but I don't know how long it's going to be before I feel comfortable getting close to the station again.
If you're not reading this, then they probably caught me, and it makes no difference what I type here because no one will read it anyway, so Big Giraffe Orgy.

Part IV (final)

I am home.
Home as in 2015 home. As in on the same timeline as you. I'm back from 1986, and I don't even have a spiked bracelet or a Bon Jovi vinyl disc to show for it.
Let me tell you how I got back:
_________________________________________
They got to me, after my last post. I had barely hit 'submit' on the screen when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned back, and it was the old lady that was behind me on the plane (the one that was scribbling furiously and looking at me).
I said "Hey!" and she stuffed my head inside a black bag. Then I felt something pinch me in the arm, and I passed out.
Where I woke up was that lab I saw on the Youtube video. At least it looked like it. White walls, computer screens. Fancy stuff. And me, alone on a chair in the middle. Silence around me.
I don't know how long I was in there for. I roamed around. I tried the door (locked). I looked on drawers and closets for something that could help me escape, but there was nothing. I panicked, for a while, out of boredom.
When I had finally given up the door burst open, and who came inside was the flight attendant. The one with the in-humane scream and the book. She stood there by the door, looking at me for what felt like ages.
I said, "Yes?"
And she walked closer to me, and she rested a hand on my shoulder, and she said, "They are going to hurt you. The wooden door with no knob on the end of the main hall is your only way. Go for the door when --"
And then a hand sprouted out from nowhere behind her head and covered her mouth with what looked like a piece of wet cloth. Then her eyes rolled up and she passed out, and the man standing behind her held her body and gently placed it on the floor.
That man was the old man with the scar. The one from the Youtube video.
"Walk with me, Psycho", he said, signaling the door.
I didn't really have much else to do, so I accepted the invitation, and down a long, white hallway that seemed to go on forever we went.
"I know you have a lot of questions", he started, walking by my side. "And I'll try to answer them best I can. The first thing you need to understand, though, is that this started out as something good. Something that would benefit mankind."
He said mankind in a way like he wasn't a part of it. So I decided to ask.
"Are you an alien?" I wasn't even embarrassed about asking this, and I didn't ask it in like a mocking tone, like trying to express that I found the very notion of him being an alien ridiculous.
No, I was pretty serious. I actually wanted to know if this man was an alien.
The man snorted. "No. No, Psycho, I am not an alien. I'm all human. This way."
We made a left on another endless-looking hallway. "I am a scientist. I am a man who made a pretty big impact on the world, in the year 2055. Do you know what I did?"
"Sorry, no. But I'm from 2015, so don't feel offended."
"I know when you are from", he said. Then he continued in the same monotonic voice, "Psycho, I was amongst the first scientists who were able to understand exactly what had happened, that October morning in Philadelphia. I figured out and wrote down the equations that lead to a full understanding of how exactly the fabric of space-time had distorted. What exactly had happened. I did that in April, 2055."
"Huh", I said, because that's exactly how much I can contribute to a conversation involving the distortion of space-time fabric. "Huh... Huh."
"But I did more than that. Please, step inside." The old man with the scar signalized a double black door in front of us and, seemingly to his command, it opened. I walked into a large room with weird looking machines and screens and people in lab coats all over the place.
There was a wooden door with no knob on the far left side.
"This is our headquarters. A temporary lab we bring with us, whenever we jump."
"Wait. You jumped, too? I thought only me and the old-young guy had traveled in time."
"Psycho, the people on that plane, when you jumped, they work for me. Including the gentlemen you met earlier today. Even I was on that plane, though I don't think we saw each other."
I took a good look around. The scribbling old lady was by a computer screen, typing away. The two NPC dudes, checking on some equipment on the other side. The man listening to music with the phones attached to nothing was checking some papers by a metal desk.
"So they were in on it?" I asked, confused. "Everyone on the plane was in on it?"
"Well, not everyone, but we'll get to that in a moment."
"What about the flight attendant? Why did you --"
"The flight attendant also works for us. But... well..." Here the man with the scar seemed a bit uncomfortable. Even embarrassed. "In our line of work, it's easy to become... unstable. We travel back and forth in time and -- well -- the human brain wasn't really built to comprehend or deal with this kind of thing. Unfortunately, Miss Dangley's mind couldn't quite handle the pressure of our line of work. She is going to be treated and medicated. You can understand this, right?"
As if on cue, two man in lab coats passed by, each carrying the flight attendant by one arm, dragging her across the room.
Her dizzy, drowsy eyes met mine, and then she looked away at the door with no knob, like she was trying to tell me something.
"Look, sir", I said, turning to face him. "I'm going to be honest here: there's nothing about this I can currently understand."
The man with the scar smiled. "Let me try to clear everything for you. A lot of this is going to sound confusing, but bear with me."
He took a deep breath.
"When we first solved the problem of the Philadelphia, back in 2055, we were able to retrieve a single survivor from the Eldridge ship. This was Captain Jackson, the man you met on the plane. The one that turned from old to young. He was fished from his time to ours, in 2055, through a series of complicated process I won't bore you with, but that had to do with the research I was conducting at the time.
When information on my research -- and the man from 1943 I had retrieved to 2055 -- reached the government, some very powerful men took over. High government people. Suited people. FBI. NSA. Some agencies I hadn't ever hear of, before. They took over my research and, suddenly, my team was working for them.
They turned the research into a project, which was called Project Hurricane.
What my theory had made possible for these men to do was, in short words, to assemble a team to travel back in time and change the course of human events. Not just to 1943, but to anytime we chose. Jackson, the Captain of the Philadelphia, was -- and still is -- the jump man of our time travelling team. He is our link between 2055 and all times that came before. How the system works is we place ourselves -- the team -- alongside Mr. Jackson aboard a high speed transport -- a plane, or a fast train, for instance -- and then the jump happens. We can travel to whatever time we want.
This is how we got from 2055 to 2015. And then from 2015 to 1986, which is where we are now.
Don't ask me why it is so. We just know that the jump only works when Mr. Jackson is traveling at fast speeds. So that is what we do.
Project Hurricane's scope was to fix the Earth. The year 2055 was quite different, before we meddled with the past. John Kennedy and Khrushchev, for example, almost destroyed the Earth through nuclear war, before we intervened.
The 'spaceship' that crashed in Roswell was not filled with little green man at all, but with something much more sinister, and it hadn't actually crashed, but rather landed safely on the New Mexico Desert. We changed that, too.
"Wait, wait", I said, pressing my eyes shut, trying to absorb it all. "So you've been jumping back and forth through the twentieth century in order to change potential disasters that might have destroyed the Earth?"
"Not potential, Psycho", the man replied. "Those disasters actually happened, before we went back and changed them."
I nodded, beginning to understand what he was saying. Or at least I thought so.
"Anyway. There were side effects, as you may have noticed. We found out soon enough that the people inside the trains and planes we used to jump, they traveled with us, to whatever time we were going to. As a matter of fact, you are the first of these victims to actually remember the jump."
"So the other people on the plane..."
"They left JFK airport believing they always lived in 1986. They're out there right now, living life as if nothing is wrong.
Which brings us to the issue at hand, Psycho. To the reason why we jumped here, in 1986. You see, this is our last ever jump."
"What?"
"The side effects. These 'time orphans' -- that's how we call the people we left stranded on a time they don't belong to, like you -- they're beginning to disrupt the future. They're changing and meddling with the past, and we are experiencing some very bizarre -- and dangerous -- consequences of that.
You've seen this happen first hand, actually. On the plane. The man that changed his hair color. The boy that turned to a girl."
"So, let me see if I got this straight", I said. "You guys have been jumping back and forth in time, changing the course of human history, and leaving a trail of 'time orphans' on several different times in human history. And these time orphans are causing the world to collapse, in the future?"
"They are changing things that, to them, seem tiny and small, but some of them have horrible repercussions in the future. Which is why we are here. The jump you took part in, this one from 2015 to 1986 -- is our last. This is the jump that is going to end Project Hurricane."
"End Project Hurricane?"
"Yes. We have found that the only way to stop the potential disasters of having the time orphans meddling randomly with the past is to end the Project all together. Before it even begun."
"So all the changes the project did? JFK and Roswell...?"
"They'll be erased. But this is a small price to pay in order to protect the future from random shifts in reality caused by the orphans."
I had no time to try and absorb all that at the moment. So I pressed on the subject that concerned me the most:
"And why am I here? What is my job in this?"
The man with the scar looked at me and frowned. Then he shook his head. "No. No, Psycho. You weren't supposed to be here. You were an accident. Like I said, you are an orphan. We didn't know you were going to be on that plane. And we definitely didn't know you were going to be the first time orphan to actually remember the jump. It is a remarkable coincidence, if you think about it. But that is all."
"But if I -- "
I stopped. Something had occurred to me. "Why is this a remarkable coincidence?" I asked, cautious.
The man with the scar closed his eyes.
"What are you doing in 1986?"
He opened his eyes again.
"We are here to prevent your parents from meeting each other."
I stared at him blankly. "What?"
"We need to end Project Hurricane, Psycho. It destroys the world. No matter the good things it did -- avoiding atomic attacks, wars, genocides -- the consequences of the project itself -- and of leaving people out of their time zones to meddle with the future at random -- are much worst. We've seen what happens in the future. Chaos. Destruction. Death. We need to shut down Project Hurricane before it ever begins."
My heart was beating fast, now. Everyone in the room was looking at me.
I glanced at the door with no knob quickly. Then back at the man with the scar on his forehead.
"What does this have to do with my parents"
"You need to not exist, Psycho."
"No! What are you talking about? I have nothing to do with Project Hurricane! I don't even know any of you!"
"You have everything to do with Project Hurricane", the old man said. "And the only way to stop Project Hurricane from existing is to stop you... from existing."
The man's eyes locked on mine. He looked sad, defeated. Like he had long ago resigned to a truth he couldn't fight against.
"I wish it didn't have to be like that, Psycho. I really do."
"No... No", I mumbled, looking left and right with my hand extended in front of my chest. I felt dizzy, like I was about to pass out. I felt sick.
I looked at the door with no knob again. This was it. Now or never.
I wasn't following most of what was going on, but I did know this: I wasn't going to stick around to watch them trying to make me not exist, whatever the hell that meant.
I made a run for the door, without thinking twice.
"Psycho, no!" The man screamed, as I got closer to the door with each step. "If you go through this door, you're going to close the time fold for all of us."
I pushed the door open.
"If you go through that door, we have to start over. Project Hurricane happens all over again. And all over again we're going to have to go through losing so many people to realize it was a mistake. Don't let this happen, Psycho."
On the other end of the door was nothing but darkness. Not like a dark room, no. I mean actual darkness. Like the universe actually ended after that door, and there was no more space there. Like a solid darkness. I looked back. The old man with the scar on his forehead was looking at me with sadness in his eyes.
"It won't change anything, Psycho..." He said, sadly. "It will just make people suffer all over again. Then we will invent Project Hurricane again, and again we will realize it was a mistake. Then we will have to come back again. Because this has to be done. You have to cease existing."
He was crying.
"It's the only way, Psycho."
I looked back in front of me at the darkness.
I took a step forward.
_________________________________________
And now I'm here. I fell and I fell and I fell through the dark, to the point where I actually thought I'd never stop falling. But I did, and when it happened, I had landed on my seat, on the flight from Paris to New York, except in 2015 now.
The young-old man behind me was not there. Neither were the weird flight attendant or the man listening to music with no music device.
The plane landed on JFK with no issues, and I headed home.
I am fine now, as far as I can tell.
Well... Not fine fine, per se. I did feel a bit dizzy a couple of hours ago and I threw up and I passed out. I banged my head pretty nastily against my center table.
I actually had to get stitches at the hospital. But I'm fine.
Far as I can tell, I'm perfectly fine, and this was all just a weird, in flight dream. Those damn pills I take to calm myself, whenever I take a plane. Yeah. That's probably it.
I wash my face, and I raise my eyes to my reflection on the medicine cabinet mirror.
I touch the stitches on my forehead lightly, and they burn in pain. I pul my hand away.
"Ouch", I mutter.
That hurts. It's probably going to leave a scar.

[Jeep]

 

(brinks, to lendo )
(lido, mt bom )

[MdKBooM]

Não precisa ler tudo, basta a parte I.

[troglodita]

Caceta, irado o texto!

[MdKBooM]

[WP] A prolific serial killer active for many years is concerned about his run of good luck. Never discovered, he has also never seen the slightest mention of his work reported on in any media. With today's victim he gets a clue as to why...
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingProm...or_many_years/

I hate them. They're corpses already. Walking, breathing, talking, pissing corpses without a soul, sucking the life out of everything around them. They're corpses, and yet they live. They live in the homes of their families, they live in trailer parks, they live in retirement homes.
Fucking old people.
We pay for them, pay so they can live out meaningless days and years, accomplishing nothing, doing nothing except taking up space, pissing and moaning and voting Republican in every fucking mid-term.
I hate them so much.
What I do is a goddamn service to humanity. By now I've killed dozens, but I curse the fact that there's only one of me. I wish I was an army so one night I could march into every goddamn retirement home and kill every last one of those disgusting, smelly fuckers all at once. Sure, there will always be more old people, but at least for a little while, I could get some goddamn peace and quiet.
I'm not an idiot. If they knew what I was doing, they'd call me a murderer. A fucking murderer! I'm just putting an end to the farce, the absurd joke that says these decaying piles of shit actually have a life with any meaning. If these fucking parasites had any goddamn self-respect, they would have ended it themselves the minute they realized they couldn't use the fucking bathroom without help.
In the wild, they'd be picked off by predators so they wouldn't slow down the rest of the herd. And that's all I'm doing: picking off the ones that are dragging down the rest of us so we don't have to deal with their shit any more.
Tonight, it's going to be Willard Macarthy. Sixty Two. No wife, no next of kin. The fucker has three different kinds of cancer eating him from the inside-out like termites eat a house, and absolutely nothing left to do in this world except eat shitty retirement home food and watch daytime television, and yet still he refuses to just die.
During the day, he pissed himself walking from the cafeteria to his bed. The one thing he has to do all day, and he fucks it up! And of course, because I'm the janitor, it's my job to clean that up. Every goddamn time one of these creaking skeletons pisses the floor like a poorly-trained pet, I hear about it, and every time, I'm the guy who has to mop it up. Every fucking time.
I hate them so much.
That's right, I'm thinking of you, Willard Macarthy. Thinking of you and planning your much-needed exit from this world as I smile at you and tell you, "it's okay, it's not your fault", you fucking incontinent human waste. That's right, asshole. Relax and go off to bed. I'll be in later to tuck you in.
And night comes, and the staff makes their rounds, and I go to the room of Mr. Willard Macarthy. Just in case, I hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. Do you know we have those? Like a fucking hotel! There was actually a law against it, in case one of these old fuckers had a heart attack or a stroke and the employees didn't notice it soon enough, and you know what those old morons did? They put a goddamn law on the ballot requiring retirement homes to have them! Said it was important that they had a right to privacy! And it passed! Can you believe that? Well, you old fucker, you get what you voted for.
Willard is lying there still. For a moment, I hold out hope that the bastard kicked it before I got here, but after watching closely, I see there's no such luck - he's still breathing. But not for long.
In my hands, I hold the murder weapon - a pillow. The idea is, if they die of asphyxiation in their sleep, well, it could have just happened naturally. Choked on their own spit, slept wrong, who knows. Years killing these fuckers, and no one has ever given a second thought to them keeling over like this. Why would they? Everyone's just waiting for them to die anyway.
I approach with the pillow quietly, and he doesn't move, doesn't wake. And slowly, slowly, I lower it down, and push it onto his face.
And at that moment, he started thrashing. Holy shit, this guy moved fast! He reached his hands up to me, up to the pillow, and looking at them now, this close, I saw that his arms were thin and wiry, but strong. Shit, maybe even strong enough to push me off, strong enough to stop me!
But... he didn't. His hands seemed to instinctually try to push me away or rip the pillow off his face, but he stopped himself just short of grabbing me or the pillow. He thrashed wildly, desperate for air, but never made a concerted effort to push me off. It was strange, like I was being attacked by a feral animal, yet protected by some invisible force field from some science fiction movie.
I have never had a night like that. The others... some fought me, but were too weak to stop me. Some didn't even wake. But never before have I felt so sure that one of these creaky useless old-timers could rip me apart, and never before have I felt like there was something other than my own bulk and strength that was keeping them at bay.
Gradually, the thrashing slowed... slowed... and stopped. And as Willard Macarthy's hands lowered to the bed, it became clear that whatever strength was in him before was almost spent. Everything became slow, and then still, and in a few moments, he would be gone.
That's when I heard it. It was weak and muffled by the pillow, but in the still of the night, it was unmistakable. And when I heard it, it chilled me to the bone.
"Thank you."
What the fuck? I took the pillow away, but by the time I did, he was gone. What the fuck had just happened? "Thank you"? Was that some sort of joke? In my confusion, I looked around, and that's when I saw the note.
It was left on the nightstand next to the bed, and looked like a letter. It was handwritten in a precise, neat scrawl on clean white paper. And it was addressed to me.
"To Mister Shawn Everett Anderson," it read, "You do not know me well, but in my younger days, I was a Navy Commander. My military career was my life, and for every waking moment of my adult life, I dedicated myself to my country, which I love dearly. For this reason, I never took a wife, never raised a family. I took my duty to my country very seriously, and placed my service ahead of all other considerations.
"Three years ago, I was diagnosed with liver cancer, despite never having touched a drop of alcohol. This was followed soon after by the diagnosis of two other types of cancer. Soon, I spent every day in pain. Feeling no longer able to serve my post to my full capacity, I retired from the Navy.
"The pain quickly became overwhelming and constant. I have been prescribed every medication imaginable for my pain, but it has not helped. Meanwhile, doctors told me my prospects for survival were slim... yet three years later, I am still here, in a state of constant agony.
"As the days stretched on and the torture continued, I often contemplated suicide. But I am a law-abiding man and a god-fearing man, and I could not bear to think that my final act in this life would be to spit in the face of the laws of the country I love, or to condemn myself to eternal damnation for the sin of disrespecting the gift God gave to me.
"One time, upon hearing my dilemma, a friend told me of an arrangement of sorts that had been established at this retirement home. I am still not entirely clear how it came about, but somehow, sometime after the state's doctor-assisted suicide bill was rejected in the state legislature, this came to be known amongst seniors as the place to go for help dying.
"I don't know how this came about, but I do know that the staff has very intentionally turned a blind eye to your actions here, and the residents are all aware of what you do. In fact, it is why many of them are here, or so I have been told. Many of them are merely settling affairs before they signal to you that they wish their time to end. I do not know why this requires a vulgar display of urinating on the floor, but after three years of constant pain, I must admit I was willing to try any crazy suggestion.
"However, I could not in good conscience allow you to go on being exploited in this way. In my years of service, I learned how to spot the men who were doing what they believed in, and the men who were merely following orders. I could see in your eyes when you reassured me after my 'accident' that you despised what I did every bit as much as I despised doing it, and this led me to believe that you were perhaps unaware what was going on here.
"I have spent my entire military career fighting to do right not only by my country, but by the men who served under me. I have fought to ensure that no man serving under me ever died in vain, or served a cause that was false. In my opinion, nothing a nation can do to a soldier is so cowardly and despicable as sending him to kill based on a lie. And by the same measure, I feel it is atrocious that anyone could use you in such a way without your knowledge.
"Having said this, I have wished for death for far too long. My god and my nation may frown on suicide, but I scarcely care anymore. If nothing else, perhaps you acting for me in this regard will absolve me of some measure of guilt. And when you are done, I hope that this letter will signal to you the deception of those around you, so that you may truly choose how to move forward."
"I apologize if I attack you in the execution of your task. I hope that my well-disciplined mind will be able to overcome the reflexes of my well-disciplined body, but if I fail to keep myself from striking you, I am truly sorry.
"Godspeed to you, Mister Shawn Everett Anderson, and may whatever path you take from this day forward be one of purpose and honor. Signed, Commander Willard Macarthy."
I didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to feel. For the first time, I felt guilty about the blood on my hands. All this time, I was apparently their savior, and I couldn't have felt more ashamed of myself.

só não gostei da babação de ovo de militar..

[MdKBooM]

[WP] A genius serial killer who has been killing successfully for a decade. With one weakness. He can never ever lie. He's finally gets caught and is facing trial for a murder in court. Yet, he walks, acquitted of all charges.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingProm..._been_killing/

The key to my success has always been planning. I choose my victims months in advance, and work around the clock. Maps of their common haunts, and schedules showing where the victim will be at any given time. Charts of friends and family. Details of her job and boss and coworkers. Even her dirty secrets, discovered through keyloggers and blackmailing friends. And once I know her better than her own husband (I always choose married women), then I begin to plot the kill. I begin to get close to the victim, worming my way into her life. Making her obsessed with me.

And it works, ever time. The box on my shelf rattles with twenty three wedding rings. A monument to planning for every possible contingency. And most importantly, planning to get caught. Most serial killers never expect it to happen. They're consumed by their hubris. They think they're special. They are the ones who will get away with it. Fools.

March 14, 2014: the day I was found. I was waiting in bed, unable to sleep. I heard the light patter of footsteps on my deck from tip-toeing black boots. I could barely contain my glee. The windows exploded inward, spraying shards of glass all over my perfectly clean apartment. The door to my bedroom splintered and buckled under the force of the battering ram. I was calmly sitting against my headboard with a pleasant smile and my hands clasped behind my head. The SWAT members looked a bit unnerved, and slapped the cuffs on me. They roughed me up a bit, and I squealed in pain as they expected. Not that I actually care; this will only help my defense.
I sat in court, watching the forensics investigators explain all of the evidence gathered from my home. The books that I'd published, full of eerily similar details that correspond to the killings. The maps and charts that I had prepared with facts that only the killer would know. The long unexplained travel absences. My journal, full of confessions about the thrill of the chase and the satisfaction that comes with a successful kill. The knives, stained with dried human blood. They called me to the stand, of course, but I pleaded the Fifth.

And then... the case began to fall apart. It's all part of being a fiction writer, my defense attorney explained. All research for my next work, which is entered into evidence. A first person perspective of a serial killer. Completely fictionalized, of course. The charts and maps were found to have grievous errors that the actual killer would not have made, including where the victim might be on the night of the murders. The charts had similar inaccurate details. My defense attorney explained that I did my best to piece the crimes together from news stories and a friend within the police department. Poor Jacob... his name was dragged through the mud and his career ruined, but he ended up corroborating my story. He was a necessary sacrifice. The journals were simply fictional, and contained no details about the actual cases.

The knives were my coup de grâce. What a sloppy killer I was, to leave physical evidence on the blades! If only I'd scrubbed harder! It's what the prosecutor called a "smoking gun." She took great pleasure in waving the weapon around the courtroom, detailing how I had sliced open the victim mercilessly. Then it was my turn. My attorney brought in the key surprise witness: a morgue employee that I had bribed. He let me in late one night to practice on an unnamed Jane Doe. I'd told him I was an author, and that I was interested in being able to vividly describe the sound and feel of a knife cutting into flesh. And it was the truth. I never lie. It's not quite the same when they're dead, but I enjoyed this bit of alibi building nonetheless.

I still remember the prosecutor's face after his testimony. She had nothing on cross-examination, and she could see her career going down the tubes. This was the most publicized trial the city had had in years, and she was completely blowing it. I wondered if she'd get fired for this. If not, I'd have to pull a few more strings. I gave her a sympathetic head nod and a barely-concealed smirk, and she couldn't hide the smoldering anger.

After the acquittal, we shook hands in front of a hundred flashing cameras. She put on her fakest smile and declared that justice had been served. She clenched my hand tighter and for a brief moment let the mask drop; she looked like she wanted to gag. With a wave to the reporters, she whispered into my ear: "I know you did it. And I'm going to stop you."

I continued shaking her right hand, eying the soft gold wedding ring on the other and picturing it in my collection. "You'll try," I told her. "Looking forward to seeing you again soon." I really, really was.

[MdKBooM]

[WP]Instead of only humans being the dominant species, all animals evolved to the same intelligence level. Nations are based on species, and you are another human soldier sent to fight in the war for you country's world domination.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingProm..._the_dominant/

I was lucky.
I had been assigned to guard a research facility deep within the human borders. It was an easy job, albeit stressful. While I didn't have to contend with attacks from our enemies, I was constantly harassed by protesters. I know the Program would be controversial when we started, but to have members of my own race throw rocks at me because I was trying to protect them? It was insulting... The cowards thought there could actually be peace. That humanity could live in harmony with the other species. They faulted our government for provoking the other species. They ignored the atrocities the Tigers committed against infants in rural villages. They ignored the fact that the sea creatures had completely shutdown the waterways. Unless you paid their taxes...
Yes I knew the program would be controversial when we started, but what difference would it make? Despite our physical weakness we had still prevailed this far. We still existed despite not having razor sharp teeth or lighting quick reflexes. I wouldn't say we were the smartest race of beings on this planet, but we were certainly one of the best. We definitely had the best grasp on the sciences. Our opposable thumbs were well suited to lab experiments that other species could not replicate. Plus we had her.... Dr. Ivanov. She was the single most brilliant creature I had ever met. Of any species. That and she was stunningly beautiful. Every soldier talked about her like she was some trophy to win and it made me sick. She was so far out of all of our leagues. We were nothing compared to her. Yet at the same time she was kind, we often ate lunch together and developed something of a friendship. We had so little in common that there wasn't much to talk about besides how the war was going. Those were good times.
Then we started losing. Badly.
No one saw it coming. A global alliance against humanity. Apparently the protesters back home had one thing right, what ever it was our government was doing on the front had gotten all of the other creatures pissed. That, or somehow they got the details of the Project. It wasn't exactly a secret but there was still a veil of mystery surrounding it. All the protesters knew is that it was designed to end the war for humanity's survival. Conspiracy theories ranged from a bio-weapon that would annihilate all other species to a giant rocket that would take us to a new planet.
It was the last day that I learned that the truth was far more sinister. Or was it the first day?
All of our fronts had collapsed. Only the capital city, Cradle, was still standing. Our facility was safe underground from the shelling, but our location had been compromised, and it was only a matter of time until some team of unholy creatures breached the main doors. Dr. Ivanov had personally requested me for private detail as we were running out of time.
It was my first time being allowed into the main research room. When it had been safe, only the scientists had been allowed in. The room was solid white and looked like it had come straight out of a movie. The room was lined with cages of various sizes. As I approached I realized that the cages held various animals. Curiously, they didn't appear to excited about their impending rescue. Many were just sleeping soundly in the corner of their cage. The others had little interest in me or Dr. Ivanov. I was about to ask her about the animals when I saw it. A lone wolf standing in the corner, out of its cage. I darted in front of Dr. Ivanov and drew my revolver.
"FREEZE YOU CANINE SCUM" I shouted, "HOW DID YOU ESCAPE CONFINEMENT?"
The wolf looked at me hesitantly and backed into the corner, a slight snarl appearing. It did not attempt to respond.
"Adam, there is no need for the weapon" Ivanov said as she stepped in front of my weapon. "Becca would never hurt anyone."
I was speechless. A wolf with a human name? Had the wolf defected? Ivanov whistled and the wolf came over to her. My weapon still trained on the beast, yet her actions did not seem hostile. 'Becca' approached the Doctor and sat at her feet and... smiled?
Dr. Ivanov laughed. She must have seen the look on my face. "Adam, this is the result of all our research. This is how humanity will survive this war."
"It..." I didn't understand.
"It won't make them all like this." There was no emotion in her voice. "Most just get turned into mindless beasts that have nothing but their own instinct to survive. The wolves are different. We've always had a positive relationship with the wolves before. They even abstained from the alliance against us. Something of the original animal must remain behind.
Words couldn't come to me.
"Just follow me into the Bunker. The order to use the weapon has come down from on high. Right before we lost contact with the Prime Minister. We'll proceed once the rest of my research team and your security forces arrive. They're on their way now."
My mind was racing contemplating what was about to happen. "But what about the others? The people outside?" I asked.
"Most are dead already. The Federation of Species has made it a priority to make sure we go extinct. Our numbers have been rapidly decreasing over the years. Cradle is a dying city. The best hope for the people out there is us. You understand that Adam? You understand why I have to do this?" There were tears in her eyes.
I nodded. I knew she had no desire to strip the other species of their intelligence, of their dignity, their soul. But it was that or let her people die. Her life's work was to save her people.
Suddenly explosions and gunfire ripped through the air. My radio crackled "Sir! The Federation Forces have breached the facility. They've cut us off from the Bunker! Dr. Schneider says to "do it" Whatever it is, do it fast. We can't last much l----" The radio screeched for a second and then went dead. I looked at Ivanov and with tears running down her face now her gaze met mine as she pushed the button.
We exited the facility a few days later. It was quiet. Quieter than it had ever been in my entire life. We walked around the corner and there it was. A fully armored deer, one of the most fearsome calvery units in the Federation. It looked as both for a long time. It took a step towards us. Becca jumped in front of Ivanov barking at the deer and baring her teeth. The deer, despite its heavy armor and weaponry, bolted down the street and disappeared. It was surreal.
I looked over at Dr. Ivanov. "You did it. You really did it. You've saved us all."
"Yes it seems the EDEN Project was a success." Becca came back over to Ivanov who scratched her being the ears. "Its such a shame it had to end like this though. We need to get going though. Ft. Enoch has genetic devices to create a population bomb, start the seeds of humanity. We should head there. Maybe there will be some survivors along the way."
"Right away Dr. Ivanov"
She smiled and turned to me. "Adam, How many times do I have to tell you to call me Eve?"

[Never Ping]

Não entendi muito bem o coceito do Writing Prompts (ainda vou separar um tempo para ler), mas se entendi bem, são microcontos. Seria isto?

[MdKBooM]

1. alguém cria um assunto maluco
2. várias pessoas escrevem sobre esse assunto maluco
3. ?
4. profit

[MdKBooM]

Esse aqui também achei foda:

[WP] A planet rotates once every 1,000 years so that each side is either tundra or desert; the poles are also frozen wastes, but there is a small area of ever moving habitable land. Two nomadic tribes isolated on each side of the planet begin to find the 500 year old relics of the other.

O assunto gerou mais de uma história boa, então pra não poluir vou deixar só o link pra quem quiser ver: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingProm...years_so_that/

[Many Kalaveraa]

Esse subreddit é mto bom, normalmente aparece umas escritas de 5a serie mas quase todo post tem uns textos desse naipe

[MdKBooM]

Puta merda, olha só essa história aqui. Leia a parte 1 e depois decida se quer ler o resto ou não. Eu não consegui parar de ler..

[WP] You sold your soul to the Devil some years ago. Today he gives it back and says, "I need a favor."
https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingProm...ome_years_ago/

THE DEVIL'S OWN SPACE-COWBOY
His voice is difficult to describe.
Picture this: your eardrum is a cigarette filter and his mouth is the burning sunspot of the lit end.
Whenever he speaks, it’s like your brain’s taking a long, long drag.
”Remember that little deal we had a while back?”
Deal? More like ‘scam’. “The deal we made when I was just a kid? Yeah, I remember that deal.”
”Whoa, now,” he said. ”I’m detecting a little bit of acid in your speech, there. You angry about something?”
“You made a deal with an eight year-old, you colossal douchebag. I wanted to be a ‘space cowboy’, and you took my soul over that?” I shook my head. “What the hell, man?”
“Right. About that...” He smiled and it was like watching a crack form in the glacial north arctic. Every time he did it you just knew that some polar bear was getting his life screwed over. “Turns out,” he said, with that same smile, “that your little eight year-old fantasy may not be so useless after all.”
I turned around and started locking up the drawers. I was closing up the coffee shop tonight. “Get to the point, Devil.”
His eyes glimmered with some inner light. “Well, I have a particularly difficult task I need your expertise with. I need some space cowboying done.”
“You’re shitting me.”
”I shit you not. Do this for me, and you’ve got your soul back.”
___________________
Apparently, demons, angels and all of that nonsense have pretty unlimited power anywhere that isn’t outer-space.
”Yeah,” said the Devil. ”Not our domain, breaching contract, etcetera etcetera. Point is, we can’t really go into the ‘void’ or anything. Not even in a ship. If we want to get to a planet we gotta take the worm tubes.”
“…So why don’t you just do that?”
”Well, this target of mine is on something called a ‘space-station’. You heard of that?”
“Of course I have. I’m not an idiot.”
He shrugged. ”I can never really tell with you mortals. Anyway, you’re going to need to get on this,” he traced air quotes with his fingers, “‘space-station’, and then you’re going to retrieve my little item. Think you can do that?”
No, of course I didn’t think I could do that. But this was my immortal soul we were talking about, here. How could I do anything less than try? “Sure, I think I can do that. How do I get there?”
”Well, you’re going to take a worm tube to your launch point, first. Wouldn’t want you to have to worry about all the niggly aspects of interstellar travel that ain’t instantaneous, you know?”
“Where’s the tube?”
“Where’s the…?” He laughed and held up something suspiciously like a detonator. He put on his best Wizard of Oz voice and boomed, “The tube was always inside you! The tube was always…!”
Then he clicked the button and the world faded through white.
___________________
I didn’t stop throwing up for what felt like hours.
When I could finally look up, a horned face looked down at me with angry red eyes. The Devil usually cleaned himself up, but it looked like his underling demons didn’t really give a shit if they looked like the combined result of a halloween bargain bin and the nightmares of a toddler.
His voice was gruff. “You are ’Gabe’?”
I spit the taste of vomit out of my mouth. “Yeah, that’s me.”
He snorted. “Come with me.”
I followed his spiny back through a pair of airlocks, a de-licing room—“You kidding me, fellas? I don’t have lice!”—a decontamination room, and finally, a prep room.
Hornface pointed at a locker. “Suit is in there. Put it on, get ready.”
He watched me intently.
I cleared my throat, “Uh, not going to give me some privacy, here?”
“Why you need privacy?”
“I’m about to get naked, bud.”
“So? I am also naked.”
He… had kind of a point. I wasn’t going to press the issue, so I got out of my clothes, slipped into an undersuit, and worked my way into the outer hard-shelled carapace.
It all came so easy. Like I’d been doing this for decades.
Hornface grunted. “Ready now?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I did final seal checks and gave my helmet a good knock for good luck. “Where are we headed now?”
“Your ship.”
___________________
The space-ship was something only a hellspawn could have devised. It was covered in what looked like volcanic rock, with glowing orange rivulets running hot in the contours and gothic spikes thrusting up off the hull like undersea vents.
“Really, guys? Not even thinking about aerodynamics here, huh?”
Hornface shrugged. “No air in space. If no aerodynamics, why not make look cool?”
“You know, Hornface, you’re really not as stupid as you sound.”
He scowled. “English not first language. Maybe you try speaking in Tongues?”
The demon spoke fluent gibberish for a good half minute before I said, “Yeah, maybe not.”
He pushed me towards the cockpit and said, “You go now. Computer tell you what do.”
Uh-huh. I jumped into the cockpit and it locked closed around me. The thing was shot through with a diffuse orange glow.
“Um. Computer?”
The console came alive with red light, and there was a voice: “WHAT DO YOU WANT, PEASANT?”
“Jesus, computer. Lighten up.”
“LIGHTENING UP IS NOT IN MY PROGRAMMING. STATE YOUR REQUEST, FOOL.”
Just like the Devil to give me a ship that berates me. What a dick.
“Start up nav for this space station I’m supposed to get on.”
“BE POLITE AND PERHAPS I WILL DO THIS.”
“Start up nav, please.” Fucking computer.
“PERFORMING AS REQUESTED. BRACE FOR ACCELERATION.”
I tried to ‘brace for acceleration’, I really did. But instead I got my teeth rattled so hard you could have sworn I was playing the maracas.
___________________
After a good half hour of having my body smushed up against the seat, the computer finally said:
“YOU HAVE ARRIVED AT YOUR DESTINATION.”
Thank fucking God.
“NOW RETURNING MANUAL CONTROL. GOOD LUCK WITH EVASIVE MANEUVERS.”
Wait, what? Two joysticks flipped up from the console and the main-screen went bright with the afterburners of a thousand missiles. Defensive emplacements. Shit.
My hands went to the sticks like they were magnetized, and I whipped the ship into a roll. It was all instinct.
“YES, ROLLS. THE BEST MANEUVER FOR DIZZYING YOURSELF AND EASING THE SWEET EMBRACE OF DEATH.”
I zipped past the first cluster of missiles and swooped low under what looked like a pure white archway.
What I didn’t realize was that I was flying straight through a half-meter of stained glass.
The ship shuddered and the glass cracked to pieces, and about 60% of the missiles slammed into the arch and took it off the space-station’s hull.
…Which still left around 400 missiles on my ass.
“MAY I RECOMMEND MAKING PEACE WITH YOUR GOD?”
I hit the accelerator and went in a wide loop, dragging as many missiles I could with me. The lagging ones clustered up, came flush up against each other, and disappeared in a flash.
Still about a hundred missiles, real close now. They could accelerate much faster than what was physiologically possible for me.
Shit.
“Computer, do we have weapons systems?”
“OH, RIGHT. WE DO.”
“Shoot them, you son of a bitch!”
“SHOOTING, SHOOTING…”
The cockpit rumbled as the guns on my ship’s hull took out the missiles with a couple hundred thousand bullets.
“How do I get inside this thing? And what the hell am I supposed to find?”
“MARKING ENTRANCE POINTS NOW. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A HARD DRIVE.”
“A hard drive?”
“DID I STUTTER?”
___________________
I jumped through some obscure airlock in a nook on the massive space-station and found my way inside.
The hardline inside my helmet crackled. “THE STATION IS SPARSELY INHABITED. THE HARD DRIVE SHOULD BE LOCATED… HERE.”
A nav-point sparked orange in my vision.
Alright, easy enough. Follow the yellow-brick road, and all. And maybe—
I stopped.
Behind me was this conspicuous silence—like when there are footsteps matching yours in a dark alley, and you stop to see if they continue, but all you hear is this loud and pregnant quiet.
I kept walking, and could swear something was doing the same behind me.
It raised the hairs on my neck.
By the time I reached the pick-up point, I had almost gotten used to the Computer’s insane drawlings.
“I HOPE YOU GET CAUGHT AND ANALLY PROBED.”
The hard drive was squirreled away in a filing cabinet, just like any other hard drive. I picked it up, put in my pouch, and turned to face the most ugly-pleasant thing I have ever seen.
It was ugly because of all the warts and facial protrusions, and pleasant because the expression of its face was calmer than a zen cow.
“Ah… Hello?”
“THAT IS AN ELDIL YOU DINKUS. THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND ENGLISH.”
“What do I do with it?”
“IGNORE IT AND COME BACK TO THE SHIP.”
I waved goodbye and the Eldil stared serenely through me. Weird.
Anyway, time to run. I had a soul waiting for me.
___________________
A hop, skip, and a worm-tube later and I was back in the empty coffee shop. The Devil was smoking a cigar in the dark.
”You got the stuff?”
“You got the money?” I cleared my throat, “Ehrm, I mean, you got my soul?”
He snapped and I felt… nothing at all. Sometimes I thought that these demon-types made up the idea of souls, just so they could have something to hold over you. Leverage. There’s no way I’d risk not believing though, you know? The cost of being wrong would be way too huge. Which I guess is how the whole scam worked.
The Devil clicked his fingers on the table. ”I’m waiting.”
I tossed him the hard drive and he smiled that killer’s smile. ”Thank you.”
And then he ripped the drive in two with his bare hands. He crushed the two separate pieces to dust.
“What was on that thing, anyway?”
”The contract keeping us from going up there,” he said, pointing skyward.
“Space? Why do you want to go there, anyway?”
His face split into a rictus. ”It’s the final frontier, my boy. The final frontier.”

ONE YEAR AFTER THE DEAL
”Do you understand these terms, human?”
Of course I couldn’t understand. My guts were still squirming from the worm-tube and I had a hangover that could kill a full-grown bull moose.
“I’m sorry,” I said, clearing my throat. “Could you repeat that?”
The creature was a silhouette composed entirely of light. And when he spoke, he pulsed. ”I will summarize then, human.” The figure floated close. "If you perform this task for us, we will save your soul from eternal damnation.”
“Wait, what?” I shook my head like I was trying to get something loose. “I did the job for him so I could avoid eternal damnation! What’s the deal, here?”
”He removed the certainty that your soul would be sent to Hell. At the moment, you may either enter through the Pearly Gates or through the Fiery ones… and we can bar our doors at any time.”
“That just makes you both dicks, doesn’t it?”
The being flashed back a few meters. ”Be that as it may, it makes your choice very clear. Will you perform this task?”
“Well, you just said it, didn’t you?” I could’ve spit at it his feet if I didn’t think it’d get me eternally damned. “Looks like I’m going to be your errand boy.”
___________________
Alright, so a little background.
A year after my little deal with the Devil, the stars started going out.
Turns out that entire planets were being held ransom for their souls. Either they handed them over, or the system went dark and everybody died.
Pretty horrible stuff.
Of course, I had no idea because I was just a normal dude working a normal shift in a normal coffee shop.
Which is why I guess the Angels had to kidnap me. I’d have never believed them if they never showed me. There are fleets out there. Giant fleets of ships made of brimstone and fire, spreading out across the stars at warp speed.
”See what you have wrought, human.” The Angels didn’t take too kindly to my little space adventure. ”They spread across the firmament, and they build their tubes into the systems of innocents. Billions gone. Billions.”
I gulped. I did feel guilty, I did. But I was just following—
”You will break into the demon hive. You will infiltrate their worm-tube network. You will give us access.”
“Well, I’ll sure as hell try, buddy. Sir. Angel, I mean.”
”Archangel,” he said. ”You will address me as Archangel.”
___________________
Without the Archangel to guide me through the space station, I would have gotten lost in a second. The hallways were like tunnels burrowed through pure crystal, with the occasional console in the colors of heavy stained glass. You could get turned around real easy, here.
“Where are we going?”
We wound our way through more tunnels and for a second I wondered how this place was generating gravity. The way these paths were angled, there was no way it was from some kind of rotation. It had to be a force… something pulling us down.
”We are going to your ship.”
My ship. I could not wait to see what kind of smooth design these Angels cooked up. I really couldn’t wait to get in the cockpit again. Something in me was just itching for it.
”And we must also meet your crew.”
“Crew?”
”You didn’t think we would be letting you go alone, did you?” The blinding white silhouette didn’t have a face, but I could almost imagine a smug smile, there. ”Too many lives depend upon your success. You will need all the help you can get.”

We got to the hangar and it was like swimming in oil it was so dark.
Even the light coming off the Archangel was pinned down in a tight halo around his body.
“Why is it so dark in here?”
”Your vessel was difficult to calm. It seemed the bright lights irritated it.”
“I’m sorry, you… you irritated my ship?”
”Yes.”
“Why did you design an irritable ship?”
”We did not design it at all.”
Oh, no. Please no.
”We did refit some of the internal cabins, however.”
“Please tell me you replaced the computer. Please.”
The Archangel threw the lights.
“WHY MUST YOU ANTS ANNOY ME AT EVERY TURN?”
Shit. It was the same ship. The ship the demons gave me.
Hulled in volcanic rock, rivulets of lava, gothic turrets, and fitted with a Computer that just wouldn’t shut the fuck up.
“LEAVE ME TO MY SLUMBER UNTIL SOMETHING MORE DISTRACTING COMES ALONG.”
I sighed and waved at the ship. “Something more distracting’s definitely come along, Computer. Remember me?”
“I WISH I COULD SAY I MISSED YOU. BUT THAT WOULD BE LYING.”
I massaged my temples. “Well, we’ve got another job to do. Think we can cooperate a little better this time?”
“NO.” Christ. “BUT I LOOK FORWARD TO NOT BEING BORED.”
Well, there was something.
The Archangel gave me what I can only describe as an apologetic shrug. ”This personality was made integral to the running of this vessel. It seems that its main power source is antagonism and hostility.”
“Well that’s just dandy.”
“YES. SARCASTIC COMMENTS. I CRAVE THESE.”
Oh my God.
Just then, the doors opened on the far side of the hangar.
”I see the first of your colleagues has arrived.” He started floating down the long track of metal.
I followed. “What’s his name?”
”I believe she is biologically female.”
“Okay. What’s her name?”
”Call her Ihtimaz Nefriti. She sold her soul to the Devil to survive the darkening of her system, Mattica.” The blank glowing face of the Angel cast its light on me. ”Take care to be genial with her. Matticans are not known for their long tempers.”
This day just kept getting better, didn't it?

”You will have four crew members.”
I thought they’d all be Angels, but it seemed like every one of them was a flesh-and-blood sod like me.
“Well yes, what did you expect?” Ihtimaz the Mattican shook my hand so hard it felt like it’d come off. “What better fodder for the war machine than those who have lost their souls?”
She was covered in scales and had a snapping jaw like an alligator’s. I had no idea how she could enunciate words at all—but I heard them. They sounded like water lapping hard against a rocky coast, hitting the stones at just the right angle and with just the right force to invoke the impression of a spoken sound.
Then the translator chewed it up and spat an audio reconstruction into my ear, and it was like she was speaking in plain English.
While I was still massaging my hand from the Mattican handshake—“This is your human custom, no?”—there came a figure from the hallway, cloaked entirely in a rainbow medley of silks, with only a gash of shadow to suggest there was a face under there, somewhere.
He spoke and it was like a whisper. “Hello, Captain. I am Heyrog. I am to be your Chanter for this journey.”
“…Chanter?”
Heyrog looked at the Archangel and stood quietly.
The Archangel explained, ”He controls what you might call… magic. The invocations are a chant, and he is a Chanter.”
I mean, I knew I was in a hangar filled with aliens and an Archangel, but magic, too? Really?
“I sense your skepticism,” Heyrog whispered. “But consider this. The only reason you are standing, the only reason we are are pulled into the floors of this station… is the Chant of my peoples.”
I gulped. “This station was built by your people? It’s not… Angelic?”
”Angels are still disallowed from the void, human. The only reason I am here is because Heyrog constructed a worm-tube here.”
Heyrog humbly nodded.
I still couldn’t believe it. But I couldn’t wait to see what he could do. “Glad to have you aboard, Chanter.”
He grabbed me by the back of my head and pressed the crest of his skull against mine. I returned the favor. Must’ve been the handshake of his people.
Heyrog fell back to talk to Ihtimaz, and that’s when I felt it. That creep along the back of my skull, that conspicuous, loud, unquiet quiet.
I whipped around and saw an Eldil there, still as ugly as ever—and still just as serene.
The creature didn’t say a word.
“Nice to meet you.”
”You’ve already met him,” said the Archangel. ”Exactly one year ago.”
It was the same one who saw me steal the hard drive.
”Eldila do not speak. Nor do they have names, or rigid identities. All they wish is to explore, learn, and feed knowledge back into their hive. They are the most innocent creatures I have ever encountered.” The Arachangel hovered near the ugly-pleasant Eldil and pulsed warmly. ”But this is the last one—and I will not abide having it out of my sight.”
“Out of your sight?”
”Ah. That’s right.” The Archangel sunk down to eye-level. ”I will be coming with you.”

We headed out from Heyrog’s station using a map loaded into the Computer’s mainframe.
“SURE. JUST USE MY MEMORY WITHOUT ASKING ME.”
“If I’d asked you’d just say no.”
“AND THAT’S HALF THE FUN, ISN’T IT?”
Ugh.
My fingers danced across the keyboard and I projected the map onto the bridge.
Yeah, you heard me. The bridge. Like I was Captain motherfuckin’ Kirk.
The Angels refit the whole ship to accommodate an expanded crew.
“I FEEL BLOATED WITH ALL OF YOU IN THERE. AUTHORIZE AIRLOCK EVACUATION?”
“No.” I looked at the map and tried to figure out a route to Hellport—the hub for all of the Devil’s worm-tubes. The center for his stranglehold on the Galaxy—and, hell. Maybe the Universe.
According to the Archangel, the map was stolen from the databanks of some demon patrol. That probably explained all the names.
“So, look, we can warp over to Killgore and make a beeline straight for Asstoass. Take the ship-tube down from Hooker’s Last Gasp and jump the feeder line down Route 666, until we hit Point Killyourself where we slingshot straight for the Hellport.”
“I RECOMMEND WE TRAVEL TO EROS PRIME, INSTEAD.”
”The Pleasure Planet? Computer, what would you even do there?”
“I COULD HECKLE ALL THE CUSTOMERS TRYING TO ENGAGE IN INTIMATE AFFECTION. THERE IS NO BETTER PLEASURE, I ASSURE YOU.”
I caught the Archangel’s attention again. “So? How about this route?”
“Respectfully, sir.” Heyrog’s voice was as soft as his silks. “I am here for a reason. With the right Chant we can travel to our destination unhindered.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Okay, I’m interested. What’s involved?”
“First we will need to find a large, green planet.”
___________________
We found a close world that the hell-map had imaginatively just named BUTTHOLE, and then we held in low orbit.
“So what exactly are you going to do?”
Heyrog began to unweave his silks. “I will reallocate Order.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Order. Information. The opposite of entropy. I must reallocate Order to suit our needs—travel.”
“Why did you need a green planet?”
“Life happens to be very highly ordered, and a green world is a font of life. Some I will reallocate to our cause.”
I scratched the back of my head and looked out the viewport at the beautiful green BUTTHOLE. “What will that do to them down there?”
“Some of the animals may experience a slightly shortened lifespan. Nothing more tragic than the extinction events that visit a planet such as this, every few thousand years.” He stopped unweaving when he got the final layers. “Now, if you will excuse me. I require privacy to see this ritual to fruition.”
“Right, right,” I said, as the door shut closed behind me.
From beyond the metal wall I could hear the strange sounds of the Chant—like a medley of wet fingers on an orchestra of wine glass.
Shim varasutra, heym noye putra,
Shim varasutra, jeym noye putra,
Shim varasutra…

I didn’t feel a thing, but one second we were in orbit and the next we were in empty space.
Pure and utter blackness. We couldn’t even see the stars.
Ihtimaz snapped her jaws. “Where is it? Where is this Hellport?!”
I contacted Heyrog through the ship’s comms. “Heyrog, are you sure you put us in the right place?”
His voice came back, quiet: “I am certain.”
Ihtimaz snarled. ‘Where is it?! I want to rip these demons limb from limb!”
“Maz, calm down. We’ll figure this out.” I magnified the view screen and tried to get a look at… anything, really.
”There are no stars. Perhaps the construct is built around us, and it is obstructing them?”
“Computer, what’s on the sensors?”
“THE SURROUNDING SPACE IS EMPTY. MUCH LIKE YOUR PROSPECTS.”
“Nothing?”
“WHY DO I FIND MYSELF ALWAYS REPEATING MYSELF?”
The view screen suddenly switched through static, and I saw a man in sunglasses there, instead. He was choking down cigar smoke, and he still had on that horrifying smile.
”You.”
”Yeah, it’s me, Angel-boy. What’re you doing with my little space cowboy, there?”
“I’m not yours, man. You never told me what you were going to do with that hard drive, or even what it was.”
”You never asked.”
True enough.
I wanted to ask him where we were, but that would just let him know how confused we were. I needed to think up a strategy…
”It’s been five minutes. What could you possibly be thinking of?”
One second, the Devil was on-screen, and the next, he was striding down my bridge.
”You gave me quite a bit of freedom out here, cowboy.”
I tried not letting him see me gulp.
Ihtimaz growled and started for him, but I held out my hand. “Keep that temper locked down, Mazzy. He’s just here to talk. Right?”
I noticed the Archangel’s form sparking and rippling, like there was something spinning him up just beneath the surface. So that was what an angry Angel looked like.
The Devil’s face split with those smoke-stained teeth. ”Yeah. Yeah, I’m here to talk.” He took his hat off and held it to his chest. ”What exactly is this ragtag band doing in my territory?”
So this was his. Maybe the Hellport just looked like this?
”I saw that look.” He gave a chuckle, and it is sounded like sulfur smells. ”You don’t know where you are, do you?”
I didn’t say a word.
”You don’t have to say anything. I know.” He glanced around at my crew. ”Tell you what,” he said, leaning in with a whisper. ”Instead of killing you all right now, I’ll just send a ship here to do the job later. You’ll buy yourself a few hours to pray to whatever god you believe in. And all you have to do…” I could smell the smoke coming off his breath, ”Is give me that Eldil you have there.”
”ABSOLUTELY NOT!”
The Archangel flashed bright and settled into a thrumming orange.
”He is the last, and you shall not have him!”
The Devil leaned against the wall. ”Getting a little territorial there, aren’t you?”
The Eldil watched serenely as the two faced off.
”There are no purer creatures. I will not see this one defiled by one such as you.”
”Really? That’s what you’re going with? ‘Pure creatures?’” He laughed. ”Are they actually buying that?”
“What does he mean?”
”Nothing. He is trying to confound you!”
”’Confound’ you?” The Devil turned to me. ”Look, I have never been anything but straight with you, bud. But this guy is lying to you. He wants that Eldil for the same reason I do.”
“And what reason is that?”
The Archangel thrummed to a bright yellow. Something about it reminded me of wasps and yellow-jackets. ”Do not feed into his deception, human.”
”The Eldil draft up the contracts, Gabe.” He put the hat back on his head. ”They’re kind of like your Chanter friend there—except they’re better.”
Heyrog spoke quietly, his eyes downcast. “This is true. Instead of allocating Order from one place and one time, the Eldil may allocate Order from entire timelines. They eliminate these timelines by limiting the probability space of what creatures can do. They make them sign contracts that bind their behavior.”
”Exactly. And your Angel friend here really doesn’t like that we use them for our… purposes.”
I wondered why Heyrog never told me about the Eldila, but I guess it never came up. Right now I had bigger things to worry about, like another deal with the Devil and the Archangel currently heating up to an uncomfortable brightness.
”Their powers are not for you to use, demon.”
”Oh, but it’s just fine if you use them?”
“OH, THIS IS GOING TO BE GOOD. PLEASE, ENGAGE IN COMBAT AND MAKE A HOLE IN THE HULL. I COULD DO WITH SOME EMPTYING.”
“Devil!” I shouted. “Just get out of here. Take the Eldil!”
”Don’t tell me,” he said, as the Archangel advanced upon him. ”Seal the contract with the Eldil himself. They can’t be taken anywhere unless their superior allows it—and last time I checked, you’re the captain of this ship.”
Wait a second. The power was mine. All mine. I had the leverage, here.
“I’m changing the terms of the agreement. I give him to you, and you leave me and my crew alone forever.”
”Deal! Now do it!”
”DON’T YOU DARE, HUMAN!”
The Archangel was now bright red, like spurting sacrificial blood.
“New term: you take this lying Angel fuck with you!”
”Double-deal! Go! Quick!”
The Archangel roared and came charging for me.
“Mazzy! Stop him!”
Ihtimaz caught him in a hold with her scaled arms and gnashing teeth. Steam rose from her skin wherever she punched him to a stop.
I got to the Eldil and looked it in the eye. “This is your captain speaking.”
It blinked in response. “You are to go with the Devil, and in return he will leave us alone forever more, and take the Archangel away from here.”
The Eldil’s eyes flashed with a million pinpricks of digital light, and I knew some kind of computation was happening there. I wondered if it was a cyborg.
Three seconds of flashing and it uttered, “This Contract Is Sealed.”
And then it was gone.
So was the Devil, and the Archangel, too.
Ihtimaz nursed her burns in a corner. The floor was still red-hot from where the Archangel's feet had fallen.
The view screen flashed to life, and I saw the Devil, there.
“Expect a boarding party in about an hour or two. Your contract said I’d leave you alone… but it didn’t say anything about my men.”
Son of a bitch.

“DETECTING MULTIPLE INCOMING PARTIES. THEY WILL DOUBTLESSLY BE WANTING YOU DEAD.”
“I know, I know.” I had to think. “Computer, can I indefinitely outmaneuver them?”
“EACH CRUISER COMES WITH A COMPLEMENT OF TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MISSILES, EIGHTY NUCLEAR WARHEADS, AND FIVE BLACK HOLE GENERATORS. WE WILL ENCOUNTER FIFTY CRUISERS WITHIN THE HOUR, FROM EVERY DIRECTION.”
“So that’s a no, then?”
“BY ALL MEANS, TRY.”
I tapped my fingers on the armrest. I was this ship’s captain, and right now I was failing. Bad. How the hell could I get us out of here?
“Heyrog, can you Chant us back out?”
He shook his head sadly. “The only life in close proximity is us, sir. To travel away from here with our own Order is a death sentence.”
Shit.
There had to be something.
I looked out the viewport, and it was still as bleak and black as ever. I thought I saw the faint lights of approaching cruise ships, but I knew that was probably wishful thinking.
“Computer, you’re sure there’s nothing out there?”
“THE SURROUNDING SPACE IS DEVOID OF PHYSICAL OBJECTS. WHY IS YOUR MEMORY SO HORRID?”
“No physical objects? But worm tubes aren’t physical. Are there any out there?”
“SCANNING.”
The Computer sat there and made 60s sci-fi beep-boop computer noises. I think it was mocking me.
“WELL THERE ARE A FEW WORM TUBES OUT HERE.”
“How many?”
“THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE MILLION.”
Jesus Christ. “Open one, already! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”
On the 3D projection, we could see the hell-cruisers closing in.
“INSUFFICIENT POWER TO OPEN A TUBE.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I DO NOT KID.”
No power, and we were about to get bum rushed from every direction.
Just then, a plan formed in my head.
___________________
I burned for the nearest cruiser and we all crashed against our seats.
Heyrog could barely speak, but he managed to squeeze out a whisper. “Is this course of action truly wise, Captain?”
“It’s the only way,” I said. “The only way.”
In ten minutes I swooped up against the hull, and dinged it a couple of times. Knock knock, you bastards. And then they finally came out—fighters, hundreds of them. And like big floating ticks in the swarm, the boarding ships. That was our ticket.
The ship whipped around their flight formations and through the bullet streams until it came close—knife fight distance with the boarders.
I called back: “You ready, Mazzy?”
She wasn’t listening. She was too busy pounding her foot into the metal floor, in time with her song.
“Strife!”
Pound.
“Away tonight with a silenced rif-le—Fight!”
Pound.
“Crackshots all, with a red-dot sight…”
She pounded as steady as my heart. I wound through thirty in-bound fighters and my hands and my eyes were frosty. This was what I was made for.
The boarding ship finally realized I was close by, and it latched on with its hooks and drills.
“AH! NOW THIS I CAN ENJOY!”
The added weight changed the feel of the ship a bit, but I adapted. I was taking a few bullets to the hull, but not much more. I could pull this off.
Missiles wove around me and exploded with stellar confetti, and the fragments bounced off the surface with audible tinkling. We were caught in a firefight, and the only background noise sounded like fairy dust.
“They are inside!” Ihtimaz clapped her jaws shut and hefted a gun that looked like it was way too big to be useful. “To battle!”
It was only a matter of time, now. I bolted straight for the center of the Hellport, at high acceleration.
The sounds of gunfire and screaming echoed through the corridors and up to the bridge.
“OH, IHTIMAZ. YOU AND I CAN FORM A LONG AND BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP, TOGETHER.”
I slapped the console. “The Angel said you’re powered by hostility. Now we have hostility. Can you open a tube?”
“YES, ABSOLUTELY. OH, I CAN OPEN SEVERAL! IHTIMAZ YOU GODDESS!”
There was the sound of cracking bone and a scream cut short with a single gunshot.
“You can open several?”
On the map, fighters and cruisers closed in. I did my best to shake them off.
“OH, YES. I CAN OPEN SO MANY OF THEM! A THOUSAND! TWO THOUSAND! WAR IS ALL AROUND US. CAN’T YOU FEEL IT, FILLING YOU WITH ENERGY? MMMM!”
Heyrog whispered. “Why would you wish to open more than one, Captain?”
I rolled past a few missiles and turned to look at him. “Even if we escape, what then? The Devil will still have the Universe at gunpoint. We need to solve this here and now.”
“How?”
I doubled back and soared straight into the conflagration.
“OH, MY!”
“How many can you open?”
“TENS OF THOUSANDS!”
Not enough. I activated the guns and set them to auto-fire.
“HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS!”
“Open them. Open them all.”
“YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND.”
The battle folded away. A multicolored ocean sat outside the viewport, and rainbow wave folded over rainbow wave folded over rainbow wave…
I looked over at Heyrog. “How many planets out there, Heyrog?”
“Many thousands.”
“How many with life?”
“All of them.”
“Can you use them?”
He turned to me, and I saw glimmers in that shadow slit between his silks. “I can try.”
The Chanter started to unwrap himself. He must have been more comfortable with my presence, because he didn’t stop. He took it all off until he was bare to his purple skin. I saw he had protrusions and warts and the serene face of an Eldil—and for a moment I wondered if they were related species. But I had more pressing things to think about.
Heyrog turned to me in his nakedness and said, “What do you wish? There is enough power here to change the course of the entire Universe.”
I thought about the scheming Devil, the lying Archangel, and the immortal souls that hung in the balance of their machinations. They were always holding them over our heads, making us do what they wanted. All because of our fucking souls.
“I want to rob them of their power, Heyrog.”
He stared at me, still calm, still zen.
“I want to get rid of our souls. Everyone’s.”
He cocked his head. “You would sacrifice an immortal life after death?”
“I would get rid of the only thing that keeps us as their playthings. The pawns in their stupid game. I want to set us free.”
His eyes glimmered. “As you wish.”
Then he sat ramrod straight, closed his eyes, and began to sing—like wet thumbs on wine glass.
Shim varasutra, heym noye putra,
Shim varasutra, jeym noye putra,
Shim varasutra…

[rapidiaum]

bump a pedido do Saico