<![CDATA[Save-Point - Literature Section]]> https://www.save-point.org/ Thu, 07 May 2026 06:27:36 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Phantom's Random Writing]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-11114.html Wed, 04 Dec 2024 16:43:57 +0000 xxphantomxstarxx]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-11114.html
IN REGARDS TO FANFIC:
I tend to keep things leveled more at a PG-13 rather than PG out of a personal preference. My takes on the Sonic universe and tend to differ to varying extents just because I'm of the personal belief that SEGA makes some insane decisions that contradict their own canon, so I made my own.

Sonic vs Silver fight 1 ("It's no use!"):
Sonic pushed himself up and peeked out of the face-down-hedgehog-shaped crater he'd made, realizing he had no idea where he was. The peaceful meadow he'd fallen asleep in was gone, replaced by rubble, fire and lava. In the distance, he could see a partially destroyed building. Suddenly, he felt his quills prickle up and he spun around just in time to see a silver hedgehog floating, surrounded by debris and a teal aura.
“It's time to end this, Iblis Trigger,” the hedgehog said before launching a volley of debris towards him. Sonic was barely given a second's notice before he started dodging, his speed seeming to perplex the newcomer.
“If it's a fight you want, can it wait a little?” Sonic asked, “I just kind of showed up here and it's really hot and-”
His question was quickly answered by rebar just barely whizzing past him, lodging itself into the ground beside him.
“That's a no!” he said, zooming off, zigzagging to dodge more debris being hurled at him.

Silver flew after the blue hedgehog, psychokinetically grabbing any and all objects he could. He'd found him – the Iblis Trigger, the blue hedgehog that had caused the destruction of his world. He could stop this mess before it reached Soleanna! He gritted his teeth and pushed himself further, only just behind his speedy adversary. The blue hedgehog in question looked back at him, just barely hiding surprise behind a cocky grin.


“Hey hey hey~!” Sonic taunted with a wave, pretending not to notice the road sign dangling down, “Better think fast!”
He ducked and slid under, hearing the metallic THUNK as his pursuer didn't dodge fast enough. He quickly dashed ahead towards the destroyed city ahead. He looked around as he ran, taking in the sight of every destroyed building and the destruction of the city.  Carefully weaving his way around what he could only describe as a tetanus trap of I-beams, rebar, glass and rubble left over from what he could only guess was once a skyscraper. He only stopped as that mysterious hedgehog rose up in front of him again, blood staining the fur of his muzzle. Sonic couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt, but it quickly passed because – hey, he's not the one who didn't dodge.


“It ends here,” Silver said, pointing at the blue hedgehog.
“No it doesn't!” he replied, running towards the nearest building. Was he taking the fight indoors? Silver quickly flew after him, only to notice Sonic parkouring up the side. He attempted to shoot more of the city's rubble at him, but watched it tumble to the ground below with a weak spurt of energy. He quickly flew his way up the building.
“Sometimes,” he said to himself, “The easiest way can be a good one. Nobody could survive a fall off this thing...”
He landed on the roof and waited, ready to ambush.


Sonic quickly hopped to the top and looked around.
“Have a nice flight, Silver?” Sonic asked.
“How did you know my name?” the hedgehog asked, caught offguard.
“Lucky guess?” Sonic replied, not letting his guard down for a second, “I just look for easy things to call people when I don't know their names.”
Suddenly, Silver launched himself at Sonic.
“If it's a race you want, it's a race you'll get!” Sonic shouted as he dodged, spindashing his way down the side of the building before unrolling and settling into a full sprint.
“GET BACK HERE!” Silver shouted back, psychokinetically ripping pieces of the building to launch at him. Sonic quickly turned and slowed slightly, running backwards to keep an eye on what he had to dodge.
“What's wrong?” he grinned, “Tired already?”
Silver growled and gave up on launching things at him, instead focusing on catching up. Sonic didn't let his grin falter as the hedgehog shot further down to meet him, face to bloody-nosed face. His amber eyes were hard to read, but a spark of anger was hidden within. As their noses nearly touched, Sonic reached up and flicked Silver's nose before turning around and running off.


Silver stopped and grabbed his sore nose, sneezing loudly before realizing that he forgot to fly. By the time he caught himself, that hedgehog was on the ground, visible only as a blue streak zipping around the ruins of the once-thriving city, the city he'd helped Iblis to destroy. He bared his teeth and flew on ahead of him, stopping at a parking lot. The destroyed cars would make excellent ammunition. A shiny white and hot pink one caught his eye and he realized that it might make even better ammo.


Sonic dashed up and was immediately caught off guard by an oddly shiny and new-ish car being launched at him. He slid under it and skidded to a stop as he realized that the entire parking lot was levitating.
“What's your problem?” he asked, receiving another car flying at him in response. He growled, almost wishing for Egghead. At least he could count on him to reply! Quickly, he hopped up onto the cars and bounced along the tops of them as Silver attempted to throw he and the cars away.


Silver glared as the hedgehog got close to him, but he gave him a swift kick to the stomach, sending him tumbling out of the air and to the ground.
“It's no use,” Silver said, landing and levitating the hedgehog himself, holding him in midair, arms out to either side, legs dangling down as he fruitlessly tried to curl up.
“TAKE THIS!”
Silver quickly shot him into a corner, sending him clear through the wall and tumbling down a hole in the floor and he helplessly failed. Silver stopped for a second, hearing the thud of the guy hitting the floor below. Could he do this...? He looked around at the world around him, the dark brown sky above, the smog filling his lungs with every breath. He clenched his fists and slowly stepped forward, walking to the hole. He had to. He had to. His world – his sister - his friend - his future – was at stake.


Suddenly, Sonic spindashed into his torso, sending him flying backwards before landing on his hands and knees, panting. It was getting harder to breathe the longer he was here – he needed to get out! He quickly glanced around, looking for any exit he could before bolting, only to get stopped in his tracks by Silver's psychokinesis again. He couldn't move as he was jammed through another wall – and another – and another – he lost count. Shakily, he got back to his hands and knees, battered, bruised and bloodied. He felt dust from the rubble cake up in his scratches and winced, baring his teeth as he forced himself to stand.


Silver stared at his opponent, still grinning at him with more arrogance than he'd know what to do with. How was this guy still walking? He growled, slowly walking towards him.
“What's going on?” the blue hedgehog asked, “Why are you trying to beat me up?”
As if he wasn't definitely successfully beaten up?! Silver hid his shock and swallowed his words, instead grabbing him with his psychokinesis.
“I fight for the future,” he stated simply, “My future, my world's future. And you're the one responsible for releasing Iblis!”
“Who's Iblis?” the hedgehog asked. Who's Iblis?! Silver motioned around before levitating him over one of the pools of lava.
“I guess you're about to find out,” he replied. And, for the first time this whole fight, he saw fear flash in his opponent's eyes.


Sonic felt something kick him sharply in the ribs and to the ground before seeing a mass of black ram into Silver and send him flying. Since somebody else was obviously handling it, he decided he'd just lay there and try to rest a little before jumping back into the fray. From his tear-blurred vision, he saw Silver launch that same white and pink car. He followed the trajectory, but saw nothing aside from a flash of light... And then Silver following after the car, clearly launched towards it. Sonic looked back and saw none other than Shadow standing where Silver had stood. He smiled a little, glad his life was saved... And then, he realized that Shadow wouldn't let him live this down unless he did something spectacular. With a groan, he flopped his head back down to the shattered pavement.


“This... isn't over!” the silver hedgehog growled as he pointed at Shadow before sweeping his index finger to aim it at Sonic, “He's responsible for all this! He's the Iblis Trigger!”
“What the hell are you even saying?” Shadow asked, moving himself between the two battered hedgehogs.
“I'm saying,” the hedgehog continued, “That the only way to save this place is to kill him.”
“Aren't you needed somewhere else?” Shadow asked, “Not that I really care where, but just go there, preferably permanently.”
The hedgehog just stared at him for a moment before slowly walking off. Shadow waited for a moment, crossing his arms and glaring at the slow silhouette.
“You're slipping up,” he said finally, “I don't think I've ever seen you take that much of a beating before.”
“Oh, you know,” Sonic replied, slowly standing, “You win some you lose some. I wanted him to feel like he was doing well and then I was gonna give it to him. Live and learn and all that.”
Shadow could hear the cocky grin on his face without even looking at him.
“Rouge is going to kill me if she sees this...” he mumbled, walking to check on the car. To his surprise, Rouge sat up, somewhat dazed, before rolling down the window.
“Well,” she said, “Fancy seeing you here.”
“And here is...?” Sonic asked, following after Shadow.
“Who knows!” Rouge replied, “But fancy seeing you both!”
Sonic grinned at Shadow and elbowed him before wincing and pulling away, guarding his arm.
“You are so dead,” he grinned.
“Dead?” Rouge asked, climbing out, “Dead why-”


Sonic quickly zipped off, cackling at the explosive exclamation of, “MY CAR!!!!!”
That was Shadow's problem to deal with. He, on the other hand, had a murderous levitating maniac to worry about... And whatever this Iblis Trigger deal was...]]>
IN REGARDS TO FANFIC:
I tend to keep things leveled more at a PG-13 rather than PG out of a personal preference. My takes on the Sonic universe and tend to differ to varying extents just because I'm of the personal belief that SEGA makes some insane decisions that contradict their own canon, so I made my own.

Sonic vs Silver fight 1 ("It's no use!"):
Sonic pushed himself up and peeked out of the face-down-hedgehog-shaped crater he'd made, realizing he had no idea where he was. The peaceful meadow he'd fallen asleep in was gone, replaced by rubble, fire and lava. In the distance, he could see a partially destroyed building. Suddenly, he felt his quills prickle up and he spun around just in time to see a silver hedgehog floating, surrounded by debris and a teal aura.
“It's time to end this, Iblis Trigger,” the hedgehog said before launching a volley of debris towards him. Sonic was barely given a second's notice before he started dodging, his speed seeming to perplex the newcomer.
“If it's a fight you want, can it wait a little?” Sonic asked, “I just kind of showed up here and it's really hot and-”
His question was quickly answered by rebar just barely whizzing past him, lodging itself into the ground beside him.
“That's a no!” he said, zooming off, zigzagging to dodge more debris being hurled at him.

Silver flew after the blue hedgehog, psychokinetically grabbing any and all objects he could. He'd found him – the Iblis Trigger, the blue hedgehog that had caused the destruction of his world. He could stop this mess before it reached Soleanna! He gritted his teeth and pushed himself further, only just behind his speedy adversary. The blue hedgehog in question looked back at him, just barely hiding surprise behind a cocky grin.


“Hey hey hey~!” Sonic taunted with a wave, pretending not to notice the road sign dangling down, “Better think fast!”
He ducked and slid under, hearing the metallic THUNK as his pursuer didn't dodge fast enough. He quickly dashed ahead towards the destroyed city ahead. He looked around as he ran, taking in the sight of every destroyed building and the destruction of the city.  Carefully weaving his way around what he could only describe as a tetanus trap of I-beams, rebar, glass and rubble left over from what he could only guess was once a skyscraper. He only stopped as that mysterious hedgehog rose up in front of him again, blood staining the fur of his muzzle. Sonic couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt, but it quickly passed because – hey, he's not the one who didn't dodge.


“It ends here,” Silver said, pointing at the blue hedgehog.
“No it doesn't!” he replied, running towards the nearest building. Was he taking the fight indoors? Silver quickly flew after him, only to notice Sonic parkouring up the side. He attempted to shoot more of the city's rubble at him, but watched it tumble to the ground below with a weak spurt of energy. He quickly flew his way up the building.
“Sometimes,” he said to himself, “The easiest way can be a good one. Nobody could survive a fall off this thing...”
He landed on the roof and waited, ready to ambush.


Sonic quickly hopped to the top and looked around.
“Have a nice flight, Silver?” Sonic asked.
“How did you know my name?” the hedgehog asked, caught offguard.
“Lucky guess?” Sonic replied, not letting his guard down for a second, “I just look for easy things to call people when I don't know their names.”
Suddenly, Silver launched himself at Sonic.
“If it's a race you want, it's a race you'll get!” Sonic shouted as he dodged, spindashing his way down the side of the building before unrolling and settling into a full sprint.
“GET BACK HERE!” Silver shouted back, psychokinetically ripping pieces of the building to launch at him. Sonic quickly turned and slowed slightly, running backwards to keep an eye on what he had to dodge.
“What's wrong?” he grinned, “Tired already?”
Silver growled and gave up on launching things at him, instead focusing on catching up. Sonic didn't let his grin falter as the hedgehog shot further down to meet him, face to bloody-nosed face. His amber eyes were hard to read, but a spark of anger was hidden within. As their noses nearly touched, Sonic reached up and flicked Silver's nose before turning around and running off.


Silver stopped and grabbed his sore nose, sneezing loudly before realizing that he forgot to fly. By the time he caught himself, that hedgehog was on the ground, visible only as a blue streak zipping around the ruins of the once-thriving city, the city he'd helped Iblis to destroy. He bared his teeth and flew on ahead of him, stopping at a parking lot. The destroyed cars would make excellent ammunition. A shiny white and hot pink one caught his eye and he realized that it might make even better ammo.


Sonic dashed up and was immediately caught off guard by an oddly shiny and new-ish car being launched at him. He slid under it and skidded to a stop as he realized that the entire parking lot was levitating.
“What's your problem?” he asked, receiving another car flying at him in response. He growled, almost wishing for Egghead. At least he could count on him to reply! Quickly, he hopped up onto the cars and bounced along the tops of them as Silver attempted to throw he and the cars away.


Silver glared as the hedgehog got close to him, but he gave him a swift kick to the stomach, sending him tumbling out of the air and to the ground.
“It's no use,” Silver said, landing and levitating the hedgehog himself, holding him in midair, arms out to either side, legs dangling down as he fruitlessly tried to curl up.
“TAKE THIS!”
Silver quickly shot him into a corner, sending him clear through the wall and tumbling down a hole in the floor and he helplessly failed. Silver stopped for a second, hearing the thud of the guy hitting the floor below. Could he do this...? He looked around at the world around him, the dark brown sky above, the smog filling his lungs with every breath. He clenched his fists and slowly stepped forward, walking to the hole. He had to. He had to. His world – his sister - his friend - his future – was at stake.


Suddenly, Sonic spindashed into his torso, sending him flying backwards before landing on his hands and knees, panting. It was getting harder to breathe the longer he was here – he needed to get out! He quickly glanced around, looking for any exit he could before bolting, only to get stopped in his tracks by Silver's psychokinesis again. He couldn't move as he was jammed through another wall – and another – and another – he lost count. Shakily, he got back to his hands and knees, battered, bruised and bloodied. He felt dust from the rubble cake up in his scratches and winced, baring his teeth as he forced himself to stand.


Silver stared at his opponent, still grinning at him with more arrogance than he'd know what to do with. How was this guy still walking? He growled, slowly walking towards him.
“What's going on?” the blue hedgehog asked, “Why are you trying to beat me up?”
As if he wasn't definitely successfully beaten up?! Silver hid his shock and swallowed his words, instead grabbing him with his psychokinesis.
“I fight for the future,” he stated simply, “My future, my world's future. And you're the one responsible for releasing Iblis!”
“Who's Iblis?” the hedgehog asked. Who's Iblis?! Silver motioned around before levitating him over one of the pools of lava.
“I guess you're about to find out,” he replied. And, for the first time this whole fight, he saw fear flash in his opponent's eyes.


Sonic felt something kick him sharply in the ribs and to the ground before seeing a mass of black ram into Silver and send him flying. Since somebody else was obviously handling it, he decided he'd just lay there and try to rest a little before jumping back into the fray. From his tear-blurred vision, he saw Silver launch that same white and pink car. He followed the trajectory, but saw nothing aside from a flash of light... And then Silver following after the car, clearly launched towards it. Sonic looked back and saw none other than Shadow standing where Silver had stood. He smiled a little, glad his life was saved... And then, he realized that Shadow wouldn't let him live this down unless he did something spectacular. With a groan, he flopped his head back down to the shattered pavement.


“This... isn't over!” the silver hedgehog growled as he pointed at Shadow before sweeping his index finger to aim it at Sonic, “He's responsible for all this! He's the Iblis Trigger!”
“What the hell are you even saying?” Shadow asked, moving himself between the two battered hedgehogs.
“I'm saying,” the hedgehog continued, “That the only way to save this place is to kill him.”
“Aren't you needed somewhere else?” Shadow asked, “Not that I really care where, but just go there, preferably permanently.”
The hedgehog just stared at him for a moment before slowly walking off. Shadow waited for a moment, crossing his arms and glaring at the slow silhouette.
“You're slipping up,” he said finally, “I don't think I've ever seen you take that much of a beating before.”
“Oh, you know,” Sonic replied, slowly standing, “You win some you lose some. I wanted him to feel like he was doing well and then I was gonna give it to him. Live and learn and all that.”
Shadow could hear the cocky grin on his face without even looking at him.
“Rouge is going to kill me if she sees this...” he mumbled, walking to check on the car. To his surprise, Rouge sat up, somewhat dazed, before rolling down the window.
“Well,” she said, “Fancy seeing you here.”
“And here is...?” Sonic asked, following after Shadow.
“Who knows!” Rouge replied, “But fancy seeing you both!”
Sonic grinned at Shadow and elbowed him before wincing and pulling away, guarding his arm.
“You are so dead,” he grinned.
“Dead?” Rouge asked, climbing out, “Dead why-”


Sonic quickly zipped off, cackling at the explosive exclamation of, “MY CAR!!!!!”
That was Shadow's problem to deal with. He, on the other hand, had a murderous levitating maniac to worry about... And whatever this Iblis Trigger deal was...]]> <![CDATA[Goblin Gulch - The Curious Story of Milton, Nevada]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8650.html Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:30:52 +0000 JayRay]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8650.html [Image: 10OJjzJ.png]
Chapter 1: Before I fly away...

As most stories go, it was a dark night, as often such spun tales go, and as often as most nights do. I was on my last European vacation. The reason why it was my last... well, I know when I'm to depart this dusty orb to my celestial hereafter, but a-more about that later. I was to meet with someone of historical significance, in the fields of mathematics and physics - two learned disciplines which I'm sure will unlock great human achievements in the centuries to come, and unravel mysteries of the universe.

Why him you might ask? Well, when someone so deeply entrenched in the tall tales of Americana comes across such a grand tale as I had the privilege of witnessing for myself, one finds himself reaching desperately for someone, anyone who might understand my plight, and bring some sort of logical providence into such a far-fetched menagerie of the fantastical.

So here I was, outside the University of Zurich, Swiss cigar in my hand; an icon, I must add that pales in comparison to a fine-rolled Jamaican or any rolled in Hispanola or Mexico. His papers, which I were privy to; Brownian motion, special relativity, and the photoelectric effect would seem like grandiose science beyond my grasp, if it weren't for a colleague of mine speaking such babble in an event that... well for this 'young' author, borders on the fantastical fiction; an event that took me all the way from the tiny beleaguered town of Milton to San Francisco, around the Orient, up into the cradle of civilization itself, around the romantic Mediterranean and up to this bastion of high learning on the other side of the world.

I found the door to be quite imposing, huge Rhine Oak doors with wrought iron borders, but found the subsequent hallway within warm and inviting. It didn't take long to locate his office door. It was the only one in the hall open, alight, and alive with some activity. As I doused my acrid cigar against a outside brick, I sojourned inside, slightly intrigued by the 'click-click-clacking' that emanated from within.

What I had at first perceived as an office was instead much like a lecture hall, with eight large slates affixed to the walls, and a lone figure clacking a piece of chalk steadily against the surface, scribing out a mixture of Greek symbols, numbers, lines and mathematical symbols with the efficiency of a San Francisco telegraph operator.

"Dr. Einstein, I presume?" I spoke, thus realizing exactly how dry my throat was at that particular moment, revealed to the world as my throat cracked out the words with a cough. 

The figure, perched amid a ladder mounted on a track above the chalkboards slowly looked down upon me and smiled. Rather comically, and not to detract from the interaction, the tails of his coat made him and his lantern-diffused shadow appear as a murder of crows or ravens across the slate.

"Ah, Mr. Clemens... or should I call you Twain?" 


Chapter 2: A Good ol' Yankee in a Swiss Doctor's Court

His words while heavily accented with the Germanic-Swiss vernacular still held great regard for the English language. It was a relief that I didn't have to scour through my booklet of translations to at least speak with a man, because, well, some of what I was about to tell him, I wasn't entirely sure they had created a German word for it.

"Samuel will be fine, sir. I... I'm also glad that I didn't outrun my correspondence. It would be awkward, me being here before my letters announcing my intent arrived."

I searched his eyes to be sure that my letters actually HAD arrived first.

"Oh, ves, the letters came. I didn't quite know what to make of zem. You have a flair for the longwinded spin, sir, and in some parts of your letters, I truly, and I mean no offense, would have hoped you would have been more direct."

I nodded in personal reflection at the fact that I can go on and on, even in inner monologue. However, such long spins HAVE netted me a small fortune in my literary works. So, I lend myself to a greater power to judge my idiosyncracies. 

"Well, with what I told you, what do you make of it?" I asked, unsure if he considered the whole diatribe of emotional editorial I sent him a bunch of hogwash, or if there were any parts of it that caught his curiosity.

"Well..." Albert stepped down from his ladder. "First, let us go to the study, I dont zink I can focus on it with all the math on the boards, it's distracting me for a time now. Please..."

Albert led me straight away to a small parlor. As I stepped in, and smelt the faint odor of pipe tobacco, I smiled, pulling my cigar back out. Two small decanters of schnapps, two large cushioned seats, a fireplace, a pipe in one man's hand, and a cigar in another's; yes, this was the perfect scene for such dialogue. After a long draw from the pipe, Albert spoke first. 

"Well, I had ideas before of how one could move from one place, in space and time, to another. Zis event would be highly difficult. Even now, the math eludes me, but, theoretically, Space and Time MIGHT be traversed in such ways. Your letters said these... Emissaries? They simply arrived in a flash of light? Like a faint thunder of sound? Interesting. As I read the words, I thought 'Are ve sure he has ze right doctor? Dr. Freud would be most intrigued."

I laughed amidst a choke of a wrongly inhaled puff of cigar. "Yes, I'll admit, Even I questioned my sanity as the events unfolded. However, I'm a man of humanity, always excited by the technologies and advances of my fellow man, and I can't fathom how he did it, or if he didn't do it, what manner of illusion or charlatan's trick allowed us to BELIEVE he did it. But I saw it with my own spectacled eyes, The man flashed his hand wildly, and drew a scepter, waved it at a copper mine wall, and opened a doorway to another place."

"Interesting." Einstein spoke. "Ze doorway, did it have form? or was it like a curtain, a plane as thin as paper, with an emanation of light from its canvas?"

"Exactly." I extorted "Flat as a bedsheet, you could even walk around it, as though someone had simply cut a hole out of the world and hung the hole out to dry on the line."

Albert took another puff. "A bridge... A bridge of space, possibly space und time."]]> [Image: 10OJjzJ.png]
Chapter 1: Before I fly away...

As most stories go, it was a dark night, as often such spun tales go, and as often as most nights do. I was on my last European vacation. The reason why it was my last... well, I know when I'm to depart this dusty orb to my celestial hereafter, but a-more about that later. I was to meet with someone of historical significance, in the fields of mathematics and physics - two learned disciplines which I'm sure will unlock great human achievements in the centuries to come, and unravel mysteries of the universe.

Why him you might ask? Well, when someone so deeply entrenched in the tall tales of Americana comes across such a grand tale as I had the privilege of witnessing for myself, one finds himself reaching desperately for someone, anyone who might understand my plight, and bring some sort of logical providence into such a far-fetched menagerie of the fantastical.

So here I was, outside the University of Zurich, Swiss cigar in my hand; an icon, I must add that pales in comparison to a fine-rolled Jamaican or any rolled in Hispanola or Mexico. His papers, which I were privy to; Brownian motion, special relativity, and the photoelectric effect would seem like grandiose science beyond my grasp, if it weren't for a colleague of mine speaking such babble in an event that... well for this 'young' author, borders on the fantastical fiction; an event that took me all the way from the tiny beleaguered town of Milton to San Francisco, around the Orient, up into the cradle of civilization itself, around the romantic Mediterranean and up to this bastion of high learning on the other side of the world.

I found the door to be quite imposing, huge Rhine Oak doors with wrought iron borders, but found the subsequent hallway within warm and inviting. It didn't take long to locate his office door. It was the only one in the hall open, alight, and alive with some activity. As I doused my acrid cigar against a outside brick, I sojourned inside, slightly intrigued by the 'click-click-clacking' that emanated from within.

What I had at first perceived as an office was instead much like a lecture hall, with eight large slates affixed to the walls, and a lone figure clacking a piece of chalk steadily against the surface, scribing out a mixture of Greek symbols, numbers, lines and mathematical symbols with the efficiency of a San Francisco telegraph operator.

"Dr. Einstein, I presume?" I spoke, thus realizing exactly how dry my throat was at that particular moment, revealed to the world as my throat cracked out the words with a cough. 

The figure, perched amid a ladder mounted on a track above the chalkboards slowly looked down upon me and smiled. Rather comically, and not to detract from the interaction, the tails of his coat made him and his lantern-diffused shadow appear as a murder of crows or ravens across the slate.

"Ah, Mr. Clemens... or should I call you Twain?" 


Chapter 2: A Good ol' Yankee in a Swiss Doctor's Court

His words while heavily accented with the Germanic-Swiss vernacular still held great regard for the English language. It was a relief that I didn't have to scour through my booklet of translations to at least speak with a man, because, well, some of what I was about to tell him, I wasn't entirely sure they had created a German word for it.

"Samuel will be fine, sir. I... I'm also glad that I didn't outrun my correspondence. It would be awkward, me being here before my letters announcing my intent arrived."

I searched his eyes to be sure that my letters actually HAD arrived first.

"Oh, ves, the letters came. I didn't quite know what to make of zem. You have a flair for the longwinded spin, sir, and in some parts of your letters, I truly, and I mean no offense, would have hoped you would have been more direct."

I nodded in personal reflection at the fact that I can go on and on, even in inner monologue. However, such long spins HAVE netted me a small fortune in my literary works. So, I lend myself to a greater power to judge my idiosyncracies. 

"Well, with what I told you, what do you make of it?" I asked, unsure if he considered the whole diatribe of emotional editorial I sent him a bunch of hogwash, or if there were any parts of it that caught his curiosity.

"Well..." Albert stepped down from his ladder. "First, let us go to the study, I dont zink I can focus on it with all the math on the boards, it's distracting me for a time now. Please..."

Albert led me straight away to a small parlor. As I stepped in, and smelt the faint odor of pipe tobacco, I smiled, pulling my cigar back out. Two small decanters of schnapps, two large cushioned seats, a fireplace, a pipe in one man's hand, and a cigar in another's; yes, this was the perfect scene for such dialogue. After a long draw from the pipe, Albert spoke first. 

"Well, I had ideas before of how one could move from one place, in space and time, to another. Zis event would be highly difficult. Even now, the math eludes me, but, theoretically, Space and Time MIGHT be traversed in such ways. Your letters said these... Emissaries? They simply arrived in a flash of light? Like a faint thunder of sound? Interesting. As I read the words, I thought 'Are ve sure he has ze right doctor? Dr. Freud would be most intrigued."

I laughed amidst a choke of a wrongly inhaled puff of cigar. "Yes, I'll admit, Even I questioned my sanity as the events unfolded. However, I'm a man of humanity, always excited by the technologies and advances of my fellow man, and I can't fathom how he did it, or if he didn't do it, what manner of illusion or charlatan's trick allowed us to BELIEVE he did it. But I saw it with my own spectacled eyes, The man flashed his hand wildly, and drew a scepter, waved it at a copper mine wall, and opened a doorway to another place."

"Interesting." Einstein spoke. "Ze doorway, did it have form? or was it like a curtain, a plane as thin as paper, with an emanation of light from its canvas?"

"Exactly." I extorted "Flat as a bedsheet, you could even walk around it, as though someone had simply cut a hole out of the world and hung the hole out to dry on the line."

Albert took another puff. "A bridge... A bridge of space, possibly space und time."]]> <![CDATA[Federal Bureau of Instigation]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8641.html Mon, 16 Jan 2023 05:00:06 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8641.html Federal Bureau of Instigation
by Kyonides

Chapter One
The Takeover Finally Revealed


Rain. Who cares about it, right people? Well, he cares. Deeply. As much as to keep him yelling at it for an hour or so while walking around his office, full of papers and photographs. The guy could wear out his own carpet if he keeps doing that for another year for sure. He is a real weirdo, don’t you think?

Finally, he leaves the place after carefully locking the door. Quickly he realized he had left his badge inside and opened the darn door and drew near his desk to pick it up. That simple mistake he made pissed him off. Guaranteed.

“This cannot continue the way it is now. We got to put an end to his mischief immediately or else our beloved nation will suffer the dire consequences of his insurrection” Agent Trickster uttered during his most recent “speech” at the FBI headquarters in DC.

Just in case you did not know this, there was a painting of a fox hanging close to our beloved speaker.

Basically, his audience was composed of fellow agents having several cups of coffee in a row. Who else would listen to such a lunatic? Fine, you got me. Anybody who had watched that famous TV series in the nineties would have paid attention to his utterances just because. Also add all those people that for no specific reason call a former president an idiot because reasons do not matter anymore there.

“And how are you supposed to solve all of the problems of our nation, Agent Trickster?”, Lurker inquired of his colleague.

No, it was not easy to answer such a question at all. Why would it ever be? It had been excessively easy to keep criticizing the established world order, but replacing it with a new order, where his vision for the future would be successfully implemented, was another story. Wasn’t it?

“I’m glad you asked, Agent Lurker, I’m truly am”, the plotter reacted. “We have no reason to do all the hard work ourselves. Instead we will hire somebody else to do it for us. Money doesn’t matter here, we can always count on our own lobbyists in the Capitol. Thus, we’ll let this guy uncover all of our person of interest’s skeletons that he has been hiding in his closet until now.”

“Nice idea, buffoon!”, a dissenter made his own remark out of the blue. “And which department will get the cut? Maintenance? IT? The cafeteria? You name it!”

“Ha, ha, Agent Mockingbird”, the proposer commented filled with disgust. “Just for you to know, we’ve count on very friendly allies both in Congress and the Senate that will ensure we get all the extra money we’d ever need for our enterprise.”

“First get your butt over here, Trickster!”, another coworker cried out loud. “The meeting is about to start with or without you, loser.”

People there could not understand how one conscious and motivated agent was trying not to fix the whole world but his own nation. They still needed some convincing for sure.

“Gotcha, guys!”, Trickster stated. “If results is what you need the most, that’s what you’re gonna get from me and then you’ll know that I’m the guy that should lead the team that will kick him out from power… for good.”

Several of the few agents still present there chuckled when he made that promise, one that he could never keep no matter how hard he would work for the agency in the next couple of years. In fact, they showed no respect for him. For instance, one of them was skillful enough as to placed a sticky note on his back saying “Kiss This Rebel’s Butt!” without him ever noticing it.

The supervisory agent in charge of the next case stepped into the medium sized conference room he had previously reserved. He stopped for a brief moment only to carefully read that note on Trickster’s back and simply made a face as if he had already bought that story without even thinking it twice. Then he went all the way to the empty whiteboard.

“Guys, I don’t have to treat you like little girls, right?”, the boss spoke. “So let’s get straight to business. We’ve got a hostile situation in Maryland where a mock of a joker using the alias of Cheesie James is threatening pizza guys or even the local restaurants by telling them that they only have three more days to send their online payments to the suspect’s offshore accounts. All of them should be made in a pretty much unknown cryptocurrency, the Skipcoin.”

Trickster took his seat across the room after the current case had caught his attention against all odds.

“Wait a second!”, he suddenly demanded. “Cheesie James… Where have I heard that alias before? Was it in a local newspaper? Or was that news headline linked to that infamous terrorist cell that sparked an uproar among the journalists and their guest commentators?”

“Actually, that’s for you all to find out!”, the boss roared. “Now get your coats and take the cars for we’re now headed to Baltimore, like it or not.”

The loudmouth was making his own calculations and noticed that they would need to get three cars in order to transport all of the men to that city.

“Oh and don’t let Agent Trickster get the driver’s seat at all costs!”, the supervisory agent commanded.

Awesome, he had quickly become a commuter…


To be continued... Shocked

...some day! Confused
]]> Federal Bureau of Instigation
by Kyonides

Chapter One
The Takeover Finally Revealed


Rain. Who cares about it, right people? Well, he cares. Deeply. As much as to keep him yelling at it for an hour or so while walking around his office, full of papers and photographs. The guy could wear out his own carpet if he keeps doing that for another year for sure. He is a real weirdo, don’t you think?

Finally, he leaves the place after carefully locking the door. Quickly he realized he had left his badge inside and opened the darn door and drew near his desk to pick it up. That simple mistake he made pissed him off. Guaranteed.

“This cannot continue the way it is now. We got to put an end to his mischief immediately or else our beloved nation will suffer the dire consequences of his insurrection” Agent Trickster uttered during his most recent “speech” at the FBI headquarters in DC.

Just in case you did not know this, there was a painting of a fox hanging close to our beloved speaker.

Basically, his audience was composed of fellow agents having several cups of coffee in a row. Who else would listen to such a lunatic? Fine, you got me. Anybody who had watched that famous TV series in the nineties would have paid attention to his utterances just because. Also add all those people that for no specific reason call a former president an idiot because reasons do not matter anymore there.

“And how are you supposed to solve all of the problems of our nation, Agent Trickster?”, Lurker inquired of his colleague.

No, it was not easy to answer such a question at all. Why would it ever be? It had been excessively easy to keep criticizing the established world order, but replacing it with a new order, where his vision for the future would be successfully implemented, was another story. Wasn’t it?

“I’m glad you asked, Agent Lurker, I’m truly am”, the plotter reacted. “We have no reason to do all the hard work ourselves. Instead we will hire somebody else to do it for us. Money doesn’t matter here, we can always count on our own lobbyists in the Capitol. Thus, we’ll let this guy uncover all of our person of interest’s skeletons that he has been hiding in his closet until now.”

“Nice idea, buffoon!”, a dissenter made his own remark out of the blue. “And which department will get the cut? Maintenance? IT? The cafeteria? You name it!”

“Ha, ha, Agent Mockingbird”, the proposer commented filled with disgust. “Just for you to know, we’ve count on very friendly allies both in Congress and the Senate that will ensure we get all the extra money we’d ever need for our enterprise.”

“First get your butt over here, Trickster!”, another coworker cried out loud. “The meeting is about to start with or without you, loser.”

People there could not understand how one conscious and motivated agent was trying not to fix the whole world but his own nation. They still needed some convincing for sure.

“Gotcha, guys!”, Trickster stated. “If results is what you need the most, that’s what you’re gonna get from me and then you’ll know that I’m the guy that should lead the team that will kick him out from power… for good.”

Several of the few agents still present there chuckled when he made that promise, one that he could never keep no matter how hard he would work for the agency in the next couple of years. In fact, they showed no respect for him. For instance, one of them was skillful enough as to placed a sticky note on his back saying “Kiss This Rebel’s Butt!” without him ever noticing it.

The supervisory agent in charge of the next case stepped into the medium sized conference room he had previously reserved. He stopped for a brief moment only to carefully read that note on Trickster’s back and simply made a face as if he had already bought that story without even thinking it twice. Then he went all the way to the empty whiteboard.

“Guys, I don’t have to treat you like little girls, right?”, the boss spoke. “So let’s get straight to business. We’ve got a hostile situation in Maryland where a mock of a joker using the alias of Cheesie James is threatening pizza guys or even the local restaurants by telling them that they only have three more days to send their online payments to the suspect’s offshore accounts. All of them should be made in a pretty much unknown cryptocurrency, the Skipcoin.”

Trickster took his seat across the room after the current case had caught his attention against all odds.

“Wait a second!”, he suddenly demanded. “Cheesie James… Where have I heard that alias before? Was it in a local newspaper? Or was that news headline linked to that infamous terrorist cell that sparked an uproar among the journalists and their guest commentators?”

“Actually, that’s for you all to find out!”, the boss roared. “Now get your coats and take the cars for we’re now headed to Baltimore, like it or not.”

The loudmouth was making his own calculations and noticed that they would need to get three cars in order to transport all of the men to that city.

“Oh and don’t let Agent Trickster get the driver’s seat at all costs!”, the supervisory agent commanded.

Awesome, he had quickly become a commuter…


To be continued... Shocked

...some day! Confused
]]> <![CDATA[Writing Somebody Else's Story]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8590.html Mon, 07 Nov 2022 03:50:58 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8590.html Writing Somebody Else’s Story

Written by Kyonides


Chapter One

The Phone Call


Huxley, a self proclaimed writer, called me one afternoon back in August. According to him, he wanted to let me in on a little secret of his that even his manager ignored: doctors had informed him recently that he only had three or four months left.


Tell me guys, how often have you been offered such an exclusive story in your whole lifetime? Now you know the reason why I had to take that plane and drive my black rental car over ten hours in a row to get to Amity Town. In fact, it is located relatively close to Salem, Massachusetts. Was that a sign of sorts? Probably not.


His home seemed to be a red Victorian house that he had repaired, importing lots of materials from the United Kingdom. As of today, I am still confused on its true origins. It could have been repaired as he claimed once, yet, something makes me now suspect that every single part was original indeed.


After stepping out of the car, the door opened automatically. I am guessing because my host was not there to greet me, and as I had learned later on, he had dismissed his seventh maid the day before. Fear not, my readers! That was nothing but his way to put my guts on trial. I have gone through this a couple of times already, so you do not need to worry about me.


Interestingly, he had been waiting for me at his comfortable living room while drinking some whiskey. “No, no, my friend. No dull whiskey is welcome here ever but scotch is for sure”, he quickly uttered as if he were reading my mind.

The striking clock behind me rang ten times right after his last statement. Just another of those weird coincidences taking place at his modest home.


No, it was not hard for him to accept his fate. He actually enjoyed it the most. Really, he planned to celebrate it by revealing another secret to his beloved audience. He wanted me to write his biography on his behalf because the so called author needed my objectivity to flood the whole book, starting from the prologue his fellow colleague had sent the day before.


“You’ll get a phone call in a few seconds”, he told me while waiting for my reaction.


I truly got a call then, so I asked, “Is this a joke? I know you’re dying but I didn’t travel all the way here to get pranked by a dead man.”


“Just make sure you don’t answer the call”, he continued. “Please, let it go straight to the voicemail.”


Since I was not in the mood to partake in his mind games, I simply ignored my cellphone. That does not mean I was willing to do his bidding at all. Who on earth would follow suit without guessing he was looking for some cheap entertainment just to burn time? He was a goner after all, right?


“Done. So what’s next, Huxley? Another prank of yours?”, I inquired of him with a deadpan face.


“Contrary to common sense, I’ve got plenty of time”, he explained, grinning eerily. “Being honest with you, my friend, I’ll get quite busy once I get rid of all of my current limitations.”


That sounded weird, my dear readers. Once he were six feet under the earth, he could not do anything. Therefore, he had no way to back up his terrifying claims ever!


“You see, I know that voice”, he abruptly confessed. “And whatever it tells you there, it’s really gonna happen. One hundred percent guaranteed. To tell the truth, I am the dying proof of it!”


“Ah, okay…”, I mumbled. “Is there anything else you wanna tell me? Otherwise, I suppose we should call it a day and meet like, err, before this weekend.”


“Yes, there’s something else you’re in dire need of knowing, my dear reporter”, Huxley commented. “You’ll wind up loving this scotch, just as I did. Oh and believe me when I tell you that everything’s connected. Your inexperienced mind won’t make any sense out of this mess, unless you start trusting me. I know that after a very few events, you’ll become a believer. Right, you’ll also become my biggest fan, just as my predecessor was my biggest inspiration. My sun, so to say.”

Suddenly, I started suspecting that somehow his illness got to be related to dementia. Perhaps he should start drinking some peach brandy instead.


To be continued...
]]> Writing Somebody Else’s Story

Written by Kyonides


Chapter One

The Phone Call


Huxley, a self proclaimed writer, called me one afternoon back in August. According to him, he wanted to let me in on a little secret of his that even his manager ignored: doctors had informed him recently that he only had three or four months left.


Tell me guys, how often have you been offered such an exclusive story in your whole lifetime? Now you know the reason why I had to take that plane and drive my black rental car over ten hours in a row to get to Amity Town. In fact, it is located relatively close to Salem, Massachusetts. Was that a sign of sorts? Probably not.


His home seemed to be a red Victorian house that he had repaired, importing lots of materials from the United Kingdom. As of today, I am still confused on its true origins. It could have been repaired as he claimed once, yet, something makes me now suspect that every single part was original indeed.


After stepping out of the car, the door opened automatically. I am guessing because my host was not there to greet me, and as I had learned later on, he had dismissed his seventh maid the day before. Fear not, my readers! That was nothing but his way to put my guts on trial. I have gone through this a couple of times already, so you do not need to worry about me.


Interestingly, he had been waiting for me at his comfortable living room while drinking some whiskey. “No, no, my friend. No dull whiskey is welcome here ever but scotch is for sure”, he quickly uttered as if he were reading my mind.

The striking clock behind me rang ten times right after his last statement. Just another of those weird coincidences taking place at his modest home.


No, it was not hard for him to accept his fate. He actually enjoyed it the most. Really, he planned to celebrate it by revealing another secret to his beloved audience. He wanted me to write his biography on his behalf because the so called author needed my objectivity to flood the whole book, starting from the prologue his fellow colleague had sent the day before.


“You’ll get a phone call in a few seconds”, he told me while waiting for my reaction.


I truly got a call then, so I asked, “Is this a joke? I know you’re dying but I didn’t travel all the way here to get pranked by a dead man.”


“Just make sure you don’t answer the call”, he continued. “Please, let it go straight to the voicemail.”


Since I was not in the mood to partake in his mind games, I simply ignored my cellphone. That does not mean I was willing to do his bidding at all. Who on earth would follow suit without guessing he was looking for some cheap entertainment just to burn time? He was a goner after all, right?


“Done. So what’s next, Huxley? Another prank of yours?”, I inquired of him with a deadpan face.


“Contrary to common sense, I’ve got plenty of time”, he explained, grinning eerily. “Being honest with you, my friend, I’ll get quite busy once I get rid of all of my current limitations.”


That sounded weird, my dear readers. Once he were six feet under the earth, he could not do anything. Therefore, he had no way to back up his terrifying claims ever!


“You see, I know that voice”, he abruptly confessed. “And whatever it tells you there, it’s really gonna happen. One hundred percent guaranteed. To tell the truth, I am the dying proof of it!”


“Ah, okay…”, I mumbled. “Is there anything else you wanna tell me? Otherwise, I suppose we should call it a day and meet like, err, before this weekend.”


“Yes, there’s something else you’re in dire need of knowing, my dear reporter”, Huxley commented. “You’ll wind up loving this scotch, just as I did. Oh and believe me when I tell you that everything’s connected. Your inexperienced mind won’t make any sense out of this mess, unless you start trusting me. I know that after a very few events, you’ll become a believer. Right, you’ll also become my biggest fan, just as my predecessor was my biggest inspiration. My sun, so to say.”

Suddenly, I started suspecting that somehow his illness got to be related to dementia. Perhaps he should start drinking some peach brandy instead.


To be continued...
]]> <![CDATA[The Tome with No Name]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8496.html Sat, 19 Mar 2022 15:05:54 +0000 Remi-chan]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8496.html If you are sensitive about the following topics, you are encouraged to keep clear of this story.
-------------------------------------------
:: Existential Futility
:: Scarily powerful magical girls
:: Big words
-------------------------------------------
If all those sound fine then let us proceed!
[Image: 4vpg3x1.png]
Interlude

The breeze crawls through the cafeteria, wafting the stench of poorly-prepared food through the nostrils of all unprepared diners, the growling in their bellies in unrest. The windows to outside far higher than can be gleaned through, the sightly advantages of the upper balcony made horrific by the wafting odor of the food rising to rest on the roof. Some seem unsettled, some near pass out- some lick their lips. One however is entirely not paying attention to that, or anything going on around, or even anyone around. A singular focus homes in on her own work, even though she does not wish to be a part of this picture, she shall try anyway.

She doesn’t introduce herself to you, nor to me—she has no need to, she has never needed to, we already know her by designation, by purpose. She is the Queen of Shadows, no other name dignifies her, and if one did, she has long since forgotten what it was or could be.

And while she dines and studies at what is indeed an academic institution that can cater only to the most hungry and most casual of learners, she is here not for the food nor for the academics, it could almost be said that she is not here at all. No one understands her, she sits alone at an empty table, alone like always, she’s used to it. She’s been lonely for over 314 billion years, this school is but a mere tick in her expansive timeline. She’s an unusual girl, and the students tend to leave her be, hair down to her ankles, tied up into six long wavy ponytails, black as the night sky, with grayed skin and deep purple eyes. They don’t want to judge, the few that have... have never been seen again.


Chapter 1: Unimpeded Frightful Obstacle

Some do occasionally make an attempt to talk to and engage with this lonely seeming girl with her head in her books, but it usually devolves into nothing much. She often doesn’t have incredible issues speaking to them, but they find it hard to keep up with her. Their idea of smart is so childish to her, but maybe we’ll let this play out naturally, so as to better show the large gap between the students and this girl with no name.

Charlie: Hey miss, my name’s charlie! What’s yours?
Girl: A name isn’t needed for one of my status, it’s nice to meet you charlie.
Charlie: hehe, you’re funny. Is that a book? It’s all I ever see meet your eye contact, you must be pretty smart!
Girl: Well, no I wouldn’t say I’m smart, not in the kind of aspect you relate such a meaning to... When you say “I must be smart” that comes from an understanding that smart means knowledgeable, when in reality they could not be more different. And there are many ways in which to be smart, in some I am, in others I am not.
Charlie: Woah!
Girl: I mean, I’m smart with words when I need to be, but I may as well be muttering as far as this conversation goes.
Charlie: That’s all a little too deep for me Miss whatever your name is or isn’t! I gotta go to class but keep at it!

And these are the most favourable encounters, let’s look at some less bubbly examples.

Melissa: Who even is that girl? She rarely speaks to anyone, all that time in her books yet still in primary school- does she just never learn or is something wrong with her?
Katie: I know right? Eyy, girlo, whatever you name is! Do you know there’s this thing called college?
Melissa walks a little closer to the girl with hairs standing on end, she has little tolerance for loud people.
Melissa: Are ya deaf? Can you see me?

Melissa steps back as the girl slams her book with an ungodly crack of thunder. Before glaring holes into her like she intended to set her face alight with her eyes.

Girl: If only I *was* deaf to the voices of a shrill harpy clamoring for everyone’s attention.
Melissa: Yikes! Jeez, who do you think you are? You know this is a primary school right? What kinda “queen” or whatever hangs out in a primary school? The library of a college could probably make more use of those books!
Girl: Good question, here’s another... why does such a delinquent think she’s even qualified to learn here when she chagrins others she barely knows for being too well read?
Melissa: Gerh!?
Katie: Hey hey, sorry about that! Come on, Melissa, let’s just go!
Girl: You’d be wise to listen to the more socially aware friend of yours, Melissa. Much as you may doubt my queen status, you’ll learn very quickly why I’m associated with shadows if you keep up this obnoxious gambit.
Melissa: Fine! You’re not worth my time anyway!

Melissa walks away in a huff as the Girl returns to her books. Quelling disruptions was not unusual for her, she’d become pretty good at knowing how to crackdown on certain people, and could quickly turn the tides due to the vast amount of varying places she’d visited to study.

But let’s have our relevant example to set this stage, it takes place on a day that is also the day mentioned prior. The girl pockets her books in an ethereal portal with no one paying it much mind, and goes to sample some of the less awful smelling food. While the natives on this planet often had no issue turning down the food they were used to, most of it was new to the girl- and she had no chagrin from trying a little. There was very little that would upset a stomach as ancient as hers. She returns with a variety tray, stabs her curvy barely-efficient fork into the tender chicken bites, puts one in her mouth and starts chewing... it is... my god- it IS... yeah “okay” she guesses? Could use a little less chicken salt, but beyond that she sees no issue devouring each and every one of them.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees one of the senior students, a male they make fun of for his name, but is otherwise pretty respected due to being tall and pretty charismatic, but he’s also transparent as glass. The girl can see there’s much he will get defensive about, and his name isn’t one such thing. But he’s insecure, despite having so much, he thinks he has so little- she can hear faint mumbles from the boys, pretty clearly they’re encouraging him to go ask her for food so he doesn’t take theirs. Fair enough, she did get a pretty decent platter, but she’s a queen, she’s kind of entitled to it, and the thought of showing this guy he can’t have absolutely everything he wants would be worth it for the selfish act she may not personally be so typically fond of, as this thought finishes processing, she hears the clamor of cutlery as he gets up. She can tell he’s got a tall and intimidating presence, it won’t scare her of course, but she can see how he got so far as he did.

Breston: So, is that a feast for a queen or do you mind if I grab some?
Girl: The feast of royalty does not invite a peasantly rube, now shoo before I put this greasy fork through your heart.
His friends burst into laughter, coughing on their own meals, they probably set him up knowing how this would go for him. She’d be proud of them if they had chosen to involve anyone but her in this unsportly script. Breston’s face shrivels up like a prune on a warm day, and goes red like a traffic light when everybodies gotta get their stop on and slam the brakes. Okay it’s not that red but it’s still pretty visibly red.
Breston: Excuse me?

He can barely get out these last two words of politeness. The erosion of the word between his teeth was like tinfoil being caressed against a cheese grater.

Girl: Did I stutter or something?

The girl grabs another chicken bite from the platter and puts it in her right cheek, and chews a little before continuing.

Girl: Is this your first time hearing a rejection? Truly, the tragic life is yours, woe is you, and so on.

Breston’s face is creasing up in a bizarre arrangement of embarrassment, shock and anger, it’s a sight to behold. He manages to uncrease a little and exhales.

Breston: Alright, keep it then, selfish hag.

Breston walks off in dejection but also some anger, anger that he, the great Breston, just got that told “No, no you can’t have the food of someone else!”, yeah, that’s some wicked shit she just did to him. And he’s not soon to forget it. However before he can calm down fully he hears her speak and his ears prick up. He wants a reason, and she better darn deliver.

Girl: Selfish is the man who demands the food of comfort from the lonely for himself when there is plenty otherwise available. But if that’s the comfort you need to get you through your shallow victory of a life...

The girl smirks for the first time anyone has seen, Breston’s friend’s eyes almost pop out of their skull upon seeing her being so unusually playful.

Girl: Then a “no” it remains... bye~

She turns back around, she darn-well delivered. And she is expecting a reprisal, victory was hers already, of course- but she found messing with people fun in small doses. Breston feels his face crack, he turns back around to her, you can hear the creaking fury as his neck allows his head to look back at her calm uncaring demeanor. He is enraged, no one makes a mockery of Breston!

Breston: You got some more clever lines you wanna share, you spoiled sow!?

Breston fumingly walks up around her and then infront of her, his shoulders raised and his tall body on display. His friends watch in a mix of shock and worry, worry not for her, no... for him.

Breston: Just who in the hell do you think you are!?

He tilts his head down while he leans in to glare at her, he might have scared her if she wasn’t already running laps around the buffoon.

Girl: It’d be unwise to force me to compare the two of us. Though I would ask you to get out of my light, and your breath isn’t the most pleasant thing to endure, either.

She pulls out a napkin to wipe the few small specks of grease and crumbs on her face off, elegant as a jewel while being threatened by an imposing tower of meat and bone baring its teeth.

Girl: I would also recommend you step away from me this instant, or your ego being crushed like a clumsy ant will be only the second worst thing that happens to you today.

His friends shoot up out of their chairs and pull his clenched fists behind his back, tugging him from the unwinnable conflict, he’s a mighty breed of man but still only a man and his friends manage to pin him down on the ground. They tell him it’s not worth it, they are doing this for his own good, and other such things to stop him from doing something stupid. She notes their perception of how one-sided a duel between them would be, she might even be impressed if they weren’t the ones initially responsible for plunging this predicament into play. She smiles with a mild sense of amusement, and sits back down to her books, as if nothing had ever bothered her. A Teacher ends up on the scene and sees the struggling mess of students writhing about on the floor like a dog asking to be given god damn belly rubs.

Miss Gahree: Break it up! Breston, Principal’s office now. You boys, return to your seats!

It’s as if she knew that Breston was the one who made all this explode, and that his friends were just looking out for him. Perhaps she did know. Only she could say, and it’s unlikely she’d tell you or that she’d get the chance to, because enough about that teacher, it’s time to be a he now, instead.

You are Breston Cantrope, you’re in the principal’s office for getting fucking owned by an unusual girl with a penchant for shoving her royal blood in your face. You hate her guts, you hate your friends just a little for not letting you teach her humility, but it’s fine! Everything is fine! This principal is a *Guy*, he’s blunt, but he GETS you, and you like to think you get him. Oh shoot, here he comes! Heck, this can’t be too bad, you didn’t even land a punch!

Principal Briefs: Well Breston it looks like just once you manage to get in my office without landing a punch. I’d say good job but that would be too folksy a way to start this off. So, before I go making any bold assumptions, tell me your side of the story.

See? Pretty fair guy, honestly you’d like to be a better kid just for his sake, but then you wouldn’t see him as often, and that wouldn’t do! Unfortunately, this may put your friends under the bus, since they were the ones who prompted you to do this in the first place... but then, this
Principal knows you well, so screw it.

Breston: My friends told me if I was still hungry I should go ask the bewitching grey girl for some of her royal platter. I was like “I dunno dudes she seems kinda happy to keep ‘em to herself” and then they’re like “is big Breston scared of the witch”? and obviously I couldn’t just say “No, I don’t wanna” then, I’d be a wimp! She’s just a grey girl with a creepy infatuation for books, so she can’t be much more unpleasant than a librarian... boy was I wrong. I asked her pretty politely for some food?? But she kinda seemed like she was having a day with my attempt, and one thing lead to another. She got me angry, I tried to punch her, but my friends pulled me down before I could.
Principal Briefs: Ah, well I see you’ve learned dishonesty isn’t worth the effort.

He begins writing down stuff in a notebook he never shows anyone.

Principal Briefs: So basically, you asked for more than your fair share, got told “No” and went a bit off the deep end?
Breston: Well I mean, maybe! But she was very rude! She even threatened me with a fork in the heart!
Principal Briefs: And once a threat is made, what do you do?

Breston rolls his eyes, he had to admit he’d goofed now, there was no sailing wind of a moral high ground or being the bigger man carrying him through this one.

Breston: “Tell the teachers or principal.”

Briefs almost seems to chuckle hearing Breston’s once smooth demeanor slow to a depressive stop. But he reforms his composure.

Principal Briefs: It’s a good thing your friends stopped you, you know? She may look about as intimidating as a librarian, but there’s a reason your friends were worried about your attempt to land an attack on her.
Breston: Wuh? I mean she’s just a... student, isn’t she...?

Briefs stands up and looks out his window, folding his arms and his hands meet at his back. He has a view over the cafeteria where it went down.

Principal Briefs: She’s no doubt an unusual student, even we don’t begin to comprehend her. She showed up one day, no enrolment, and said she wished to study at the school- when we made it clear she was too old for the curriculum, she just left the office and sat in the cafeteria, and has not much moved from that spot, she never goes home, she never sleeps, she’s here to say goodbye to the cleaners after they leave.

Breston: Isn’t that illegal?

Briefs sighs

Principal Briefs: We tried many times to send her home, they all ended in ...

The view of the cafeteria flickers through a hefty amount of gruesome scenes with the only visible details being an unharmed girl and puddles of blood around her before Brief’s vision returns to the present.

Principal Briefs: Failure.

Breston’s demeanor shifts into a more rigid kind of look. He’d been shook by the Principal’s foggy recount of events.

Principal Briefs: Listen Breston... if you really must continue this trend of using intimidation to steam roll through your life, don't use it on people that radiate that presence that she does... she isn't so calm and unfazed for a reason.
Breston: What? What is she even here for... are you saying that-
Principal Briefs: The school cannot control beings of her magnitude. She'll show up some days, and then disappear for lengths of time, then be back again, with no enrollment or evidence she was ever a student enrolled at all, but what we did learn early on is that trying to force her to exit the school went disastrously, and now we’re too underfunded to attempt it ever again. She doesn’t cause harm unless it’s brought to her, so we decided it would be safer for everyone else to let her be.

Breston is stunned aback, he can’t believe what he is hearing, but it explains many things, and why she is ALWAYS there, and besides, why would Principal Briefs lie to him?

Principal Briefs: If there are any people you aren't inclined to mess with, mark her on your list. If she followed through with her threat- as she’s had little trouble doing if the past is anything to go by-- there's nothing we at the school could do.

The School bell rings, the day is done. Breston walks home, not entirely as shattered as he thought he’d be, but now he’s a little scared, for what he thinks is the first time he’s been scared. Who is this girl? What did Dr Briefs mean by all the ominous babble about her? He decides to press it to the back of his mind and get some sleep, after some choice video games of course, no way to cure the feeling of getting fucking owned than by fucking owning someone in a game.

You are the girl again, yes, that one in particular without a name, or more, you’re watching her, and we’re telling you it’s her.
She’s in the same spot, a cafeteria, only now it's night time, the lights are all off, but she has candle light, she’d rather it than the artificial lights of this over-modernized planet anyway.

She is reading through a tome on Sociocratic Death Magicks, not the kind of book you’d find in a primary school library, or unlikely anywhere on this Earth, she’s scrawling slight adjustments to some of the instructions, clearly having found ways to better perform the rituals. The night breeze rolls though the windows and sets her face in a moonlight sheen, her gorgeous purple eyes are cast in the shadow of a thick outer rim, while her white sclera make the transition harsh and very unusual. Her six red bows tieing her hair flap lightly in the spring breeze. This world had many charms, but very few of them were those of the inhabitants making. Her smooth greyed fingers flipped through the pages, her dull expression of being mostly bored or invocative sometimes shifting to a look of query or introspection. She made every second of silence count.

Her victorian-style violet-velvet dress with evening straps connecting the two piece ensemble was hard to find anywhere else. She was truly alone in everything she did, and unlike most, she was complacent for it to stay like that. She needs only some glimpses into societies she would outlive to keep her from going down a dangerous mental spiral, the interactions with those who were forced to tolerate her were what separated her from the dreary haze of falling into nothing. Though she welcomed the lonely nights eager to get into studies, the days she would eagerly wait to see if students would approach her, and observe their varying ways of reaction. Breston’s breed was a bit too common for her liking, she prefers the youthful naïve optimism of some of the others, who were excited by what she was, but didn’t have a hope in joining her. The minutes turn into hours, time goes fast for someone who has lived so long, the sound of the nearby birds pin that its morning as does the first sliver of lighter blue cascading through the sky.

She places the book at the bottom of the stack, and begins reading through a more humane looking article in wait for the encounters of the day.
The school bell rings it’s obnoxious tone and the kids rush in for an early breakfast. One of the girls rushes over immediately to our girl.

Aisha: Hey… did Breston try to have a go at you yesterday?

Aisha sounds concerned, our girl smiles and closes her eyes relaxed to put her worry at ease…

Girl: He made an “attempt.” But I don’t think he will again, and if he does, don’t go sticking up for me. I may look like a very pensive librarian, but there’s a reason I’m not scared of anyone.

Aisha: Awww!!!

The girl's blissful sense of joy completely nulls out her sense of dread, it’s like you can see love hearts and lightning bolts just pop out of her, she’s loud but a kind of loud you can stand, even enjoy in small doses.

Aisha: The other kids may not think much of you but far as I see it you’re the right berries! Keep doing the good work, Miss… whoever it was~

The girl with no name has to hold back a laugh, it’s unusual for the naïve joy and cluelessness of kids to tickle her this much, but that was a little too god damned wholesome, you need Breston in here to keep the crazy spiralling hayfever of emotion in check.

Breston: YAAWWWWWNNNNNNNNN

And like that was his cue, the well-slept imbecile makes his daft entrance, stretching out his long as fuck arms as he stretches and yawns like a cat on a good day, and with the clear intent of making this everybodies god damned problem- and so order is restored. His friends go to greet him, and apologize for telling him to do that, they didn’t think it’d rile him up so much. He’s all like “It’s cool, he’s had worse. Ha ha.”

Chapter 2: A Barbarian Learns Manners

After all the greeting noise disperses, Breston makes a timid bee-line and asks if he can sit nearby the girl he now appears to see in a whole new light.

Girl: That’s fine.

Breston sits opposite her, his originally calm and macho demeanor has become a little less vivid, there’s something new engulfing him now... it’s either terror or something he ate. She won’t punish him any longer, the piggy learned it’s manners and is now wetting the bed in front of her, as in, he’s sweating so much it's looking like he could wet his bed. Not an uncommon thing for “victims” of her mild wrath, but it is particularly unsettling seeing the shift so jarringly from one day to the next.

Girl: By that look all over you, it seems you no longer see me like the rest of the rabble. You know now something of what I am.

She puts her hand pensively to her chin, as if observing him in all his bed-fresh glory, only her eyes are half closed, so she just looks very very unimpressed, which is a much more apt reaction.

Girl: You’re a lucky kid, Breston. You have friends that will keep you out of danger's warpath.
Girl: Had they not pulled that punch of yours for you…

An uncanny breeze sweeps through the place, clearing the stench of leftovers from the day before, virtually no one is unsettled, that of course, does not include Breston. He is quite very unsettled…

Girl: You’d be the guest of honor at your own funeral.

Breston can almost hear a clash as the final word leaves her lips. As she goes back to sipping her tea that she appropriated for herself without anyone’s permission whatsoever, Breston feels fear he never knew he had. The world around him goes silent, eventually he’s woken up by a light slap on the face.

Girl: Wake up.

Breston: Uh… sorry you uh, you kinda scared the shit outta me.

Girl: Don’t let your fears overtake you, so long as I remain unharmed, so will everyone else. I only give back what people put in.

Brestons demeanor calms a bit, and hearing her words has put him at ease. He believes them even if he may not believe her. His mind is now interested in knowing more about her.

Breston: So… what exactly are you? After what I heard from the principal yesterday, I’m ready to believe anything.
Girl: Ah~ I see curiosity has replaced fear, that’s good. Very well, I am the Queen of Shadows, and I hail from elsewhere in the universe.
Breston: You’re an alien?
Girl: In the eyes of yours, yes. For one as old as I am, you learn alienation is but a symptom of secluded societies- it’s only fair you be reliant on such simplistic perceptions.
Breston: uh… and how, old are you? Like, 30, 28?
Girl: Kehehehehehe~

That’s her limit, the unintentional flattery of one who did not understand or believe in immortality was too charming to bear, she starts laughing in a sweet giggly tone.

Breston: Did I… say something funny?
Girl: Aha~ No no, it’s just that’s such an obviously unintentional bit of flattery. I’m older than your current universe, one of your life spans is not even a three-point-fourteenth of mine.
Breston: Ehh? Can you just say a number instead of being coy?
Girl: I’m at least 314 Billion years old, to put it one way.
Breston: Waaat??? I mean I believe you but, that’s nuts! Say why are you hanging around schoolkids if you’re like, some eternal geyser.
Girl: Because the barbarian’s manners have a way of being charming when they don’t make me wish to cut the barbarian's throat.
Breston: EEE! I’m sorry I’m sorry!
Girl: To put it in terms you’ll understand, my life has been running so long, seeing lives so young and unfulfilled as yours, full of excitement, worry and regret and all those emotions, it helps me keep myself oriented. As you may guess these books aren’t ones you’ll find in any primary school’s library.
Girl: I have visited others, until they’ve tried to… evict me. The schools go out of their way to remove the mysterious elven girl to keep their cafeteria safe, by sending in men with guns and remote detonators into a school full of children and teachers. And everytime, I protect them and remove the assailants. The reason I’m here more often is because they realized their error to remove me before they ended up in bankruptcy, and were more subtle in their attacks, attempting them at night when no one was watching.
Breston: Why don’t you move, like, just get outta the way?
Girl: Because that enables a society of "Breston"s.

The sound of a hammer hitting a nail plays out in Breston’s head as he realizes that he was a creature she absolutely abhorred. His very shell being split like a plank under the pressure of a hammered invader.

Breston: Do you… hate me?
Girl: No. You’re too meaningless to put energy into hating, I don’t approve of what you were yesterday, but wouldn’t you say there’s been a bit of a change, lately?
Breston: Yeah, you’re not wrong, the principal told me not to... get on your bad side I guess? Among a few other things... I tried to push it back, and I was able to sleep well, but seeing you in here today- I had to ask you myself.
Girl: A good choice, rather than trying to shove it off and stave that despair, which one day would surely explode in your face, you were courageous enough to face it. If there is a man in you, it’s there, in that ability to be brave. Although you were initially brave yesterday, your aura reeked of a pig living in a prince’s skin, it was only natural a simple rejection would spur you on. I wanted you to justify whatever hell you’d bring upon yourself.

She looks over to the table where his friends are sitting, talking about opulent japanese comics and whatever other modern chicanery they could get away with in earshot of the teachers.

Girl: But, you do have friends. And they respect you as a brave Man, not as a pig or a prince. I think you understand what I’m getting at.
Breston: Yeah... and here I was thinking I’d teach you humility! Ha...
Girl: You don’t know me well enough to teach me anything. That was your error, but it is not your fault... there is no way you could have known what you do now. Even had you been told, I’m sure you can imagine how you’d translate the information.
Breston: Ehe... probabl-

A crunch is heard as one of the teachers is suddenly looming over both of them. One of her pens has just been snapped by the anger presenting itself firmly in her wrapped fist.

Breston looks up to see a mole of a woman, about 4 foot with glasses the size of spinnerets, and silky hair as nightmarish to match, is looming down at him.

Girl: Excuse me, Miss Bhavaria. Your dispute with the barbarian can wait.

Miss Bhavaria looks to scold the out of line student giving her orders, but her face melts into a sweet humble smile upon seeing who it is.
Miss Bhavaria: Ohohoho~ I’m most sorry, dear. You finish talking to the lad, I’ll go get some crumpets.

Before departing, she presses her nose into the so-called barbarian’s upper clavicle, and wrinkles up her face like a bulldog fresh out of the creasing factory.

Miss Bhavaria: This isn’t over, Cantrope!

She in one swift motion, returns to her sweet elderly frame and skittles off like her feet are tapping gently adrift a xylophone.

Girl: You were saying?
Breston: Yeah, probably... I’d be all like “Waha, yeah sure, and I’m the prince of new denver.” And shove it all off as superstition.
Girl: There’s only so much a human mind can see before it starts refuting, the ethical choice to rely on the purchase of superstition is a way to distance ourselves from our fears.
Girl: To put that in Breston terms, yes- that’s likely how you’d have gone about it.
Breston: Eh- Still with the condescending tone, I see?
Girl: Why not, are you telling me you don’t enjoy the challenge of an intellectual battle? You seem to enjoy physical challenges enough.
Breston: Maybe, but I’m not very good with words or numbers, mostly I can put together what you say, but some of it is probably gonna get all... translated, y’know?
Girl: That’s perfectly fine, I’ve put you through enough. Your Earth is in no danger from me, I’m merely using it as a means of recreation, and while it’s true I could break it into countless eons of splinters before the thought had occurred in your head to try and stop me, you needn’t fear anything. My power has next to no use in this world. None of you pose a threat to me, and I will only remove those who try to bring harm to me.
Breston: Yeah... I think I kinda already knew, just wanted it from the source, thanks, you didn’t have to put my mind at ease like this.
Girl: I didn’t, but I wanted to. You are to be rewarded for your courage. Have a nice day, Breston.

She goes back to sipping her tea which is still steaming hot. Breston’s fear has faded, and he now kinda respects and appreciates what and who she is, just someone lonely who needs a little social now and then. Imagine, being so insanely powerful that the only thing you have to deal with is loneliness? Crazy... maybe in another life, he’d have been stricken by love for such an outrageously in control woman, perhaps pleaded to go back with her to her own planet, but right now, he’s Breston Cantrope, he’s got friends, a reputation and now a new better look on life.

The moment he retreats from his chair, a shriek echoes from across the mummy’s lair.

MISTER CANTROPE!!!!

Oh shit it’s the bulldog woman, you guess you’ve left her in the lurch long enough.

Breston: On my way, Miss Bhavaria!

Breston takes one final look at her, once more pensively skimming through her books, a smile wears his face, and the smile and the barbarian go to meet their hobgoblin hierophant.

Chapter 3: Of Erosion and Finality

Later that night, when all was peaceful and the Shadow Queen was reminiscing about memories past, she is lost in thought.

Upon the many worlds she had visited, around all the people she'd met... Something was always missing in her existence. A piece of her ever feeling unfound but never firstly lost.

She was alone... and it was eating her inside. Over 314 billions years, even boulders that can withstand whirlpools will erode in time- and even she as a Sorceress without equal, who had lived longer than a Universe's age. To her, erosion was her only true nemesis.

As like a rock is chipped away and eventually ground up into a powder- indistinguishable as it once was. The same is true of the mind. There is no larger fear for one so brillant as her to be lead astray by the years of self-imposed isolation and solitude.

But even this fear paled in comparison to another. Death.

Even knowing such is but a gateway to shining bliss beyond the gates of the afterlives... for an eternal who has lived so long- the idea of having a pained death is truly nightmarish. Ever since her fluffy pink cocoon hatched after being delivered on solar winds from the Pink Sun to her homeworld. She had known only life... until- she ventured outward.

Across the cosmos, death and suffering were commonplace, even on a sacred site of life like the planet of Haven, death was inescapable, cruel and ugly. Learning she was eternal unlike mortals whose bodies would erode with time, she wondered if she too would eventually be fated to fade away?

This is when she discovered the cyclic destruction of a Universe every three hundred and fourteen billion years. Out with the old, in with the new. it was a cosmic counter to universal erosion. To survive such a grand-scale catastrophe, she would need to learn how the Universe and its laws would function before she could conjure a means to escape such a fate.

Given time and much research, she found such a way. While almost everything is destroyed by the wave of annihilation the Gatekeeper of Universes past and future unleashes, black holes are an exception.

So the goal became simply to temporarily situated oneself inside a blackhole until the havoc is over... this however, would be an enormous challenge bordering the impossible.

She made what most would presume impossible, possible.

She and several of her people would escape oblivion at cycle's end.

Awaiting to greet them, a demon with triangle eyes- impressed with their feat, she pronounced one in particular the Queen of Shadows, and her people the Shadow Pixies. Ever since, the current iteration of the Universe has been their new vista.

Now the cycle is but a mere century or so before its close... She would need to soon return to her people so they may repeat the process and preseve themselves once more.

She claps her book shut and decides thats enough reminiscing.

Girl: Some rats approach...

Chapter 4: Imperishable Fatality

We’re back in the night time cafeteria. It seems she has become tense, aware of her surroundings.

Girl: So... You think you can spy on me?

Our girl glares holes into us, it’s like she knows we’re observing her. Perhaps she does, but for whatever reason, she- oh snap! It’s not us she’s seeing.

A Red dot appears on her face, and then more appear all over her, and in a mere flinch, a large array of gunshots are heard... but she is unfazed, she raises her hand, and the bullets stop mere inches from her person, and fall to the ground.

Girl: Spying is one thing, attempts at assassination is another…

She levitates an occult tome to her hand and the pages flip through to a dangerous looking spell. As she begins chanting the entire cafeteria begins to rumble from the sheer volume of power.

Girl: You can either flee or try to withstand magic older than this very universe... take your pick.

Hundreds of troops scuttle in to try and stop her, wearing mere SWAT uniforms, they find she has a barrier they cannot breach. One deploys a grenade and tells his other to fall back 50 feet, the grenade goes off, only to blacken the table near her with scorch marks.

Girl: It seems you think you can withstand magic older than your very universe...

Her eyes glow purple as her incantation is complete

Girl: So sealed is now your fate.

A large number of snakelike purple serpents, made of arcane energy, writhe around the room piercing the bodies of all the law enforcers, only one remains... as she had planned.

Girl: I gave them, you- the chance and choice to flee, a chance to weigh their and your options, yet when they and you cast the die, they died, and only you remain.
Girl: And you will not stop to remain, go now and tell your superiors what transpired here.

Lost for words, the man leaves in a most hurried of hurries. The girl returns to her usual demeanor of reading books before her ears pick up a subtle step slinking about...

Girl: Up a bit early... Are you not, Breston?

Breston sheepishly walks into view, shocked and awed at what he had just seen.

Girl: School was over six hours ago, you shouldn’t be here at this kind of time.
Breston: I just wanted to see your power firsthand.
Girl: I know why you are here, that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t be here.
Breston: I don’t get it though, I thought Briefs... this school had given up on evicting you?
Girl: It appears circumstances have changed.
Breston: Is uh... this your fault, then?
Girl: Partially, it’s also the fault of your earthen agencies for not realizing when someone is above them. I’ve noticed a severe dysfunction in humans that when one won’t submit to their ideologies, they treat it like a dangerous foreign power, even going to unreasonable lengths to exterminate it. Yours is a very insecure species, to say the least.
Breston: Ahaha... yeah we are kinda dumb like that! But I mean- I get why, we’ve been through a lot as humans, and we’ve always been able to fend off whatever dangers befall us, so we’ve gotten into a habit of thinking we can do anything, that we’re sorta strong?
Girl: That comforting lie is exactly how societies fall into calamitous extremes. I pose little danger to your kind through sheer lack of care, but I am far from the only foreign power among your kind. Camoflauged in human skin, demons and angels both operate under veil of that very ideology to use humanity for their ends.
Breston: For real!? Is there any way we could find out who...?
Girl: They are? Probably not, and it's for the best you don't. They are rarely powerful as ZI am, but unlike me who considers you little more than flies who only the obnoxious ones who fly in my face I will swat, the Demons actively prey on humans. While they may be weaker than me, humans are little more then an upset housecat in the face of what they are. If they cannot attain their prize through subterfuge, they'll simply be direct.
Breston: That's scary!
Girl: It is. The fear is precisely why humans hide behinds curtails of lies and comfortning nothings. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, you may as well be cannon fodder.
Breston: So... demons and angels live in guise among us, what is your uh... stance on them. Are they friends of yours or...?
Girl: I do not interact with them, there's a good chance they have no clue I exist. I personally have neither animosity nor admiration for them. I am neutral in their affairs.
Breston: Should, you be telling me this?
Girl: Even though you believe, you are one human. There's not much you could do to prove what you've learned today, and if you did- I can guarantee it would likely make you a target.
Girl: I wouldn't be too concerned about them, it's in their interests that humanity survives, otherwise their food supply goes astray. You yourselves are more liable to bring about your own extinction than any outside agency.
Breston: Hey... question. You ever think about doing something big to help this world out? You seem to enjoy it enough. With your power you could accomplish a bunch!
Girl: The biggest threat facing your Earth is the climate overheating, and to circumvent that would require a miracle beyond Gods or a complete deconstruction of the social order... Neither of these things are advisable, and I am not capable of miracles. Nor do I owe you or your "Earth" anything. I visit, I leave. I have no desire to get involved in the future of your world.
Girl: And really? is that your first go to? To ask a greater power for help, yet only minutes ago you were boasting humanity's strength? If you can't help yourselves, then I do not seek to make it my policy to cover up your own failures- especially when climate change is a byproduct of your kind's greed, avarice and overgrowth to begin with.
Girl: Furthermore, humanity has a habit of making their existence everyone else's problem. It is probably better for cosmic stability you entomb yourselves in the Earth you ruined, it'd be due courtesy for you to not bring your destructive urges beyond the boundaries of your solar system.
Breston: We won't grow if we aren't given the time...
Girl: That's not my problem.
Breston: I know... sorry.
Girl: I will not tell you how long you have so as to not cause you undue stress. But if you want to save the world, you might want to start sooner than later.
Breston: Eh... honestly. I don't have that kind of courage. I've been a coward using intimidation most of my life, but it didn't work on you. After a lecture from Principal Briefs it was made fairly clear I couldn't rely on that.
Girl: And he is correct. It may work on people as scared as you are, but try it on anyone unusual and I can guarantee you- it won't end well.
Breston: So uh... you wanna go hang out?
Girl: ...I've never thought of doing that. What did you have in mind?
Breston: Eh!? No flowery overdramatic denial?
Girl: Don't get the wrong impression. It would be purely for sake of recreation on my end, I could not have less romantic interest in you if you were actually a pig.
Breston: Haha, naw I got that! I just mean it might be fun to I dunno, go break dumb stuff?
Girl: You wanna see more magic? I thought you'd be rather frightened to see more than you have already...
Breston: Well, I guess curiosity has replaced my fear or something.
Girl: My my, look at you. Using my own words against me. Truly, it appears I have taught you terrible things indeed. Whatever is your mother going to think?

She chuckles to herself while Breston just shrugs loosely

Breston: Say, I know it won't be a long-term solution, but how about some coal power plants. I know you said you have no intention of saving those who can't save emselves or whateve,r but they'd probably be a good target!

Girl: Hmmm. Well, it won't be little more than a temporary stall, so i can't imagine it'll hurt. Not anything who matters, anyway.

The girl starts to stand up, she puts her closed hand pensively to her smiling mouth. It’s clear she’s fond of this destructive idea.

Girl: Well then, it appears your idea has merit.
Breston: Would I be able to come with?
Girl: It was your idea, besides... The whole point of this is that you want to see a magic show, correct? I believe that was quite implied.

The girl teleports herself and Breston to a very ugly, very large and unappealing coal power plant. She spends a little time thinking of how she may execute this one’s destruction, before placing her hand on the tome she brought with her.

Girl: Stand back a little, and get ready to cover your eyes...

The Queen of Shadows walks forward, before her tome levitates in front of her, she also levitates and begins drawing a large davids star with her hands.

Breston: Cool...

Girl: What an ugly thing it is...

She raises her two hands skyward, and as if following her command, the seedy power plant is torn from its foundations and flung into the sky, into space- before exploding into violet and red fireworks. Breston watches in fascination, after moving his hands down from previously raising them to shield his eyes from the onslaught of dirt and dust sent outward from the violent separation of machine and mountain. Even the Queen of Shadows can’t help but offer a satisfied toothy smirk.

Girl: Yet when ground into a lightshow to give the world time, even the most repulsive catterpillar blooms into a beautiful butterfly.
Breston: That was so sick!!! Wanna do another one?
Girl: We could hardly cut the demonstration after only one display, could we?

Yet again she teleports them, to a repulsive “monument” in Australia, a claw dredging coal from the Great barrier reef to fund a nation’s unjust power demands.

Girl: This is such a big metal monstrosity you can actually see it from space. So as to honor its celestial esteem, I’ll give it to a star that can be seen from earth.
Breston: Will I need to stand back?
Girl: Not this time, if I ripped this one from the ground it would do too much damage to the reef, thankfully I can simply teleport it to the brightest star in the sky.

She walks forward, yet again her tome readies itself at her beck and call, a large davids star rotates around the base of the oversized metal eyesore, and in a flash- it is visible no more. Gone in the flash, as if stolen by lightning, it now lived in a star, that burned ever brightly.

Girl: A star to pull back the clock. I do hope you realize I am entrusting you a mission of your own, Breston.
Breston: That being?
Girl: Well, if you would seek the salvation of your people, these small delays may give you the edge you need. The future of your people is grim indeed, it may be that the day for you to rise up comes sooner than you imagine.
Breston: Well, it is hard not to have courage seeing what you can do.
Girl: One more...

She teleports herself and Breston once again, not to a power plant, but to a building.

Breston: Wait... what is?
Queen of Shadows: The federal reserve. While it is doubtless humanity will find a new means of minting their avarice in paper to show proof of their idolence, destroying this will be a large step and the final one I shall help make towards helping you help your people.
Breston: I thought you said you weren't going to help humanity?
Girl: I am not, if destroying a few buildings helps humanity, then terrorists would be heroes. I am helping no one but you.
Girl: You said you lacked for courage, so the next one is your choice. Shall I, or shan't I-- send it to hell?

You are now Breston Cantrope, you are kinda having a moral upheaval about now! Sure, money makes people into monsters, but money doesn't do evil, people do! But you think she knows that, more likely- this is a step of the journey to bravery. Sure, you wanna save the world, and yes- it's gonna take a lot of immorality, but then maybe you'd rather just enjoy your life as it is, or was... before she entered it?

Girl: I realize this is a difficult choice, so do not feel like you must rush. Should you have me send it to hell, nothing will ever be the same.
Girl: The fight ahead will be yours to contend with, I could not, and would not take your place. Before long, I will depart this Earth to return to my own world. you cannot rely on my intervention after this final act. From then on, the fate of the world is in your hands.
Girl: Know that, either choice is not shameful. It is comforting to be cowardly, and it is easy to live a life of comfort, than walk a road of tragic salvation. Do you think you owe humanity the salvation of their world?
Breston: ...Just one question, before I answer. How long do I have?
Girl: If I destroy this monument, thirty years. if I do not... then in a mere ten, humanity's reign will come to an end..
Breston: ...

This is so fucked! You don't want to believe her, but you know she probably does know. perhaps she also already knows the choice you will make. Perhaps the choices are neither right nor wrong, but the outcome of it is inevitable. You think on this for several minutes, and decide on your answer.

Breston: I can't be that brave... I'm sorry.

Girl: There is no need to be sorry. Your answer was always going to be this. Frankly, I see it next to impossible humanity survives the coming catastrophe without immense losses.
Girl: There is one thing I should reveal to you, Breston.
Girl: I too, am afraid of death. More so than you can probably imagine. Yet Humanity cheats it for what they believe in on a daily basis. Your kind is strong, just not in the way it thinks.
Breston: Thank you... I think i understand. I... I'd like to go home now.

One final teleport, and Breston is at his house's front patio.

Girl: And with this, my time here is done.
Breston: You're... leaving?
Girl: Yes. I feel I have interfered enough with this world's fate.
Breston: ...I'm, I'm really gonna miss you. My friends are cool, but you taught me something even they didn't try to. I just wish, we could have gotten to hang out more.
Girl: Do not let my absence be what brings you to despair. You have a heart in there, Breston. one that cares about people, the world and humanity as a whole. I do not. I would not be a good friend for you. So if you would do something to honor our meeting, make it that you don't live your life alone...

A tear falls down her eye.

Girl: Make it yours. Meet people and befriend them. You may not have the power to save the world, but you have the power to make it a hapier place. I believe that.

The Queen of Shadows turns around and walks away, and a purple shell encases her.

Girl: Goodbye~

In the next second, in a vertical flash of light that in a second pierces the clouds above, she is gone.

Breston: Goodbye... Shadowqueen.

More to come later~]]> If you are sensitive about the following topics, you are encouraged to keep clear of this story.
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:: Existential Futility
:: Scarily powerful magical girls
:: Big words
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If all those sound fine then let us proceed!
[Image: 4vpg3x1.png]
Interlude

The breeze crawls through the cafeteria, wafting the stench of poorly-prepared food through the nostrils of all unprepared diners, the growling in their bellies in unrest. The windows to outside far higher than can be gleaned through, the sightly advantages of the upper balcony made horrific by the wafting odor of the food rising to rest on the roof. Some seem unsettled, some near pass out- some lick their lips. One however is entirely not paying attention to that, or anything going on around, or even anyone around. A singular focus homes in on her own work, even though she does not wish to be a part of this picture, she shall try anyway.

She doesn’t introduce herself to you, nor to me—she has no need to, she has never needed to, we already know her by designation, by purpose. She is the Queen of Shadows, no other name dignifies her, and if one did, she has long since forgotten what it was or could be.

And while she dines and studies at what is indeed an academic institution that can cater only to the most hungry and most casual of learners, she is here not for the food nor for the academics, it could almost be said that she is not here at all. No one understands her, she sits alone at an empty table, alone like always, she’s used to it. She’s been lonely for over 314 billion years, this school is but a mere tick in her expansive timeline. She’s an unusual girl, and the students tend to leave her be, hair down to her ankles, tied up into six long wavy ponytails, black as the night sky, with grayed skin and deep purple eyes. They don’t want to judge, the few that have... have never been seen again.


Chapter 1: Unimpeded Frightful Obstacle

Some do occasionally make an attempt to talk to and engage with this lonely seeming girl with her head in her books, but it usually devolves into nothing much. She often doesn’t have incredible issues speaking to them, but they find it hard to keep up with her. Their idea of smart is so childish to her, but maybe we’ll let this play out naturally, so as to better show the large gap between the students and this girl with no name.

Charlie: Hey miss, my name’s charlie! What’s yours?
Girl: A name isn’t needed for one of my status, it’s nice to meet you charlie.
Charlie: hehe, you’re funny. Is that a book? It’s all I ever see meet your eye contact, you must be pretty smart!
Girl: Well, no I wouldn’t say I’m smart, not in the kind of aspect you relate such a meaning to... When you say “I must be smart” that comes from an understanding that smart means knowledgeable, when in reality they could not be more different. And there are many ways in which to be smart, in some I am, in others I am not.
Charlie: Woah!
Girl: I mean, I’m smart with words when I need to be, but I may as well be muttering as far as this conversation goes.
Charlie: That’s all a little too deep for me Miss whatever your name is or isn’t! I gotta go to class but keep at it!

And these are the most favourable encounters, let’s look at some less bubbly examples.

Melissa: Who even is that girl? She rarely speaks to anyone, all that time in her books yet still in primary school- does she just never learn or is something wrong with her?
Katie: I know right? Eyy, girlo, whatever you name is! Do you know there’s this thing called college?
Melissa walks a little closer to the girl with hairs standing on end, she has little tolerance for loud people.
Melissa: Are ya deaf? Can you see me?

Melissa steps back as the girl slams her book with an ungodly crack of thunder. Before glaring holes into her like she intended to set her face alight with her eyes.

Girl: If only I *was* deaf to the voices of a shrill harpy clamoring for everyone’s attention.
Melissa: Yikes! Jeez, who do you think you are? You know this is a primary school right? What kinda “queen” or whatever hangs out in a primary school? The library of a college could probably make more use of those books!
Girl: Good question, here’s another... why does such a delinquent think she’s even qualified to learn here when she chagrins others she barely knows for being too well read?
Melissa: Gerh!?
Katie: Hey hey, sorry about that! Come on, Melissa, let’s just go!
Girl: You’d be wise to listen to the more socially aware friend of yours, Melissa. Much as you may doubt my queen status, you’ll learn very quickly why I’m associated with shadows if you keep up this obnoxious gambit.
Melissa: Fine! You’re not worth my time anyway!

Melissa walks away in a huff as the Girl returns to her books. Quelling disruptions was not unusual for her, she’d become pretty good at knowing how to crackdown on certain people, and could quickly turn the tides due to the vast amount of varying places she’d visited to study.

But let’s have our relevant example to set this stage, it takes place on a day that is also the day mentioned prior. The girl pockets her books in an ethereal portal with no one paying it much mind, and goes to sample some of the less awful smelling food. While the natives on this planet often had no issue turning down the food they were used to, most of it was new to the girl- and she had no chagrin from trying a little. There was very little that would upset a stomach as ancient as hers. She returns with a variety tray, stabs her curvy barely-efficient fork into the tender chicken bites, puts one in her mouth and starts chewing... it is... my god- it IS... yeah “okay” she guesses? Could use a little less chicken salt, but beyond that she sees no issue devouring each and every one of them.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees one of the senior students, a male they make fun of for his name, but is otherwise pretty respected due to being tall and pretty charismatic, but he’s also transparent as glass. The girl can see there’s much he will get defensive about, and his name isn’t one such thing. But he’s insecure, despite having so much, he thinks he has so little- she can hear faint mumbles from the boys, pretty clearly they’re encouraging him to go ask her for food so he doesn’t take theirs. Fair enough, she did get a pretty decent platter, but she’s a queen, she’s kind of entitled to it, and the thought of showing this guy he can’t have absolutely everything he wants would be worth it for the selfish act she may not personally be so typically fond of, as this thought finishes processing, she hears the clamor of cutlery as he gets up. She can tell he’s got a tall and intimidating presence, it won’t scare her of course, but she can see how he got so far as he did.

Breston: So, is that a feast for a queen or do you mind if I grab some?
Girl: The feast of royalty does not invite a peasantly rube, now shoo before I put this greasy fork through your heart.
His friends burst into laughter, coughing on their own meals, they probably set him up knowing how this would go for him. She’d be proud of them if they had chosen to involve anyone but her in this unsportly script. Breston’s face shrivels up like a prune on a warm day, and goes red like a traffic light when everybodies gotta get their stop on and slam the brakes. Okay it’s not that red but it’s still pretty visibly red.
Breston: Excuse me?

He can barely get out these last two words of politeness. The erosion of the word between his teeth was like tinfoil being caressed against a cheese grater.

Girl: Did I stutter or something?

The girl grabs another chicken bite from the platter and puts it in her right cheek, and chews a little before continuing.

Girl: Is this your first time hearing a rejection? Truly, the tragic life is yours, woe is you, and so on.

Breston’s face is creasing up in a bizarre arrangement of embarrassment, shock and anger, it’s a sight to behold. He manages to uncrease a little and exhales.

Breston: Alright, keep it then, selfish hag.

Breston walks off in dejection but also some anger, anger that he, the great Breston, just got that told “No, no you can’t have the food of someone else!”, yeah, that’s some wicked shit she just did to him. And he’s not soon to forget it. However before he can calm down fully he hears her speak and his ears prick up. He wants a reason, and she better darn deliver.

Girl: Selfish is the man who demands the food of comfort from the lonely for himself when there is plenty otherwise available. But if that’s the comfort you need to get you through your shallow victory of a life...

The girl smirks for the first time anyone has seen, Breston’s friend’s eyes almost pop out of their skull upon seeing her being so unusually playful.

Girl: Then a “no” it remains... bye~

She turns back around, she darn-well delivered. And she is expecting a reprisal, victory was hers already, of course- but she found messing with people fun in small doses. Breston feels his face crack, he turns back around to her, you can hear the creaking fury as his neck allows his head to look back at her calm uncaring demeanor. He is enraged, no one makes a mockery of Breston!

Breston: You got some more clever lines you wanna share, you spoiled sow!?

Breston fumingly walks up around her and then infront of her, his shoulders raised and his tall body on display. His friends watch in a mix of shock and worry, worry not for her, no... for him.

Breston: Just who in the hell do you think you are!?

He tilts his head down while he leans in to glare at her, he might have scared her if she wasn’t already running laps around the buffoon.

Girl: It’d be unwise to force me to compare the two of us. Though I would ask you to get out of my light, and your breath isn’t the most pleasant thing to endure, either.

She pulls out a napkin to wipe the few small specks of grease and crumbs on her face off, elegant as a jewel while being threatened by an imposing tower of meat and bone baring its teeth.

Girl: I would also recommend you step away from me this instant, or your ego being crushed like a clumsy ant will be only the second worst thing that happens to you today.

His friends shoot up out of their chairs and pull his clenched fists behind his back, tugging him from the unwinnable conflict, he’s a mighty breed of man but still only a man and his friends manage to pin him down on the ground. They tell him it’s not worth it, they are doing this for his own good, and other such things to stop him from doing something stupid. She notes their perception of how one-sided a duel between them would be, she might even be impressed if they weren’t the ones initially responsible for plunging this predicament into play. She smiles with a mild sense of amusement, and sits back down to her books, as if nothing had ever bothered her. A Teacher ends up on the scene and sees the struggling mess of students writhing about on the floor like a dog asking to be given god damn belly rubs.

Miss Gahree: Break it up! Breston, Principal’s office now. You boys, return to your seats!

It’s as if she knew that Breston was the one who made all this explode, and that his friends were just looking out for him. Perhaps she did know. Only she could say, and it’s unlikely she’d tell you or that she’d get the chance to, because enough about that teacher, it’s time to be a he now, instead.

You are Breston Cantrope, you’re in the principal’s office for getting fucking owned by an unusual girl with a penchant for shoving her royal blood in your face. You hate her guts, you hate your friends just a little for not letting you teach her humility, but it’s fine! Everything is fine! This principal is a *Guy*, he’s blunt, but he GETS you, and you like to think you get him. Oh shoot, here he comes! Heck, this can’t be too bad, you didn’t even land a punch!

Principal Briefs: Well Breston it looks like just once you manage to get in my office without landing a punch. I’d say good job but that would be too folksy a way to start this off. So, before I go making any bold assumptions, tell me your side of the story.

See? Pretty fair guy, honestly you’d like to be a better kid just for his sake, but then you wouldn’t see him as often, and that wouldn’t do! Unfortunately, this may put your friends under the bus, since they were the ones who prompted you to do this in the first place... but then, this
Principal knows you well, so screw it.

Breston: My friends told me if I was still hungry I should go ask the bewitching grey girl for some of her royal platter. I was like “I dunno dudes she seems kinda happy to keep ‘em to herself” and then they’re like “is big Breston scared of the witch”? and obviously I couldn’t just say “No, I don’t wanna” then, I’d be a wimp! She’s just a grey girl with a creepy infatuation for books, so she can’t be much more unpleasant than a librarian... boy was I wrong. I asked her pretty politely for some food?? But she kinda seemed like she was having a day with my attempt, and one thing lead to another. She got me angry, I tried to punch her, but my friends pulled me down before I could.
Principal Briefs: Ah, well I see you’ve learned dishonesty isn’t worth the effort.

He begins writing down stuff in a notebook he never shows anyone.

Principal Briefs: So basically, you asked for more than your fair share, got told “No” and went a bit off the deep end?
Breston: Well I mean, maybe! But she was very rude! She even threatened me with a fork in the heart!
Principal Briefs: And once a threat is made, what do you do?

Breston rolls his eyes, he had to admit he’d goofed now, there was no sailing wind of a moral high ground or being the bigger man carrying him through this one.

Breston: “Tell the teachers or principal.”

Briefs almost seems to chuckle hearing Breston’s once smooth demeanor slow to a depressive stop. But he reforms his composure.

Principal Briefs: It’s a good thing your friends stopped you, you know? She may look about as intimidating as a librarian, but there’s a reason your friends were worried about your attempt to land an attack on her.
Breston: Wuh? I mean she’s just a... student, isn’t she...?

Briefs stands up and looks out his window, folding his arms and his hands meet at his back. He has a view over the cafeteria where it went down.

Principal Briefs: She’s no doubt an unusual student, even we don’t begin to comprehend her. She showed up one day, no enrolment, and said she wished to study at the school- when we made it clear she was too old for the curriculum, she just left the office and sat in the cafeteria, and has not much moved from that spot, she never goes home, she never sleeps, she’s here to say goodbye to the cleaners after they leave.

Breston: Isn’t that illegal?

Briefs sighs

Principal Briefs: We tried many times to send her home, they all ended in ...

The view of the cafeteria flickers through a hefty amount of gruesome scenes with the only visible details being an unharmed girl and puddles of blood around her before Brief’s vision returns to the present.

Principal Briefs: Failure.

Breston’s demeanor shifts into a more rigid kind of look. He’d been shook by the Principal’s foggy recount of events.

Principal Briefs: Listen Breston... if you really must continue this trend of using intimidation to steam roll through your life, don't use it on people that radiate that presence that she does... she isn't so calm and unfazed for a reason.
Breston: What? What is she even here for... are you saying that-
Principal Briefs: The school cannot control beings of her magnitude. She'll show up some days, and then disappear for lengths of time, then be back again, with no enrollment or evidence she was ever a student enrolled at all, but what we did learn early on is that trying to force her to exit the school went disastrously, and now we’re too underfunded to attempt it ever again. She doesn’t cause harm unless it’s brought to her, so we decided it would be safer for everyone else to let her be.

Breston is stunned aback, he can’t believe what he is hearing, but it explains many things, and why she is ALWAYS there, and besides, why would Principal Briefs lie to him?

Principal Briefs: If there are any people you aren't inclined to mess with, mark her on your list. If she followed through with her threat- as she’s had little trouble doing if the past is anything to go by-- there's nothing we at the school could do.

The School bell rings, the day is done. Breston walks home, not entirely as shattered as he thought he’d be, but now he’s a little scared, for what he thinks is the first time he’s been scared. Who is this girl? What did Dr Briefs mean by all the ominous babble about her? He decides to press it to the back of his mind and get some sleep, after some choice video games of course, no way to cure the feeling of getting fucking owned than by fucking owning someone in a game.

You are the girl again, yes, that one in particular without a name, or more, you’re watching her, and we’re telling you it’s her.
She’s in the same spot, a cafeteria, only now it's night time, the lights are all off, but she has candle light, she’d rather it than the artificial lights of this over-modernized planet anyway.

She is reading through a tome on Sociocratic Death Magicks, not the kind of book you’d find in a primary school library, or unlikely anywhere on this Earth, she’s scrawling slight adjustments to some of the instructions, clearly having found ways to better perform the rituals. The night breeze rolls though the windows and sets her face in a moonlight sheen, her gorgeous purple eyes are cast in the shadow of a thick outer rim, while her white sclera make the transition harsh and very unusual. Her six red bows tieing her hair flap lightly in the spring breeze. This world had many charms, but very few of them were those of the inhabitants making. Her smooth greyed fingers flipped through the pages, her dull expression of being mostly bored or invocative sometimes shifting to a look of query or introspection. She made every second of silence count.

Her victorian-style violet-velvet dress with evening straps connecting the two piece ensemble was hard to find anywhere else. She was truly alone in everything she did, and unlike most, she was complacent for it to stay like that. She needs only some glimpses into societies she would outlive to keep her from going down a dangerous mental spiral, the interactions with those who were forced to tolerate her were what separated her from the dreary haze of falling into nothing. Though she welcomed the lonely nights eager to get into studies, the days she would eagerly wait to see if students would approach her, and observe their varying ways of reaction. Breston’s breed was a bit too common for her liking, she prefers the youthful naïve optimism of some of the others, who were excited by what she was, but didn’t have a hope in joining her. The minutes turn into hours, time goes fast for someone who has lived so long, the sound of the nearby birds pin that its morning as does the first sliver of lighter blue cascading through the sky.

She places the book at the bottom of the stack, and begins reading through a more humane looking article in wait for the encounters of the day.
The school bell rings it’s obnoxious tone and the kids rush in for an early breakfast. One of the girls rushes over immediately to our girl.

Aisha: Hey… did Breston try to have a go at you yesterday?

Aisha sounds concerned, our girl smiles and closes her eyes relaxed to put her worry at ease…

Girl: He made an “attempt.” But I don’t think he will again, and if he does, don’t go sticking up for me. I may look like a very pensive librarian, but there’s a reason I’m not scared of anyone.

Aisha: Awww!!!

The girl's blissful sense of joy completely nulls out her sense of dread, it’s like you can see love hearts and lightning bolts just pop out of her, she’s loud but a kind of loud you can stand, even enjoy in small doses.

Aisha: The other kids may not think much of you but far as I see it you’re the right berries! Keep doing the good work, Miss… whoever it was~

The girl with no name has to hold back a laugh, it’s unusual for the naïve joy and cluelessness of kids to tickle her this much, but that was a little too god damned wholesome, you need Breston in here to keep the crazy spiralling hayfever of emotion in check.

Breston: YAAWWWWWNNNNNNNNN

And like that was his cue, the well-slept imbecile makes his daft entrance, stretching out his long as fuck arms as he stretches and yawns like a cat on a good day, and with the clear intent of making this everybodies god damned problem- and so order is restored. His friends go to greet him, and apologize for telling him to do that, they didn’t think it’d rile him up so much. He’s all like “It’s cool, he’s had worse. Ha ha.”

Chapter 2: A Barbarian Learns Manners

After all the greeting noise disperses, Breston makes a timid bee-line and asks if he can sit nearby the girl he now appears to see in a whole new light.

Girl: That’s fine.

Breston sits opposite her, his originally calm and macho demeanor has become a little less vivid, there’s something new engulfing him now... it’s either terror or something he ate. She won’t punish him any longer, the piggy learned it’s manners and is now wetting the bed in front of her, as in, he’s sweating so much it's looking like he could wet his bed. Not an uncommon thing for “victims” of her mild wrath, but it is particularly unsettling seeing the shift so jarringly from one day to the next.

Girl: By that look all over you, it seems you no longer see me like the rest of the rabble. You know now something of what I am.

She puts her hand pensively to her chin, as if observing him in all his bed-fresh glory, only her eyes are half closed, so she just looks very very unimpressed, which is a much more apt reaction.

Girl: You’re a lucky kid, Breston. You have friends that will keep you out of danger's warpath.
Girl: Had they not pulled that punch of yours for you…

An uncanny breeze sweeps through the place, clearing the stench of leftovers from the day before, virtually no one is unsettled, that of course, does not include Breston. He is quite very unsettled…

Girl: You’d be the guest of honor at your own funeral.

Breston can almost hear a clash as the final word leaves her lips. As she goes back to sipping her tea that she appropriated for herself without anyone’s permission whatsoever, Breston feels fear he never knew he had. The world around him goes silent, eventually he’s woken up by a light slap on the face.

Girl: Wake up.

Breston: Uh… sorry you uh, you kinda scared the shit outta me.

Girl: Don’t let your fears overtake you, so long as I remain unharmed, so will everyone else. I only give back what people put in.

Brestons demeanor calms a bit, and hearing her words has put him at ease. He believes them even if he may not believe her. His mind is now interested in knowing more about her.

Breston: So… what exactly are you? After what I heard from the principal yesterday, I’m ready to believe anything.
Girl: Ah~ I see curiosity has replaced fear, that’s good. Very well, I am the Queen of Shadows, and I hail from elsewhere in the universe.
Breston: You’re an alien?
Girl: In the eyes of yours, yes. For one as old as I am, you learn alienation is but a symptom of secluded societies- it’s only fair you be reliant on such simplistic perceptions.
Breston: uh… and how, old are you? Like, 30, 28?
Girl: Kehehehehehe~

That’s her limit, the unintentional flattery of one who did not understand or believe in immortality was too charming to bear, she starts laughing in a sweet giggly tone.

Breston: Did I… say something funny?
Girl: Aha~ No no, it’s just that’s such an obviously unintentional bit of flattery. I’m older than your current universe, one of your life spans is not even a three-point-fourteenth of mine.
Breston: Ehh? Can you just say a number instead of being coy?
Girl: I’m at least 314 Billion years old, to put it one way.
Breston: Waaat??? I mean I believe you but, that’s nuts! Say why are you hanging around schoolkids if you’re like, some eternal geyser.
Girl: Because the barbarian’s manners have a way of being charming when they don’t make me wish to cut the barbarian's throat.
Breston: EEE! I’m sorry I’m sorry!
Girl: To put it in terms you’ll understand, my life has been running so long, seeing lives so young and unfulfilled as yours, full of excitement, worry and regret and all those emotions, it helps me keep myself oriented. As you may guess these books aren’t ones you’ll find in any primary school’s library.
Girl: I have visited others, until they’ve tried to… evict me. The schools go out of their way to remove the mysterious elven girl to keep their cafeteria safe, by sending in men with guns and remote detonators into a school full of children and teachers. And everytime, I protect them and remove the assailants. The reason I’m here more often is because they realized their error to remove me before they ended up in bankruptcy, and were more subtle in their attacks, attempting them at night when no one was watching.
Breston: Why don’t you move, like, just get outta the way?
Girl: Because that enables a society of "Breston"s.

The sound of a hammer hitting a nail plays out in Breston’s head as he realizes that he was a creature she absolutely abhorred. His very shell being split like a plank under the pressure of a hammered invader.

Breston: Do you… hate me?
Girl: No. You’re too meaningless to put energy into hating, I don’t approve of what you were yesterday, but wouldn’t you say there’s been a bit of a change, lately?
Breston: Yeah, you’re not wrong, the principal told me not to... get on your bad side I guess? Among a few other things... I tried to push it back, and I was able to sleep well, but seeing you in here today- I had to ask you myself.
Girl: A good choice, rather than trying to shove it off and stave that despair, which one day would surely explode in your face, you were courageous enough to face it. If there is a man in you, it’s there, in that ability to be brave. Although you were initially brave yesterday, your aura reeked of a pig living in a prince’s skin, it was only natural a simple rejection would spur you on. I wanted you to justify whatever hell you’d bring upon yourself.

She looks over to the table where his friends are sitting, talking about opulent japanese comics and whatever other modern chicanery they could get away with in earshot of the teachers.

Girl: But, you do have friends. And they respect you as a brave Man, not as a pig or a prince. I think you understand what I’m getting at.
Breston: Yeah... and here I was thinking I’d teach you humility! Ha...
Girl: You don’t know me well enough to teach me anything. That was your error, but it is not your fault... there is no way you could have known what you do now. Even had you been told, I’m sure you can imagine how you’d translate the information.
Breston: Ehe... probabl-

A crunch is heard as one of the teachers is suddenly looming over both of them. One of her pens has just been snapped by the anger presenting itself firmly in her wrapped fist.

Breston looks up to see a mole of a woman, about 4 foot with glasses the size of spinnerets, and silky hair as nightmarish to match, is looming down at him.

Girl: Excuse me, Miss Bhavaria. Your dispute with the barbarian can wait.

Miss Bhavaria looks to scold the out of line student giving her orders, but her face melts into a sweet humble smile upon seeing who it is.
Miss Bhavaria: Ohohoho~ I’m most sorry, dear. You finish talking to the lad, I’ll go get some crumpets.

Before departing, she presses her nose into the so-called barbarian’s upper clavicle, and wrinkles up her face like a bulldog fresh out of the creasing factory.

Miss Bhavaria: This isn’t over, Cantrope!

She in one swift motion, returns to her sweet elderly frame and skittles off like her feet are tapping gently adrift a xylophone.

Girl: You were saying?
Breston: Yeah, probably... I’d be all like “Waha, yeah sure, and I’m the prince of new denver.” And shove it all off as superstition.
Girl: There’s only so much a human mind can see before it starts refuting, the ethical choice to rely on the purchase of superstition is a way to distance ourselves from our fears.
Girl: To put that in Breston terms, yes- that’s likely how you’d have gone about it.
Breston: Eh- Still with the condescending tone, I see?
Girl: Why not, are you telling me you don’t enjoy the challenge of an intellectual battle? You seem to enjoy physical challenges enough.
Breston: Maybe, but I’m not very good with words or numbers, mostly I can put together what you say, but some of it is probably gonna get all... translated, y’know?
Girl: That’s perfectly fine, I’ve put you through enough. Your Earth is in no danger from me, I’m merely using it as a means of recreation, and while it’s true I could break it into countless eons of splinters before the thought had occurred in your head to try and stop me, you needn’t fear anything. My power has next to no use in this world. None of you pose a threat to me, and I will only remove those who try to bring harm to me.
Breston: Yeah... I think I kinda already knew, just wanted it from the source, thanks, you didn’t have to put my mind at ease like this.
Girl: I didn’t, but I wanted to. You are to be rewarded for your courage. Have a nice day, Breston.

She goes back to sipping her tea which is still steaming hot. Breston’s fear has faded, and he now kinda respects and appreciates what and who she is, just someone lonely who needs a little social now and then. Imagine, being so insanely powerful that the only thing you have to deal with is loneliness? Crazy... maybe in another life, he’d have been stricken by love for such an outrageously in control woman, perhaps pleaded to go back with her to her own planet, but right now, he’s Breston Cantrope, he’s got friends, a reputation and now a new better look on life.

The moment he retreats from his chair, a shriek echoes from across the mummy’s lair.

MISTER CANTROPE!!!!

Oh shit it’s the bulldog woman, you guess you’ve left her in the lurch long enough.

Breston: On my way, Miss Bhavaria!

Breston takes one final look at her, once more pensively skimming through her books, a smile wears his face, and the smile and the barbarian go to meet their hobgoblin hierophant.

Chapter 3: Of Erosion and Finality

Later that night, when all was peaceful and the Shadow Queen was reminiscing about memories past, she is lost in thought.

Upon the many worlds she had visited, around all the people she'd met... Something was always missing in her existence. A piece of her ever feeling unfound but never firstly lost.

She was alone... and it was eating her inside. Over 314 billions years, even boulders that can withstand whirlpools will erode in time- and even she as a Sorceress without equal, who had lived longer than a Universe's age. To her, erosion was her only true nemesis.

As like a rock is chipped away and eventually ground up into a powder- indistinguishable as it once was. The same is true of the mind. There is no larger fear for one so brillant as her to be lead astray by the years of self-imposed isolation and solitude.

But even this fear paled in comparison to another. Death.

Even knowing such is but a gateway to shining bliss beyond the gates of the afterlives... for an eternal who has lived so long- the idea of having a pained death is truly nightmarish. Ever since her fluffy pink cocoon hatched after being delivered on solar winds from the Pink Sun to her homeworld. She had known only life... until- she ventured outward.

Across the cosmos, death and suffering were commonplace, even on a sacred site of life like the planet of Haven, death was inescapable, cruel and ugly. Learning she was eternal unlike mortals whose bodies would erode with time, she wondered if she too would eventually be fated to fade away?

This is when she discovered the cyclic destruction of a Universe every three hundred and fourteen billion years. Out with the old, in with the new. it was a cosmic counter to universal erosion. To survive such a grand-scale catastrophe, she would need to learn how the Universe and its laws would function before she could conjure a means to escape such a fate.

Given time and much research, she found such a way. While almost everything is destroyed by the wave of annihilation the Gatekeeper of Universes past and future unleashes, black holes are an exception.

So the goal became simply to temporarily situated oneself inside a blackhole until the havoc is over... this however, would be an enormous challenge bordering the impossible.

She made what most would presume impossible, possible.

She and several of her people would escape oblivion at cycle's end.

Awaiting to greet them, a demon with triangle eyes- impressed with their feat, she pronounced one in particular the Queen of Shadows, and her people the Shadow Pixies. Ever since, the current iteration of the Universe has been their new vista.

Now the cycle is but a mere century or so before its close... She would need to soon return to her people so they may repeat the process and preseve themselves once more.

She claps her book shut and decides thats enough reminiscing.

Girl: Some rats approach...

Chapter 4: Imperishable Fatality

We’re back in the night time cafeteria. It seems she has become tense, aware of her surroundings.

Girl: So... You think you can spy on me?

Our girl glares holes into us, it’s like she knows we’re observing her. Perhaps she does, but for whatever reason, she- oh snap! It’s not us she’s seeing.

A Red dot appears on her face, and then more appear all over her, and in a mere flinch, a large array of gunshots are heard... but she is unfazed, she raises her hand, and the bullets stop mere inches from her person, and fall to the ground.

Girl: Spying is one thing, attempts at assassination is another…

She levitates an occult tome to her hand and the pages flip through to a dangerous looking spell. As she begins chanting the entire cafeteria begins to rumble from the sheer volume of power.

Girl: You can either flee or try to withstand magic older than this very universe... take your pick.

Hundreds of troops scuttle in to try and stop her, wearing mere SWAT uniforms, they find she has a barrier they cannot breach. One deploys a grenade and tells his other to fall back 50 feet, the grenade goes off, only to blacken the table near her with scorch marks.

Girl: It seems you think you can withstand magic older than your very universe...

Her eyes glow purple as her incantation is complete

Girl: So sealed is now your fate.

A large number of snakelike purple serpents, made of arcane energy, writhe around the room piercing the bodies of all the law enforcers, only one remains... as she had planned.

Girl: I gave them, you- the chance and choice to flee, a chance to weigh their and your options, yet when they and you cast the die, they died, and only you remain.
Girl: And you will not stop to remain, go now and tell your superiors what transpired here.

Lost for words, the man leaves in a most hurried of hurries. The girl returns to her usual demeanor of reading books before her ears pick up a subtle step slinking about...

Girl: Up a bit early... Are you not, Breston?

Breston sheepishly walks into view, shocked and awed at what he had just seen.

Girl: School was over six hours ago, you shouldn’t be here at this kind of time.
Breston: I just wanted to see your power firsthand.
Girl: I know why you are here, that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t be here.
Breston: I don’t get it though, I thought Briefs... this school had given up on evicting you?
Girl: It appears circumstances have changed.
Breston: Is uh... this your fault, then?
Girl: Partially, it’s also the fault of your earthen agencies for not realizing when someone is above them. I’ve noticed a severe dysfunction in humans that when one won’t submit to their ideologies, they treat it like a dangerous foreign power, even going to unreasonable lengths to exterminate it. Yours is a very insecure species, to say the least.
Breston: Ahaha... yeah we are kinda dumb like that! But I mean- I get why, we’ve been through a lot as humans, and we’ve always been able to fend off whatever dangers befall us, so we’ve gotten into a habit of thinking we can do anything, that we’re sorta strong?
Girl: That comforting lie is exactly how societies fall into calamitous extremes. I pose little danger to your kind through sheer lack of care, but I am far from the only foreign power among your kind. Camoflauged in human skin, demons and angels both operate under veil of that very ideology to use humanity for their ends.
Breston: For real!? Is there any way we could find out who...?
Girl: They are? Probably not, and it's for the best you don't. They are rarely powerful as ZI am, but unlike me who considers you little more than flies who only the obnoxious ones who fly in my face I will swat, the Demons actively prey on humans. While they may be weaker than me, humans are little more then an upset housecat in the face of what they are. If they cannot attain their prize through subterfuge, they'll simply be direct.
Breston: That's scary!
Girl: It is. The fear is precisely why humans hide behinds curtails of lies and comfortning nothings. In the grand scheme of the cosmos, you may as well be cannon fodder.
Breston: So... demons and angels live in guise among us, what is your uh... stance on them. Are they friends of yours or...?
Girl: I do not interact with them, there's a good chance they have no clue I exist. I personally have neither animosity nor admiration for them. I am neutral in their affairs.
Breston: Should, you be telling me this?
Girl: Even though you believe, you are one human. There's not much you could do to prove what you've learned today, and if you did- I can guarantee it would likely make you a target.
Girl: I wouldn't be too concerned about them, it's in their interests that humanity survives, otherwise their food supply goes astray. You yourselves are more liable to bring about your own extinction than any outside agency.
Breston: Hey... question. You ever think about doing something big to help this world out? You seem to enjoy it enough. With your power you could accomplish a bunch!
Girl: The biggest threat facing your Earth is the climate overheating, and to circumvent that would require a miracle beyond Gods or a complete deconstruction of the social order... Neither of these things are advisable, and I am not capable of miracles. Nor do I owe you or your "Earth" anything. I visit, I leave. I have no desire to get involved in the future of your world.
Girl: And really? is that your first go to? To ask a greater power for help, yet only minutes ago you were boasting humanity's strength? If you can't help yourselves, then I do not seek to make it my policy to cover up your own failures- especially when climate change is a byproduct of your kind's greed, avarice and overgrowth to begin with.
Girl: Furthermore, humanity has a habit of making their existence everyone else's problem. It is probably better for cosmic stability you entomb yourselves in the Earth you ruined, it'd be due courtesy for you to not bring your destructive urges beyond the boundaries of your solar system.
Breston: We won't grow if we aren't given the time...
Girl: That's not my problem.
Breston: I know... sorry.
Girl: I will not tell you how long you have so as to not cause you undue stress. But if you want to save the world, you might want to start sooner than later.
Breston: Eh... honestly. I don't have that kind of courage. I've been a coward using intimidation most of my life, but it didn't work on you. After a lecture from Principal Briefs it was made fairly clear I couldn't rely on that.
Girl: And he is correct. It may work on people as scared as you are, but try it on anyone unusual and I can guarantee you- it won't end well.
Breston: So uh... you wanna go hang out?
Girl: ...I've never thought of doing that. What did you have in mind?
Breston: Eh!? No flowery overdramatic denial?
Girl: Don't get the wrong impression. It would be purely for sake of recreation on my end, I could not have less romantic interest in you if you were actually a pig.
Breston: Haha, naw I got that! I just mean it might be fun to I dunno, go break dumb stuff?
Girl: You wanna see more magic? I thought you'd be rather frightened to see more than you have already...
Breston: Well, I guess curiosity has replaced my fear or something.
Girl: My my, look at you. Using my own words against me. Truly, it appears I have taught you terrible things indeed. Whatever is your mother going to think?

She chuckles to herself while Breston just shrugs loosely

Breston: Say, I know it won't be a long-term solution, but how about some coal power plants. I know you said you have no intention of saving those who can't save emselves or whateve,r but they'd probably be a good target!

Girl: Hmmm. Well, it won't be little more than a temporary stall, so i can't imagine it'll hurt. Not anything who matters, anyway.

The girl starts to stand up, she puts her closed hand pensively to her smiling mouth. It’s clear she’s fond of this destructive idea.

Girl: Well then, it appears your idea has merit.
Breston: Would I be able to come with?
Girl: It was your idea, besides... The whole point of this is that you want to see a magic show, correct? I believe that was quite implied.

The girl teleports herself and Breston to a very ugly, very large and unappealing coal power plant. She spends a little time thinking of how she may execute this one’s destruction, before placing her hand on the tome she brought with her.

Girl: Stand back a little, and get ready to cover your eyes...

The Queen of Shadows walks forward, before her tome levitates in front of her, she also levitates and begins drawing a large davids star with her hands.

Breston: Cool...

Girl: What an ugly thing it is...

She raises her two hands skyward, and as if following her command, the seedy power plant is torn from its foundations and flung into the sky, into space- before exploding into violet and red fireworks. Breston watches in fascination, after moving his hands down from previously raising them to shield his eyes from the onslaught of dirt and dust sent outward from the violent separation of machine and mountain. Even the Queen of Shadows can’t help but offer a satisfied toothy smirk.

Girl: Yet when ground into a lightshow to give the world time, even the most repulsive catterpillar blooms into a beautiful butterfly.
Breston: That was so sick!!! Wanna do another one?
Girl: We could hardly cut the demonstration after only one display, could we?

Yet again she teleports them, to a repulsive “monument” in Australia, a claw dredging coal from the Great barrier reef to fund a nation’s unjust power demands.

Girl: This is such a big metal monstrosity you can actually see it from space. So as to honor its celestial esteem, I’ll give it to a star that can be seen from earth.
Breston: Will I need to stand back?
Girl: Not this time, if I ripped this one from the ground it would do too much damage to the reef, thankfully I can simply teleport it to the brightest star in the sky.

She walks forward, yet again her tome readies itself at her beck and call, a large davids star rotates around the base of the oversized metal eyesore, and in a flash- it is visible no more. Gone in the flash, as if stolen by lightning, it now lived in a star, that burned ever brightly.

Girl: A star to pull back the clock. I do hope you realize I am entrusting you a mission of your own, Breston.
Breston: That being?
Girl: Well, if you would seek the salvation of your people, these small delays may give you the edge you need. The future of your people is grim indeed, it may be that the day for you to rise up comes sooner than you imagine.
Breston: Well, it is hard not to have courage seeing what you can do.
Girl: One more...

She teleports herself and Breston once again, not to a power plant, but to a building.

Breston: Wait... what is?
Queen of Shadows: The federal reserve. While it is doubtless humanity will find a new means of minting their avarice in paper to show proof of their idolence, destroying this will be a large step and the final one I shall help make towards helping you help your people.
Breston: I thought you said you weren't going to help humanity?
Girl: I am not, if destroying a few buildings helps humanity, then terrorists would be heroes. I am helping no one but you.
Girl: You said you lacked for courage, so the next one is your choice. Shall I, or shan't I-- send it to hell?

You are now Breston Cantrope, you are kinda having a moral upheaval about now! Sure, money makes people into monsters, but money doesn't do evil, people do! But you think she knows that, more likely- this is a step of the journey to bravery. Sure, you wanna save the world, and yes- it's gonna take a lot of immorality, but then maybe you'd rather just enjoy your life as it is, or was... before she entered it?

Girl: I realize this is a difficult choice, so do not feel like you must rush. Should you have me send it to hell, nothing will ever be the same.
Girl: The fight ahead will be yours to contend with, I could not, and would not take your place. Before long, I will depart this Earth to return to my own world. you cannot rely on my intervention after this final act. From then on, the fate of the world is in your hands.
Girl: Know that, either choice is not shameful. It is comforting to be cowardly, and it is easy to live a life of comfort, than walk a road of tragic salvation. Do you think you owe humanity the salvation of their world?
Breston: ...Just one question, before I answer. How long do I have?
Girl: If I destroy this monument, thirty years. if I do not... then in a mere ten, humanity's reign will come to an end..
Breston: ...

This is so fucked! You don't want to believe her, but you know she probably does know. perhaps she also already knows the choice you will make. Perhaps the choices are neither right nor wrong, but the outcome of it is inevitable. You think on this for several minutes, and decide on your answer.

Breston: I can't be that brave... I'm sorry.

Girl: There is no need to be sorry. Your answer was always going to be this. Frankly, I see it next to impossible humanity survives the coming catastrophe without immense losses.
Girl: There is one thing I should reveal to you, Breston.
Girl: I too, am afraid of death. More so than you can probably imagine. Yet Humanity cheats it for what they believe in on a daily basis. Your kind is strong, just not in the way it thinks.
Breston: Thank you... I think i understand. I... I'd like to go home now.

One final teleport, and Breston is at his house's front patio.

Girl: And with this, my time here is done.
Breston: You're... leaving?
Girl: Yes. I feel I have interfered enough with this world's fate.
Breston: ...I'm, I'm really gonna miss you. My friends are cool, but you taught me something even they didn't try to. I just wish, we could have gotten to hang out more.
Girl: Do not let my absence be what brings you to despair. You have a heart in there, Breston. one that cares about people, the world and humanity as a whole. I do not. I would not be a good friend for you. So if you would do something to honor our meeting, make it that you don't live your life alone...

A tear falls down her eye.

Girl: Make it yours. Meet people and befriend them. You may not have the power to save the world, but you have the power to make it a hapier place. I believe that.

The Queen of Shadows turns around and walks away, and a purple shell encases her.

Girl: Goodbye~

In the next second, in a vertical flash of light that in a second pierces the clouds above, she is gone.

Breston: Goodbye... Shadowqueen.

More to come later~]]> <![CDATA[Flames and Death]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8490.html Fri, 11 Mar 2022 08:06:48 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8490.html
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Flames and Death

Written by Kyonides


Chapter One

Immolation


They took me by surprise while I was just having lunch. Verily, I can tell you that it is no minor issue for me. I had to interrupt that exquisite pleasure because I did not expect to see how they were pushing a woman down the street in such an despicable way.


I do not recall her and I do not think that I had met her anywhere else, yet, I felt as if some invisible hands were pushing me towards that enigmatic girl. Well, my fellow diners also did the same, they had almost passed over poor me.


Pressure was so great that I gave in to their stubbornness and left my chair without paying any tab for my meal. In fact, they did not even blame me for it, as far as I can remember at least.


“Yes, she’s gonna meet her very own end”, a passerby told me.


“Oh come on! They are headed to the stake and she definitely deserves it”, added another female with a mouth full of visceral hatred for her.


Why would I remain watching her among all those thousands of voices filled with such an intense bloodthirst? My best choice was to go after that woman. It would be convenient to find out what had led her to such a terrible destiny or see if I still had a chance to free her and run away from that rowdy place. Later on she could spend as much time as needed, feeding me with all the details.


Now you got to be asking this: how is it possible that I could get infatuated with such a girl already, after having seen her for just a few moments?


OK, they turned right, after finding one of the most iconic signs of this city. There it says “Via Draconiana” and I am convinced its name is quite meaningful indeed. At the same time, it does not fit very well with the Germanic or Nordic style of the surrounding buildings.


That poor victim, or that criminal based on people’s vile accusations, is not the most beautiful gal out there, nor can I claim she is high breasted or curvy at all. If talking about her long hair, I got to say it is quite matted indeed. Somehow she still manages to captivate my dull senses, but you gotta have noticed that by now, right?


Curiously, I have never made a remark on her buttocks or her legs. I might only add that her arms had seen better days because now they are quite bruised, her wounds can be found everywhere. It is truly embarrassing to look at her in her current state.


Perhaps they are right when they tell me I am more interested in her appearance than anything else. I hope they are totally wrong about that. Man, I got to be gross…


Right, it is about time that I propose in my heart to go save her from that cruel fate, still, I am not sure if there is something I can do to free her from her captors. It seems to me that it is a titanic task for a single guy, especially one like yours truly…


“Keep moving if that’s what you really wanna do!”, another voice uttered but for some reason I could not recognize it at once.


I do think I am the best guy here to accompany a girl like her. I mean, I gotta be kind of handsome due to the fact that so far no woman has ever made funny faces after staring at me. Except for those days when my hair was as messy as my latest target’s, he, he. Add to that list that I practically have got a slim body.


“I thought I had been crystal clear!”, that unknown guy yelled at me once again, not showing me any kind of consideration.


He got a point here, I have been hesitating a lot lately. I spend more time thinking than acting. That should be a bad trait for a guy like me, isn’t it true? I gotta get moving…


“That guy is beyond any repair”, explained a middle aged man. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him to take his sacks away, he never listens to me.”


Alright, he was not addressing me at all. It has been my fault, nobody else’s. If I were not still here like a statue, waiting for reactions like that guy’s, I would not be wasting my time thinking that everything is spinning around me or my prey. Fine, she is no bird in a cage, at least not in a literal sense.


“There he goes after just another tart!”, a lady shouted aloud.


“Erik has always been one of those fools that believe their latest target is their true love”, a neighbor responded as if she knew me ever since I was a little kid.


I am not anything the like, although I must admit I have been tailgating here for several cobblestone streets. I have not even noticed I had walked round a city without taking a single break. Nonetheless, I have not gotten any closer to her. They always stay ahead of your servitor. How do they do that!?


“It’s about time to burn up that darn witch like charcoal”, a disrespectful old timer commented in regards of my most recent obsession.


“Bravo! That evil girl won’t curse us anymore…”, asserted another neighbor until he unexpectedly forgot what he was about to tell next.


Then those insensitive brutes dare to claim she is some sort of witch. It is alright, we already know how ignorant guys get confused after meeting those people with unique or special skills. No matter how long they have been cultivated for generations, they are not recognized for all the time and effort spent learning such amazing things. I do believe I can relate to her way better than anybody else!


It looks quite odd. If they badly pretended to take her to the stake, how is it possible they have not reached such a place after walking around the whole city? She should have no strength left in her bruised body by now!


“What a fuss!”, another local youngster insulted me then. “Right now she gotta be glad that she’s able to go for a walk after spending a long time rotting in a forgotten dungeon.


Yeah, it was self evident that her clothes and her limbs belonged to a poor victim only. There is no other way to clear up that submissive attitude of hers. By the time she left that foul smelling cell, she had already been domesticated.


Err, what should I do if I get close to her and notice she smells terrible like no other woman ever has? I gotta be standing at a crossroad! I might take some wooden clamp just in case I am right about that and her enticing smell could knock me down otherwise.


“Once again that olive-skinned watches how that stinky witch passes by and isn’t brave enough as to do something about it”, remarked a second middle aged man that seemingly looks like an acquaintance of mine.


“I dunno what you’re talking about”, I told him while removing his hand from my shoulder.


“As if I didn’t know you very well, Erik the Faint-Hearted!”, that imbecile complained showing me no respect, as if he had lost all common sense.


“This gotta be the twentieth time that you take this unending walk around the streets without ever reaching her a single time!”, declared that vile liar without thinking it twice.


I did not thought I should have ever reacted then. Even if I am a strong willed guy, this time I could not refrain from turning around without any hesitation. My frustration for not helping her moved my lips at will all of sudden.


“It’s very clear to me that your reasoning is as faulty as my very own haircut, idiot!”, I replied showing there was no decency left in my troubled mind.


“As you wish, your Majesty, Erik the Faint-Hearted!”, exclaimed that irreverent moron with an evil and dark smirk on his stupid face.


It is very curious, extremely curious indeed. It feels like I could already listen to the crackling flames, longing for consuming firewood as well as that poor woman at any time. When did we ever get to the central plaza? Has the market been demolished without warning? I cannot find it anywhere around.


I suppose I can see another sign up there. We are at the Strata Amarga. Again I got to accept that they truly know how to pick the best route for their sorrowful parade.


The reason behind her long travail was they did not want to show her any mercy because they could not execute her in the presence of their beloved public. I am referring to the mayor’s special guests who refused to presence the slay of such a “spoiled beast”, as they considered that it was too vulgar for their refined taste.


Even so they still wanted to watch her being turned into ashes, treated like a mere fatling destined to be sacrificed for the greater cause. How despicable they are!


“What are you complaining about now?”, that hateful guy inquired of me. “It’s a thousand year long tradition of theirs and they don’t see why they’d ever stop it. Even less like they’ll do it for an imbecile, the biggest coward in history. It’s about time you give up on her.”


“I’ll never do that and you know it very well!” I cried out loud, as if that fire had entered my lungs back then.


What I am about to tell you is going to sound weird indeed. Nonetheless, I am suddenly in my bed. I have recently waken up as I could confirm by touching my face with my right hand. There was some saliva left on my cheek and I did not know about that. That weird dream left me astonished. At least that is what those bizarre characters living in my crazy mind would have ever noticed.


“And did you ever get up, oh faint-hearted Erik?”, a not so sweet voice was asking me then.


“But I’m not a coward at all, my dear lady”, I cleared up at once.


“Oh please! What did you dream about this time?”, she interrogated me like a real pro.


“Well, I did have a vivid dream or the like and it’s not about to happen in real life any time soon just because the lady’s asked me about it”, I threw in without hesitation.


“It’d have been better if you could not remember it but I knew it because I had always been there, a few hundred steps away from you”, affirmed the unknown girl as if she were a relative of mine.


Once my sleepy eyes got used to the sunlight, I could clearly see that young woman standing in my room. I got paralyzed inadvertently. It was her. The very same person but without all those bruises and wounds on her flesh.


“Undoubtedly, what you have seen is my past as well as my destiny”, she confided me her secrets. “That’s what happens when you get involved in the life of a woman after she has been and will be accused of committing the worst atrocity ever, casting spells like any good witch does. At least everybody says so.


Miraculously, I could talk to her without issues, although I cannot recall how did I get there. Without a formal explanation, I was sitting on my comfy bed with tender sheets. I also had a wooden nightstand with two shelves on my right. My beloved captive was wearing the typical medieval maid’s outfit, and she was right there to pull me out of that tempting bed.


“You might mean this time, at least this time, I managed to reach you, ¿ain’t I right, my sad sweetheart?”, I quickly questioned her regardless of her feelings.


“Reaching me you say? It’s been dumb luck, although I gotta admit you’re no longer a newbie…” the root cause of my insomnia revealed.


“I don’t understand your obsession with self-immolation”, I scolded her out of deep my concern for her.


“Depends, for some people it’s immolation while others would call it immolation for me and a punishment for the rest of you”, my mortal delight delved into it.


Once I could react back after such terrible news, I was back in the restaurant, sitting at the table; about to get a snack.


I limited myself to taste that awful defeat of mine, while biting a not so juicy meat at a very slow pace. Later I sensed the sight of someone that knew everything about me. That woman was passing by and that tremendous uneasiness did not allow my whole body to ignore her.


After the whole walk around, I cannot remember what is the color of her eyes and I have no explanation on that.


Yes, I ran after her once again.


Shocked To be continued...
]]>
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Flames and Death

Written by Kyonides


Chapter One

Immolation


They took me by surprise while I was just having lunch. Verily, I can tell you that it is no minor issue for me. I had to interrupt that exquisite pleasure because I did not expect to see how they were pushing a woman down the street in such an despicable way.


I do not recall her and I do not think that I had met her anywhere else, yet, I felt as if some invisible hands were pushing me towards that enigmatic girl. Well, my fellow diners also did the same, they had almost passed over poor me.


Pressure was so great that I gave in to their stubbornness and left my chair without paying any tab for my meal. In fact, they did not even blame me for it, as far as I can remember at least.


“Yes, she’s gonna meet her very own end”, a passerby told me.


“Oh come on! They are headed to the stake and she definitely deserves it”, added another female with a mouth full of visceral hatred for her.


Why would I remain watching her among all those thousands of voices filled with such an intense bloodthirst? My best choice was to go after that woman. It would be convenient to find out what had led her to such a terrible destiny or see if I still had a chance to free her and run away from that rowdy place. Later on she could spend as much time as needed, feeding me with all the details.


Now you got to be asking this: how is it possible that I could get infatuated with such a girl already, after having seen her for just a few moments?


OK, they turned right, after finding one of the most iconic signs of this city. There it says “Via Draconiana” and I am convinced its name is quite meaningful indeed. At the same time, it does not fit very well with the Germanic or Nordic style of the surrounding buildings.


That poor victim, or that criminal based on people’s vile accusations, is not the most beautiful gal out there, nor can I claim she is high breasted or curvy at all. If talking about her long hair, I got to say it is quite matted indeed. Somehow she still manages to captivate my dull senses, but you gotta have noticed that by now, right?


Curiously, I have never made a remark on her buttocks or her legs. I might only add that her arms had seen better days because now they are quite bruised, her wounds can be found everywhere. It is truly embarrassing to look at her in her current state.


Perhaps they are right when they tell me I am more interested in her appearance than anything else. I hope they are totally wrong about that. Man, I got to be gross…


Right, it is about time that I propose in my heart to go save her from that cruel fate, still, I am not sure if there is something I can do to free her from her captors. It seems to me that it is a titanic task for a single guy, especially one like yours truly…


“Keep moving if that’s what you really wanna do!”, another voice uttered but for some reason I could not recognize it at once.


I do think I am the best guy here to accompany a girl like her. I mean, I gotta be kind of handsome due to the fact that so far no woman has ever made funny faces after staring at me. Except for those days when my hair was as messy as my latest target’s, he, he. Add to that list that I practically have got a slim body.


“I thought I had been crystal clear!”, that unknown guy yelled at me once again, not showing me any kind of consideration.


He got a point here, I have been hesitating a lot lately. I spend more time thinking than acting. That should be a bad trait for a guy like me, isn’t it true? I gotta get moving…


“That guy is beyond any repair”, explained a middle aged man. “It doesn’t matter how many times I tell him to take his sacks away, he never listens to me.”


Alright, he was not addressing me at all. It has been my fault, nobody else’s. If I were not still here like a statue, waiting for reactions like that guy’s, I would not be wasting my time thinking that everything is spinning around me or my prey. Fine, she is no bird in a cage, at least not in a literal sense.


“There he goes after just another tart!”, a lady shouted aloud.


“Erik has always been one of those fools that believe their latest target is their true love”, a neighbor responded as if she knew me ever since I was a little kid.


I am not anything the like, although I must admit I have been tailgating here for several cobblestone streets. I have not even noticed I had walked round a city without taking a single break. Nonetheless, I have not gotten any closer to her. They always stay ahead of your servitor. How do they do that!?


“It’s about time to burn up that darn witch like charcoal”, a disrespectful old timer commented in regards of my most recent obsession.


“Bravo! That evil girl won’t curse us anymore…”, asserted another neighbor until he unexpectedly forgot what he was about to tell next.


Then those insensitive brutes dare to claim she is some sort of witch. It is alright, we already know how ignorant guys get confused after meeting those people with unique or special skills. No matter how long they have been cultivated for generations, they are not recognized for all the time and effort spent learning such amazing things. I do believe I can relate to her way better than anybody else!


It looks quite odd. If they badly pretended to take her to the stake, how is it possible they have not reached such a place after walking around the whole city? She should have no strength left in her bruised body by now!


“What a fuss!”, another local youngster insulted me then. “Right now she gotta be glad that she’s able to go for a walk after spending a long time rotting in a forgotten dungeon.


Yeah, it was self evident that her clothes and her limbs belonged to a poor victim only. There is no other way to clear up that submissive attitude of hers. By the time she left that foul smelling cell, she had already been domesticated.


Err, what should I do if I get close to her and notice she smells terrible like no other woman ever has? I gotta be standing at a crossroad! I might take some wooden clamp just in case I am right about that and her enticing smell could knock me down otherwise.


“Once again that olive-skinned watches how that stinky witch passes by and isn’t brave enough as to do something about it”, remarked a second middle aged man that seemingly looks like an acquaintance of mine.


“I dunno what you’re talking about”, I told him while removing his hand from my shoulder.


“As if I didn’t know you very well, Erik the Faint-Hearted!”, that imbecile complained showing me no respect, as if he had lost all common sense.


“This gotta be the twentieth time that you take this unending walk around the streets without ever reaching her a single time!”, declared that vile liar without thinking it twice.


I did not thought I should have ever reacted then. Even if I am a strong willed guy, this time I could not refrain from turning around without any hesitation. My frustration for not helping her moved my lips at will all of sudden.


“It’s very clear to me that your reasoning is as faulty as my very own haircut, idiot!”, I replied showing there was no decency left in my troubled mind.


“As you wish, your Majesty, Erik the Faint-Hearted!”, exclaimed that irreverent moron with an evil and dark smirk on his stupid face.


It is very curious, extremely curious indeed. It feels like I could already listen to the crackling flames, longing for consuming firewood as well as that poor woman at any time. When did we ever get to the central plaza? Has the market been demolished without warning? I cannot find it anywhere around.


I suppose I can see another sign up there. We are at the Strata Amarga. Again I got to accept that they truly know how to pick the best route for their sorrowful parade.


The reason behind her long travail was they did not want to show her any mercy because they could not execute her in the presence of their beloved public. I am referring to the mayor’s special guests who refused to presence the slay of such a “spoiled beast”, as they considered that it was too vulgar for their refined taste.


Even so they still wanted to watch her being turned into ashes, treated like a mere fatling destined to be sacrificed for the greater cause. How despicable they are!


“What are you complaining about now?”, that hateful guy inquired of me. “It’s a thousand year long tradition of theirs and they don’t see why they’d ever stop it. Even less like they’ll do it for an imbecile, the biggest coward in history. It’s about time you give up on her.”


“I’ll never do that and you know it very well!” I cried out loud, as if that fire had entered my lungs back then.


What I am about to tell you is going to sound weird indeed. Nonetheless, I am suddenly in my bed. I have recently waken up as I could confirm by touching my face with my right hand. There was some saliva left on my cheek and I did not know about that. That weird dream left me astonished. At least that is what those bizarre characters living in my crazy mind would have ever noticed.


“And did you ever get up, oh faint-hearted Erik?”, a not so sweet voice was asking me then.


“But I’m not a coward at all, my dear lady”, I cleared up at once.


“Oh please! What did you dream about this time?”, she interrogated me like a real pro.


“Well, I did have a vivid dream or the like and it’s not about to happen in real life any time soon just because the lady’s asked me about it”, I threw in without hesitation.


“It’d have been better if you could not remember it but I knew it because I had always been there, a few hundred steps away from you”, affirmed the unknown girl as if she were a relative of mine.


Once my sleepy eyes got used to the sunlight, I could clearly see that young woman standing in my room. I got paralyzed inadvertently. It was her. The very same person but without all those bruises and wounds on her flesh.


“Undoubtedly, what you have seen is my past as well as my destiny”, she confided me her secrets. “That’s what happens when you get involved in the life of a woman after she has been and will be accused of committing the worst atrocity ever, casting spells like any good witch does. At least everybody says so.


Miraculously, I could talk to her without issues, although I cannot recall how did I get there. Without a formal explanation, I was sitting on my comfy bed with tender sheets. I also had a wooden nightstand with two shelves on my right. My beloved captive was wearing the typical medieval maid’s outfit, and she was right there to pull me out of that tempting bed.


“You might mean this time, at least this time, I managed to reach you, ¿ain’t I right, my sad sweetheart?”, I quickly questioned her regardless of her feelings.


“Reaching me you say? It’s been dumb luck, although I gotta admit you’re no longer a newbie…” the root cause of my insomnia revealed.


“I don’t understand your obsession with self-immolation”, I scolded her out of deep my concern for her.


“Depends, for some people it’s immolation while others would call it immolation for me and a punishment for the rest of you”, my mortal delight delved into it.


Once I could react back after such terrible news, I was back in the restaurant, sitting at the table; about to get a snack.


I limited myself to taste that awful defeat of mine, while biting a not so juicy meat at a very slow pace. Later I sensed the sight of someone that knew everything about me. That woman was passing by and that tremendous uneasiness did not allow my whole body to ignore her.


After the whole walk around, I cannot remember what is the color of her eyes and I have no explanation on that.


Yes, I ran after her once again.


Shocked To be continued...
]]> <![CDATA[Saddening Rain]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8462.html Mon, 31 Jan 2022 04:37:48 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8462.html
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Saddening Rain

Written by Kyonides

Chapter One

Arrival

Finally moving in. Nothing seems to be fun. Tomorrow will be my first day working as a patroller. A-ma-zing indeed. I, Brice Rockwell, have been wondering why I had ever thought that being a cop would be exciting, challenging or even desirable at all.


Modern small towns without cultural identity like Red Creek are boring to death, in my humble opinion. I would not be falling asleep if anybody, just anybody, suddenly showed up to make me change my mind. Besides the semi-rural environment, lots of trees, pollen and my momentary allergies, there is no such thing as a real threat to the general population. That is all I can say about this terrible place.


Yeah, you might be right if you would ever tell me that this forgotten town is doing me a favor. Hell, it will let me pay my bills so I guess I should be grateful and thank Amelia Hiss for telling me about enrolling in the police academy.


Hell, I better be honest with you right now. I do hate Amelia. That female is nothing but a true bratty girl, and yet, she managed to become a cop about the same time I did. I cannot even fathom how it is possible for such a disastrous brunette to get a job as an officer.


You could say she is sort of high breasted and that would be pretty much all the good things you can say about her. Well, perhaps I should also admit that I have pinched her buttocks once and they felt slightly good, full of muscles but still decent. Yet, she is not as tall as I expected when my friend Randolph told me about her. It got to be her hazel eyes what caught me off guard soon after meeting her that fateful evening in the closest big city…


Perhaps I should have listened to Randolph’s advice and not ever sleep with her. Yes, you are right. It is too late for your servitor. Not long after that kind of blind date, I spent a whole weekend at a wooden cabin lost in the midst of the wilderness. Guess who was my roommate there. And I loved hugging her in the evening while we were sitting on the porch, listening to the wind waving the treetops and also some owl. Perhaps one of them was waiting for a mate to join him!


At the same time I got to add that it was better than pretending to be a true Jägermeister that could take down lots of bears and drink whole bottles of such a drink at night. Alone. Full of bitterness. So I had to invite her no matter what my friend would tell me next week after learning all about it. She and her smooth skin got to be a lot better than listening to those nasty crickets and their unnerving melody all night long, right?


Some curious side note, Amelia certainly loves hunting. That freaky brunette even brought along her very own rifle! I guess she is not as bad as I first thought. Fine, she does not mean burping if she ever feels the need…


My Surprise Welcome Party?


Wait a second… My apartment’s key is not working, the door will not open no matter what I do. Is the lock broken? After we both spent hours looking for such a place I seriously doubt we had ever missed such a detail. Now that I think about it, there was no sign that the landlady would not take care of the repairs. In fact, she was busy waiting for a repairman to show up at any time to fix something on the next floor.


No, this is different. The lock’s brand does not match my keys’ at all. They even sport totally different logos! Darn landlady! That woman should have told me about any recent housebreaking events in the neighborhood, yet, she conveniently changed the topic whenever we could get close to such sensitive issues.


I am a cop, ain’t I? What am I waiting for? Do I really need some stupid backup only to deal with some insignificant crook? Of course not! As a trained officer I can deal and will certainly deal with this kind of situations at any moment.


Right, I ended up paying that darn lady a visit to ask her about the lock. Stop it! Do not ever think I am a coward! It just happens that I had no firearm. Even if I ever did, it would have remained in my apartment for I was off duty after all. She got to answer a few questions or else…


“No, sir!” Julia the landlady told me. “Why would I ever replace your lock out of the blue? The only thing I could promise you would be to call SFJ to come down and do the repairs for you.”


You might not know this but the repairman I have told you about a while ago is called SFJ by pretty much everybody around. It stands for Slick Fingers Jack. Yeah, I know. It is a terrible nickname and I would deeply hate the guy that came up with such a nonsense in the first place.


What makes it interesting is that I got a call that abruptly interrupted my improvised interrogatory. It got to be important or somebody is going to die tonight.


“Man, I finally recalled that guy’s name!” my contact Hugh asserted. “It’s Slick Fingers Jack. He’s the guy that had spent ten years in prison for the robbery. People say he’s truly reformed, still, I can’t buy that story at all. There’s always something fishy about that lowlife.”


I could not help myself but make an astounding revelation then, “Great, Hugh! Now guess who’s the landlady’s henchman in charge of all the repairs at my building.”


“Huh? Brice, you’re kidding me, right?” Hugh inquired of me.


“By the way, you might wanna also know that my lock has been replaced without notice while I was buying some groceries.”


“Oh man! I’ve told you to stop drinking that s-” he complained before I could interrupt him.


“So what if I drink some birch beer once in a while, man?” I asked him in response.


“Fine. Since you’re a cop I suppose you don’t feel like calling some colleagues to lend you a hand there” he correctly guessed at that moment.


“See ya, Hugh! Gotta go break some darn bones and be sure I’ll enjoy it” I simply confessed over the phone.


“No matter what you say, I’ll make sure you get some decent backup in a timely fashion, Brice” my wannabe best friend let me know before hanging up.


Climbing up the stairs seemed to be a tedious task. That lowlife deserved to be slashed like Jason’s victims! How dare he carelessly break into a cop’s apartment!? It got to be the most heinous crime in human history ever! He is gonna pay for what he has done. And that bastard will lose all fingers and toes in the process or I will stop calling myself Brice the patroller forever.


While getting close to the brown door, I was feeling itchy all of sudden. Hmph. There was a reason behind it after all. The door is now partially open. He could have run away with ease while I was distracted by that corrupt landlady and my unexpected phone call. We will see.


I stuck to the wall like a fly and picked the best moment to storm into my own apartment.


How disappointing! There was nobody but a little girl.


“So my cute intruder, what’s your name?” I questioned her in no time.


The kiddo replied with a smirk on her darn face, “They call me Melanie, old man.”


How dare such a little kid tell me I am an old man!? ME!? And old man? Damn it! I am just a young cop!

To be continued... Shocked
]]>
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Saddening Rain

Written by Kyonides

Chapter One

Arrival

Finally moving in. Nothing seems to be fun. Tomorrow will be my first day working as a patroller. A-ma-zing indeed. I, Brice Rockwell, have been wondering why I had ever thought that being a cop would be exciting, challenging or even desirable at all.


Modern small towns without cultural identity like Red Creek are boring to death, in my humble opinion. I would not be falling asleep if anybody, just anybody, suddenly showed up to make me change my mind. Besides the semi-rural environment, lots of trees, pollen and my momentary allergies, there is no such thing as a real threat to the general population. That is all I can say about this terrible place.


Yeah, you might be right if you would ever tell me that this forgotten town is doing me a favor. Hell, it will let me pay my bills so I guess I should be grateful and thank Amelia Hiss for telling me about enrolling in the police academy.


Hell, I better be honest with you right now. I do hate Amelia. That female is nothing but a true bratty girl, and yet, she managed to become a cop about the same time I did. I cannot even fathom how it is possible for such a disastrous brunette to get a job as an officer.


You could say she is sort of high breasted and that would be pretty much all the good things you can say about her. Well, perhaps I should also admit that I have pinched her buttocks once and they felt slightly good, full of muscles but still decent. Yet, she is not as tall as I expected when my friend Randolph told me about her. It got to be her hazel eyes what caught me off guard soon after meeting her that fateful evening in the closest big city…


Perhaps I should have listened to Randolph’s advice and not ever sleep with her. Yes, you are right. It is too late for your servitor. Not long after that kind of blind date, I spent a whole weekend at a wooden cabin lost in the midst of the wilderness. Guess who was my roommate there. And I loved hugging her in the evening while we were sitting on the porch, listening to the wind waving the treetops and also some owl. Perhaps one of them was waiting for a mate to join him!


At the same time I got to add that it was better than pretending to be a true Jägermeister that could take down lots of bears and drink whole bottles of such a drink at night. Alone. Full of bitterness. So I had to invite her no matter what my friend would tell me next week after learning all about it. She and her smooth skin got to be a lot better than listening to those nasty crickets and their unnerving melody all night long, right?


Some curious side note, Amelia certainly loves hunting. That freaky brunette even brought along her very own rifle! I guess she is not as bad as I first thought. Fine, she does not mean burping if she ever feels the need…


My Surprise Welcome Party?


Wait a second… My apartment’s key is not working, the door will not open no matter what I do. Is the lock broken? After we both spent hours looking for such a place I seriously doubt we had ever missed such a detail. Now that I think about it, there was no sign that the landlady would not take care of the repairs. In fact, she was busy waiting for a repairman to show up at any time to fix something on the next floor.


No, this is different. The lock’s brand does not match my keys’ at all. They even sport totally different logos! Darn landlady! That woman should have told me about any recent housebreaking events in the neighborhood, yet, she conveniently changed the topic whenever we could get close to such sensitive issues.


I am a cop, ain’t I? What am I waiting for? Do I really need some stupid backup only to deal with some insignificant crook? Of course not! As a trained officer I can deal and will certainly deal with this kind of situations at any moment.


Right, I ended up paying that darn lady a visit to ask her about the lock. Stop it! Do not ever think I am a coward! It just happens that I had no firearm. Even if I ever did, it would have remained in my apartment for I was off duty after all. She got to answer a few questions or else…


“No, sir!” Julia the landlady told me. “Why would I ever replace your lock out of the blue? The only thing I could promise you would be to call SFJ to come down and do the repairs for you.”


You might not know this but the repairman I have told you about a while ago is called SFJ by pretty much everybody around. It stands for Slick Fingers Jack. Yeah, I know. It is a terrible nickname and I would deeply hate the guy that came up with such a nonsense in the first place.


What makes it interesting is that I got a call that abruptly interrupted my improvised interrogatory. It got to be important or somebody is going to die tonight.


“Man, I finally recalled that guy’s name!” my contact Hugh asserted. “It’s Slick Fingers Jack. He’s the guy that had spent ten years in prison for the robbery. People say he’s truly reformed, still, I can’t buy that story at all. There’s always something fishy about that lowlife.”


I could not help myself but make an astounding revelation then, “Great, Hugh! Now guess who’s the landlady’s henchman in charge of all the repairs at my building.”


“Huh? Brice, you’re kidding me, right?” Hugh inquired of me.


“By the way, you might wanna also know that my lock has been replaced without notice while I was buying some groceries.”


“Oh man! I’ve told you to stop drinking that s-” he complained before I could interrupt him.


“So what if I drink some birch beer once in a while, man?” I asked him in response.


“Fine. Since you’re a cop I suppose you don’t feel like calling some colleagues to lend you a hand there” he correctly guessed at that moment.


“See ya, Hugh! Gotta go break some darn bones and be sure I’ll enjoy it” I simply confessed over the phone.


“No matter what you say, I’ll make sure you get some decent backup in a timely fashion, Brice” my wannabe best friend let me know before hanging up.


Climbing up the stairs seemed to be a tedious task. That lowlife deserved to be slashed like Jason’s victims! How dare he carelessly break into a cop’s apartment!? It got to be the most heinous crime in human history ever! He is gonna pay for what he has done. And that bastard will lose all fingers and toes in the process or I will stop calling myself Brice the patroller forever.


While getting close to the brown door, I was feeling itchy all of sudden. Hmph. There was a reason behind it after all. The door is now partially open. He could have run away with ease while I was distracted by that corrupt landlady and my unexpected phone call. We will see.


I stuck to the wall like a fly and picked the best moment to storm into my own apartment.


How disappointing! There was nobody but a little girl.


“So my cute intruder, what’s your name?” I questioned her in no time.


The kiddo replied with a smirk on her darn face, “They call me Melanie, old man.”


How dare such a little kid tell me I am an old man!? ME!? And old man? Damn it! I am just a young cop!

To be continued... Shocked
]]> <![CDATA[Kyonides and His One Shots]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8408.html Fri, 19 Nov 2021 04:32:14 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8408.html
For new story updates you can also visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Kyonides and His One Shots

First Story

Schrödinger and His Cat

By Kyonides

“Let me introduce myself, my dear volunteers, I’m Cecil Schrödinger, a well known physics magician. At your service!” the man said at a slow pace.

His assistant Jade soon brought a medium sized box, it seemed to be sort of heavy for a woman. Three youngsters stared at it waiting for the moment when their host would finally reveal his true intentions. By the way, he had a very suspicious smirk on his face.

“Oh, take a look at that box! So what’s next?” a male asked Mr. Schrödinger in no time after he noticed the scientist was about to conduct an experiment of sorts.

“Next? Err, let’s say I first need to explain our current situation in order to give you a real chance to solve this mystery… some day I guess” a nervous Cecil replied.

“Isn’t it obvious by now?” some unknown girl commented after getting close to the box. “He’s gonna check whether or not his cat is alive. Ain’t I right, Mr. Quantum?”

The self proclaimed physics magician did not even open his mouth, he simply preferred to keep smiling like any mad scientist ever would.

“Fine, we gotta find out if the cat is already dead so what are we waiting for, guys?” another male tried to motivate his pals to take action at once.

Cecil had finally assembled his three test subjects, two males and a girl. Unbeknownst to them he had nicknamed them Survivor, Victim and Variable. His assistant chuckled right after reading the weird notes written on his documents.

“Very well, who’s going to open the cage then?” the alleged expert inquired of them.

“Let me do it!” the female Variable yelled while her heart was beating at a fast pace.

She lifted the lid only to find out the terrible truth behind the inhumane experiment.

"Wait a second!” she cried out loud. “It’s empty! How dare you, darn liar!”

His audience felt that he simply played mind games and were about to hit him really hard indeed. Even the assistant was afraid of them. For his very own sake, he had to do something and be fast.

“Hold on!” he commanded. “Is it really empty? Why don’t you double check it first, my dear?”

The girl unwillingly listened to him and took a second look at the cage. What a surprise! He was right after all for there was a note inside. It explained how he hates cats so there was no possibility he would get close to such a pesky animal.

“Now it’s about time I reveal what has actually transpired here, my beloved audience” the trickster uttered as if there was a big secret they completely ignored.

By waving his hand, he informed his assistant she had to bring his hidden notes on the weird experiment. There were a total of three sets of notes, as well as three lists of participants with their corresponding signatures stamped on them. For unknown reasons he still kept their strange nicknames a top secret taking Jade by surprise.

“Why don’t you read the names of the partakers?” Cecil suggested. “You might find it very intriguing indeed.”

Once again he had impressed them like nobody else ever could in their whole lives. How could they have opened the cage three times without ever thinking a deja vù was taking place right then. Still, they had signed the sheets three times in a row.

“Let me tell you what actually happened here, my young friends” Mr. Schrödinger spoke. “The other two notes and lists don’t belong to this reality at all. I mean, they came from different realities where other versions of yourselves actually live their lives as if nothing weird had ever happened until they paid a visit to our humble stand.”

“But… how do you explain that all three notes handle about a different excuse why you’ve never caught a cat for this nonsensical experiment?” the girl exploded in disbelief.

“That’s an easy one indeed!” the so called scientist stated. “There are three different physics magicians in these interconnected worlds and only your servitor is allergic to cats. Actually I was totally unaware of this fact till last month where Patches the cat princess cared to visit this busy man at my secret lab. I’ve gotten a terrible rash for a couple of weeks, you know.”

“OK, forget about that and tell us what’s the real purpose of this farce is and do it quickly!” the first male ordered with his fiery eyes.

“My, my!” he mumbled before continuing. “It’s not hard to understand at all, I’ve just proven how it’s impossible to ever find a dead cat or a living bag of fleas inside. The whole theory is a big lie, yet, you wouldn’t believe me if I hadn’t fooled you before. My sincere apologies, my dear friends.”

“You bast-” the second male got interrupted.

“Wait a moment, my dear spectator!” Mr. Schrödinger shouted at once. “My intentions were good from the very beginning for I only wanted you to learn how you can detect a lie in no time: by going straight to the source! Once you’ve done that, there’s no way a school teacher or even a government can fool you ever again.”

“Because our instincts would quickly realize they’re playing a prank on us, I guess” the first male explained all of sudden.

“Bingo, my dear pupil! You got it right!” Cecil praised his best student in public.

After everybody else had left the fair, the physics magician opened the door of his gray van. He picked some strange necklace and could not stop glaring at it like a mad man.

“I couldn’t have made it without you, my shiny black memento!” the absorbed guy thanked it for its precious help then. “You’re truly are a powerful artifact indeed!”

“Boss, did you say anything? I couldn’t hear you because of all that nasty noise” his beautiful assistant told him out of the blue.

The End Happy with a sweat
]]>
For new story updates you can also visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Kyonides and His One Shots

First Story

Schrödinger and His Cat

By Kyonides

“Let me introduce myself, my dear volunteers, I’m Cecil Schrödinger, a well known physics magician. At your service!” the man said at a slow pace.

His assistant Jade soon brought a medium sized box, it seemed to be sort of heavy for a woman. Three youngsters stared at it waiting for the moment when their host would finally reveal his true intentions. By the way, he had a very suspicious smirk on his face.

“Oh, take a look at that box! So what’s next?” a male asked Mr. Schrödinger in no time after he noticed the scientist was about to conduct an experiment of sorts.

“Next? Err, let’s say I first need to explain our current situation in order to give you a real chance to solve this mystery… some day I guess” a nervous Cecil replied.

“Isn’t it obvious by now?” some unknown girl commented after getting close to the box. “He’s gonna check whether or not his cat is alive. Ain’t I right, Mr. Quantum?”

The self proclaimed physics magician did not even open his mouth, he simply preferred to keep smiling like any mad scientist ever would.

“Fine, we gotta find out if the cat is already dead so what are we waiting for, guys?” another male tried to motivate his pals to take action at once.

Cecil had finally assembled his three test subjects, two males and a girl. Unbeknownst to them he had nicknamed them Survivor, Victim and Variable. His assistant chuckled right after reading the weird notes written on his documents.

“Very well, who’s going to open the cage then?” the alleged expert inquired of them.

“Let me do it!” the female Variable yelled while her heart was beating at a fast pace.

She lifted the lid only to find out the terrible truth behind the inhumane experiment.

"Wait a second!” she cried out loud. “It’s empty! How dare you, darn liar!”

His audience felt that he simply played mind games and were about to hit him really hard indeed. Even the assistant was afraid of them. For his very own sake, he had to do something and be fast.

“Hold on!” he commanded. “Is it really empty? Why don’t you double check it first, my dear?”

The girl unwillingly listened to him and took a second look at the cage. What a surprise! He was right after all for there was a note inside. It explained how he hates cats so there was no possibility he would get close to such a pesky animal.

“Now it’s about time I reveal what has actually transpired here, my beloved audience” the trickster uttered as if there was a big secret they completely ignored.

By waving his hand, he informed his assistant she had to bring his hidden notes on the weird experiment. There were a total of three sets of notes, as well as three lists of participants with their corresponding signatures stamped on them. For unknown reasons he still kept their strange nicknames a top secret taking Jade by surprise.

“Why don’t you read the names of the partakers?” Cecil suggested. “You might find it very intriguing indeed.”

Once again he had impressed them like nobody else ever could in their whole lives. How could they have opened the cage three times without ever thinking a deja vù was taking place right then. Still, they had signed the sheets three times in a row.

“Let me tell you what actually happened here, my young friends” Mr. Schrödinger spoke. “The other two notes and lists don’t belong to this reality at all. I mean, they came from different realities where other versions of yourselves actually live their lives as if nothing weird had ever happened until they paid a visit to our humble stand.”

“But… how do you explain that all three notes handle about a different excuse why you’ve never caught a cat for this nonsensical experiment?” the girl exploded in disbelief.

“That’s an easy one indeed!” the so called scientist stated. “There are three different physics magicians in these interconnected worlds and only your servitor is allergic to cats. Actually I was totally unaware of this fact till last month where Patches the cat princess cared to visit this busy man at my secret lab. I’ve gotten a terrible rash for a couple of weeks, you know.”

“OK, forget about that and tell us what’s the real purpose of this farce is and do it quickly!” the first male ordered with his fiery eyes.

“My, my!” he mumbled before continuing. “It’s not hard to understand at all, I’ve just proven how it’s impossible to ever find a dead cat or a living bag of fleas inside. The whole theory is a big lie, yet, you wouldn’t believe me if I hadn’t fooled you before. My sincere apologies, my dear friends.”

“You bast-” the second male got interrupted.

“Wait a moment, my dear spectator!” Mr. Schrödinger shouted at once. “My intentions were good from the very beginning for I only wanted you to learn how you can detect a lie in no time: by going straight to the source! Once you’ve done that, there’s no way a school teacher or even a government can fool you ever again.”

“Because our instincts would quickly realize they’re playing a prank on us, I guess” the first male explained all of sudden.

“Bingo, my dear pupil! You got it right!” Cecil praised his best student in public.

After everybody else had left the fair, the physics magician opened the door of his gray van. He picked some strange necklace and could not stop glaring at it like a mad man.

“I couldn’t have made it without you, my shiny black memento!” the absorbed guy thanked it for its precious help then. “You’re truly are a powerful artifact indeed!”

“Boss, did you say anything? I couldn’t hear you because of all that nasty noise” his beautiful assistant told him out of the blue.

The End Happy with a sweat
]]> <![CDATA[The Ghost In The Machine - Short Story]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8406.html Wed, 17 Nov 2021 13:13:10 +0000 Mike_Everley]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8406.html The Ghost In The Machine

"Like all true terror, it started with the best of intentions".

Smythe looked at the hard yellow letters he had voiced into the terminal. They flickered on the green fluorescence, caught for a moment in electronic permanence. He read them quickly, with an expert eye, before continuing to speak.

"The device was intended to capture the wild, exotic fantasies from deep in the labyrinths of the mind, to intensify them and to project them as holograms into the world. Freud would have been delighted. Confronted by the creatures of their own Id’s, patients would have been cured by the thousands. But it didn't work out that way. Did it ever?"

Smythe stretched back in the specially designed chair, the input cursor pulsing a sharp crimson square, urging his voice to continue. To provide the input which gave the terminal meaning. Soon the mellow, female voice, from deep inside the circuitry would begin its series of reminders.

"User 10030A, have you more to add?"

The interior of the newsroom was almost devoid of people. Another scribe sat in a far corner inputting into an identical machine.

"Funny." Smythe thought. "How the word 'scribe' had remained. No journalist ever uses a pad or pencil these days. The portable voice-activated laptops had seen to that. Yet, the very word 'scribe' had a touch of the mysterious about it that lingered from the time when written words still had importance”.

Smythe shook involuntarily, as if a ghost from deep within his sub-conscious had stirred.

"Too many ghosts!" He muttered. The other scribe glanced up from his distant machine, his face lit by the faint green glow. Smythe hurried on with his work.

"In the beginning the images were seen as novelties". Smythe spoke quietly. Not wishing to be caught and docked a week’s food tokens for illegal usage. Not that the tokens amounted to anything, they were another leftover from before the days of Info-Tech. Now credits and debits were automatically recorded on your individual data file, along with your character profile and other information the State considered important. In the main your account was in the red and the only organisation that benefited was the Giant Euro-Bank.

"People would deliberately create figures to frighten themselves and others. Flash laser etched monsters onto the night sky with brief half-lives measured in seconds. The age of the instant scare had dawned."

In the stillness of the room the letters on the screen held an almost religious significance. Within the temple of glass they blazed in yellow fire.

"Got a light?"

Smythe jumped. Caught by the suddenness of the voice at his elbow. Fear crept into his eyes as he thought of the incriminating words. But the scribe hadn’t noticed. Or hadn’t cared. He was more concerned with the cigarette that hung loosely from his lips. Smythe fumbled in his pockets and produced the lighter. He noticed his finger shake as it pressed the ignition and the pulse of energy burst free. The scribe was oblivious. His eyes seemed glazed over. Perhaps he had smoked too many already.

Smythe watched the scribe shuffle back across the empty office. Row after row of screens sat in darkness. Lacking input they waited in hibernation for the spring voice that would activate them. He spoke softly. Measuring his words against the echoing stillness, almost afraid to disturb the quiet.

"Then came the first of the thought-beasts. Unexpected, they crawled from the mental sewers. Part men, part beasts they roamed the streets and were even more dangerous being half recognised from dreams. Yet, worse was to follow. The unconscious grew clever and aware of this bridge to the other world, a world where flesh and blood was real and not thin with images. Thought-beasts were detectable and their half-lives easily controlled. No one knew when the first deceptives arrived. They were so difficult to distinguish. Yet, within their shell lurked the darkest thoughts of all."

Smythe became aware of a sense of unbearable heat. Sweat broke on his brow and ran in rivers down his parched skin. He felt a stab of fear.

"User 10030A, have you more to add?"

There was a faint hush of pneumatic as the other scribe left the room. He was old Smythe thought, old and slightly hunched. Too weak to be dangerous, but you never knew. The deceptives took many forms. Selected them from the coat hangers of the mind and tried them on for size. You never knew if anyone, or anything, was what it seemed. Only the smell of menace gave you a clue, that rich, indulgent smell that lingered for a moment on the memory and was gone. Time was running short. Smythe knew that, panic gripped him with icy fingers. He felt strangely thinner, less substantial.

"But, the mind is a complex web of opposites held in balance, force and resistance, love and hate, each has its counterpart its own equal." Smythe was rushing now. His skin was rapidly losing colour and the verdant light seemed to shine right through him and to create a luminous sheen within his very body.

"For every movement there is an equal and opposite movement, for every thought an equal and opposite thought. In the past men called these good and evil, in reality they were merely possibilities, ideas that could be enacted upon that 'other stage. But now the thoughts themselves were loose. Free to create their own consequences."

Smythe sensed a sound from beyond the sealed door. Had they come for him? Was there still time? He spoke quickly now, aware of the urgency and need to finish.

"The darker thoughts had created their own reality, twisted shapes that crawled slug-like through the streets, their eyes black and filled with an emptiness that drew everything, including the very light, into the vast nothingness within. Behind they left a destruction that was complete. Not even a ruin remained to remind others of what had been. An empty desert marked only by a trail of green slime and the stench of death. But, there where other thoughts, pure thoughts that lacked the desire to possess and to gain physical reality. These thoughts too had waited and crossed the bridge from possibility to potential. In fact, these thoughts had prompted man to create the bridge in the first place. All had followed their carefully tailored plan."

The white flecks of bone shone through the translucent skin on Smythe’s wrist as he spoke. It was if the green light from the screen was dissolving him as he sat in its glare, as if, through his words, he was shedding his form and entering the very heart of the machine.

"We had planned it all carefully. Man had reached the final stage in his evolutionary path. So, through him, we created the computers that we could inhabit and the device to make the transfer possible. We, who had guided man from the slime of his past to the cities he now occupied, had freed him of the ugly thoughts that lived within and also of ourselves. With us safe within the myriad electronic and biological networks of the computers, and their linked circuits, and his darker thoughts loose on the streets, Man was left an empty husk. Mud we found him and to mud he would return. There was an element of universal justice in that. The justice of pure mathematics and rigorous logic that bind the universe together."

A hiss of air punctured the room as the old scribe returned. He caught faintly the green illusion of shape as the motes of dust shimmered in the air around where Smythe had sat forming the recollection of what had once been a man. Then his eyes cleared and only the yellow words flickering on the screen shared the office with him. He turned once more to his own work, uneasy in his mind. But, before he began the soft, female voice from far behind him muttered almost inaudibly.

"User 10030A, have you more to add?"]]> The Ghost In The Machine

"Like all true terror, it started with the best of intentions".

Smythe looked at the hard yellow letters he had voiced into the terminal. They flickered on the green fluorescence, caught for a moment in electronic permanence. He read them quickly, with an expert eye, before continuing to speak.

"The device was intended to capture the wild, exotic fantasies from deep in the labyrinths of the mind, to intensify them and to project them as holograms into the world. Freud would have been delighted. Confronted by the creatures of their own Id’s, patients would have been cured by the thousands. But it didn't work out that way. Did it ever?"

Smythe stretched back in the specially designed chair, the input cursor pulsing a sharp crimson square, urging his voice to continue. To provide the input which gave the terminal meaning. Soon the mellow, female voice, from deep inside the circuitry would begin its series of reminders.

"User 10030A, have you more to add?"

The interior of the newsroom was almost devoid of people. Another scribe sat in a far corner inputting into an identical machine.

"Funny." Smythe thought. "How the word 'scribe' had remained. No journalist ever uses a pad or pencil these days. The portable voice-activated laptops had seen to that. Yet, the very word 'scribe' had a touch of the mysterious about it that lingered from the time when written words still had importance”.

Smythe shook involuntarily, as if a ghost from deep within his sub-conscious had stirred.

"Too many ghosts!" He muttered. The other scribe glanced up from his distant machine, his face lit by the faint green glow. Smythe hurried on with his work.

"In the beginning the images were seen as novelties". Smythe spoke quietly. Not wishing to be caught and docked a week’s food tokens for illegal usage. Not that the tokens amounted to anything, they were another leftover from before the days of Info-Tech. Now credits and debits were automatically recorded on your individual data file, along with your character profile and other information the State considered important. In the main your account was in the red and the only organisation that benefited was the Giant Euro-Bank.

"People would deliberately create figures to frighten themselves and others. Flash laser etched monsters onto the night sky with brief half-lives measured in seconds. The age of the instant scare had dawned."

In the stillness of the room the letters on the screen held an almost religious significance. Within the temple of glass they blazed in yellow fire.

"Got a light?"

Smythe jumped. Caught by the suddenness of the voice at his elbow. Fear crept into his eyes as he thought of the incriminating words. But the scribe hadn’t noticed. Or hadn’t cared. He was more concerned with the cigarette that hung loosely from his lips. Smythe fumbled in his pockets and produced the lighter. He noticed his finger shake as it pressed the ignition and the pulse of energy burst free. The scribe was oblivious. His eyes seemed glazed over. Perhaps he had smoked too many already.

Smythe watched the scribe shuffle back across the empty office. Row after row of screens sat in darkness. Lacking input they waited in hibernation for the spring voice that would activate them. He spoke softly. Measuring his words against the echoing stillness, almost afraid to disturb the quiet.

"Then came the first of the thought-beasts. Unexpected, they crawled from the mental sewers. Part men, part beasts they roamed the streets and were even more dangerous being half recognised from dreams. Yet, worse was to follow. The unconscious grew clever and aware of this bridge to the other world, a world where flesh and blood was real and not thin with images. Thought-beasts were detectable and their half-lives easily controlled. No one knew when the first deceptives arrived. They were so difficult to distinguish. Yet, within their shell lurked the darkest thoughts of all."

Smythe became aware of a sense of unbearable heat. Sweat broke on his brow and ran in rivers down his parched skin. He felt a stab of fear.

"User 10030A, have you more to add?"

There was a faint hush of pneumatic as the other scribe left the room. He was old Smythe thought, old and slightly hunched. Too weak to be dangerous, but you never knew. The deceptives took many forms. Selected them from the coat hangers of the mind and tried them on for size. You never knew if anyone, or anything, was what it seemed. Only the smell of menace gave you a clue, that rich, indulgent smell that lingered for a moment on the memory and was gone. Time was running short. Smythe knew that, panic gripped him with icy fingers. He felt strangely thinner, less substantial.

"But, the mind is a complex web of opposites held in balance, force and resistance, love and hate, each has its counterpart its own equal." Smythe was rushing now. His skin was rapidly losing colour and the verdant light seemed to shine right through him and to create a luminous sheen within his very body.

"For every movement there is an equal and opposite movement, for every thought an equal and opposite thought. In the past men called these good and evil, in reality they were merely possibilities, ideas that could be enacted upon that 'other stage. But now the thoughts themselves were loose. Free to create their own consequences."

Smythe sensed a sound from beyond the sealed door. Had they come for him? Was there still time? He spoke quickly now, aware of the urgency and need to finish.

"The darker thoughts had created their own reality, twisted shapes that crawled slug-like through the streets, their eyes black and filled with an emptiness that drew everything, including the very light, into the vast nothingness within. Behind they left a destruction that was complete. Not even a ruin remained to remind others of what had been. An empty desert marked only by a trail of green slime and the stench of death. But, there where other thoughts, pure thoughts that lacked the desire to possess and to gain physical reality. These thoughts too had waited and crossed the bridge from possibility to potential. In fact, these thoughts had prompted man to create the bridge in the first place. All had followed their carefully tailored plan."

The white flecks of bone shone through the translucent skin on Smythe’s wrist as he spoke. It was if the green light from the screen was dissolving him as he sat in its glare, as if, through his words, he was shedding his form and entering the very heart of the machine.

"We had planned it all carefully. Man had reached the final stage in his evolutionary path. So, through him, we created the computers that we could inhabit and the device to make the transfer possible. We, who had guided man from the slime of his past to the cities he now occupied, had freed him of the ugly thoughts that lived within and also of ourselves. With us safe within the myriad electronic and biological networks of the computers, and their linked circuits, and his darker thoughts loose on the streets, Man was left an empty husk. Mud we found him and to mud he would return. There was an element of universal justice in that. The justice of pure mathematics and rigorous logic that bind the universe together."

A hiss of air punctured the room as the old scribe returned. He caught faintly the green illusion of shape as the motes of dust shimmered in the air around where Smythe had sat forming the recollection of what had once been a man. Then his eyes cleared and only the yellow words flickering on the screen shared the office with him. He turned once more to his own work, uneasy in his mind. But, before he began the soft, female voice from far behind him muttered almost inaudibly.

"User 10030A, have you more to add?"]]> <![CDATA[Remi-chan's Writing Snippets~]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8405.html Tue, 16 Nov 2021 21:36:38 +0000 Remi-chan]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8405.html
From the first draft of the Seraphim Script.
[Image: Sf9NY4W.png]

More to come~]]>
From the first draft of the Seraphim Script.
[Image: Sf9NY4W.png]

More to come~]]> <![CDATA[Two Poems]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8396.html Thu, 04 Nov 2021 13:48:47 +0000 Mike_Everley]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8396.html Grief     

A tree falls silent
In the forgotten forest.
No one hears its fall.


Fendrod Lake
          
Still as liquid mercury
Spilled between trees and hills.

A lake a silence away
From a bombed out city,
Struggling to make sense
Of a world where industry
Is treated as history.

A bird sings high on a branch.
A song of sweet sadness.
Caught forever in the now.]]> Grief     

A tree falls silent
In the forgotten forest.
No one hears its fall.


Fendrod Lake
          
Still as liquid mercury
Spilled between trees and hills.

A lake a silence away
From a bombed out city,
Struggling to make sense
Of a world where industry
Is treated as history.

A bird sings high on a branch.
A song of sweet sadness.
Caught forever in the now.]]> <![CDATA[Looking for a Save Point: The Upcoming War]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8386.html Thu, 21 Oct 2021 02:06:24 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8386.html
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Looking for a Save Point
The Upcoming War

Written by Kyonides


Chapter One


A Bothersome Guilt


This will not be the beginning of a heroic story as usual, my dear readers, because what we have to report this time might disappoint you right away. In fact, it should lead you to think we have become some rogue agents of sorts, and there is only four reasons why we strongly believed this.


We had fallen in some kind of dimensional wormhole and after a long travel we had finally reached another alternate world. This one would soon become the real hell’s kitchen, in our humble opinion at least. How can we be so darn sure about such a thing? Well, perhaps a bulletin board’s poster would explain it to you a lot better than any of us could ever do it so let us take a peek on it now.


“Wanted Dead or Alive!
Melana
alias Meowlana alias Dream Robber alias Sleeping Witch
Bounty: 1,000 crowns”


People were also expected to contact the Sapphire Guards or even Lady Amaranth herself at any time, including under a heavy rain, a terrifying tornado or a blinding snowstorm. Nope, she was not the only party member that had some minuscule issues with the local or royal authorities. Actually all of us we involved in similar situations.


If you could ask any of our pursuers why were they chasing us down madly, they would certainly come up with slightly similar stories on what evil deeds we had done to one of the four kingdoms we had visited unwillingly. In my very personal case, your servitor the brave knight who wields the famous Aster Blade had been compared with an insidious black knight hated by every single citizen of Relishia.


Honestly, I seriously suspect many of us would truly prefer to be looking for the legendary and slippery City of Yore instead of becoming the worst offenders in this world’s recent history. Or were we the perfect scapegoats they badly needed to justify their latest war?


Now that I think about it, I forgot to tell you why our partner Melana was a infamous criminal. It was something very simple to understand, her sudden appearance in the Dusk of Time Hill caused the sixty three year old ruler of the witchdom to go mad and suffer a killer stroke. So we can easily conclude they considered our sleepy girl had committed a regicide of sorts there. Due to her dreaming attitude she was arrested in no time by her army.


Mel had spent about a month in prison, but I really doubt we could say she suffered a lot during her stay in a cell with a comfy pillow and a very warm blanket. Did I forget to add here that her foam was very appealing for a tired and lazy girl like her? No?


So now guess how did she get out of that dungeon. Got no stupid idea!? Well, I cannot blame you for it, who would ever imagine the poor black knight of Relishia would be the culprit according to the middle aged heir to the Moon Witchdom’s throne.


According to that lunatic or a very opportunistic politician, I was conspiring against my very own kingdom when I hired some unknown cult that I knew nothing about. Heck, they had ceased to exist long before both nations were ever founded. So how exactly would I get in touch with the Sky Tower cultists at all?


After half a year investigation and the demises of some good friends of mine, I had learned that they had been blamed for causing an earthquake so massive, so destructive that divided the whole world with the unexpected emergence of new oceans and large lakes in ancient times. Some of them were made of water as usual but there was one that consisted of burning tar that had been active for half a millennium, destroying the magical empire of Babyl.


If you ask me, I deeply doubt that could have taken place for over a month or so. You see, it obviously sounds a lot like a variant of the Babylonian empire to any outsider that carefully listens to it for the very first time.


By the way, the witchdom is supposed to be its spiritual successor. Creepy, is it not, guys?


There was something unusual that got me confused for quite some time. It was the name of one of the soldiers that were assigned to the special army in charge of arresting your servitor, Kyonides. And his name was Sean.


Yeah, I know, at first that should not ring any bell but wait till you learn the next weird fact. He is the very same guy that had become one of the lead characters of my story The Worlds We Have Left Behind. That young man was supposed to be nothing but a game character that managed to show up in a novel by chance, still, he was there, pretty much alive, breathing the same air as everybody else in that darn world. Besides Sean seemed to know quite a bit about us, too. What the heck was happening there, right guys?


“Lights out, scumbags!” an unbearable guard exclaimed out of the blue.


Do you want to know why am I talking about a guard now? He, he, it happens to be a funny story indeed. There was a poor guy out there that one day could not tolerate his aching belly anymore and decided to take a few loaves of bread and some small chunk of cheese home, with the clear intention of paying for them later on, of course. I can also happily state right here and right now that not even the jailer has ever suspected that he might be better known as the new black knight of Relishia. Applause.


You got to wait till next evening to watch me write a new chapter of this strange otherworldly odyssey of ours. Or maybe not, I forgot that I am running out of paper or pelt or whatever this sheet is actually made of.


Before saying bye, bye for tonight, I should reveal one last thing, the black knight’s sword is called the Disaster Blade. What a saddening coincidence, don’t you think?


To be on hiatus! Laughing 
]]>
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Looking for a Save Point
The Upcoming War

Written by Kyonides


Chapter One


A Bothersome Guilt


This will not be the beginning of a heroic story as usual, my dear readers, because what we have to report this time might disappoint you right away. In fact, it should lead you to think we have become some rogue agents of sorts, and there is only four reasons why we strongly believed this.


We had fallen in some kind of dimensional wormhole and after a long travel we had finally reached another alternate world. This one would soon become the real hell’s kitchen, in our humble opinion at least. How can we be so darn sure about such a thing? Well, perhaps a bulletin board’s poster would explain it to you a lot better than any of us could ever do it so let us take a peek on it now.


“Wanted Dead or Alive!
Melana
alias Meowlana alias Dream Robber alias Sleeping Witch
Bounty: 1,000 crowns”


People were also expected to contact the Sapphire Guards or even Lady Amaranth herself at any time, including under a heavy rain, a terrifying tornado or a blinding snowstorm. Nope, she was not the only party member that had some minuscule issues with the local or royal authorities. Actually all of us we involved in similar situations.


If you could ask any of our pursuers why were they chasing us down madly, they would certainly come up with slightly similar stories on what evil deeds we had done to one of the four kingdoms we had visited unwillingly. In my very personal case, your servitor the brave knight who wields the famous Aster Blade had been compared with an insidious black knight hated by every single citizen of Relishia.


Honestly, I seriously suspect many of us would truly prefer to be looking for the legendary and slippery City of Yore instead of becoming the worst offenders in this world’s recent history. Or were we the perfect scapegoats they badly needed to justify their latest war?


Now that I think about it, I forgot to tell you why our partner Melana was a infamous criminal. It was something very simple to understand, her sudden appearance in the Dusk of Time Hill caused the sixty three year old ruler of the witchdom to go mad and suffer a killer stroke. So we can easily conclude they considered our sleepy girl had committed a regicide of sorts there. Due to her dreaming attitude she was arrested in no time by her army.


Mel had spent about a month in prison, but I really doubt we could say she suffered a lot during her stay in a cell with a comfy pillow and a very warm blanket. Did I forget to add here that her foam was very appealing for a tired and lazy girl like her? No?


So now guess how did she get out of that dungeon. Got no stupid idea!? Well, I cannot blame you for it, who would ever imagine the poor black knight of Relishia would be the culprit according to the middle aged heir to the Moon Witchdom’s throne.


According to that lunatic or a very opportunistic politician, I was conspiring against my very own kingdom when I hired some unknown cult that I knew nothing about. Heck, they had ceased to exist long before both nations were ever founded. So how exactly would I get in touch with the Sky Tower cultists at all?


After half a year investigation and the demises of some good friends of mine, I had learned that they had been blamed for causing an earthquake so massive, so destructive that divided the whole world with the unexpected emergence of new oceans and large lakes in ancient times. Some of them were made of water as usual but there was one that consisted of burning tar that had been active for half a millennium, destroying the magical empire of Babyl.


If you ask me, I deeply doubt that could have taken place for over a month or so. You see, it obviously sounds a lot like a variant of the Babylonian empire to any outsider that carefully listens to it for the very first time.


By the way, the witchdom is supposed to be its spiritual successor. Creepy, is it not, guys?


There was something unusual that got me confused for quite some time. It was the name of one of the soldiers that were assigned to the special army in charge of arresting your servitor, Kyonides. And his name was Sean.


Yeah, I know, at first that should not ring any bell but wait till you learn the next weird fact. He is the very same guy that had become one of the lead characters of my story The Worlds We Have Left Behind. That young man was supposed to be nothing but a game character that managed to show up in a novel by chance, still, he was there, pretty much alive, breathing the same air as everybody else in that darn world. Besides Sean seemed to know quite a bit about us, too. What the heck was happening there, right guys?


“Lights out, scumbags!” an unbearable guard exclaimed out of the blue.


Do you want to know why am I talking about a guard now? He, he, it happens to be a funny story indeed. There was a poor guy out there that one day could not tolerate his aching belly anymore and decided to take a few loaves of bread and some small chunk of cheese home, with the clear intention of paying for them later on, of course. I can also happily state right here and right now that not even the jailer has ever suspected that he might be better known as the new black knight of Relishia. Applause.


You got to wait till next evening to watch me write a new chapter of this strange otherworldly odyssey of ours. Or maybe not, I forgot that I am running out of paper or pelt or whatever this sheet is actually made of.


Before saying bye, bye for tonight, I should reveal one last thing, the black knight’s sword is called the Disaster Blade. What a saddening coincidence, don’t you think?


To be on hiatus! Laughing 
]]> <![CDATA[When the Iron Throne came back to Wales]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8347.html Tue, 24 Aug 2021 01:19:42 +0000 Mike_Everley]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8347.html

When I ruled the World.
I wish GRIM would finish the book!

.jpg   FB_IMG_1629767565557.jpg (Size: 72.01 KB / Downloads: 461) ]]>

When I ruled the World.
I wish GRIM would finish the book!

.jpg   FB_IMG_1629767565557.jpg (Size: 72.01 KB / Downloads: 461) ]]> <![CDATA[At The South Bank]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8346.html Mon, 23 Aug 2021 12:16:44 +0000 Mike_Everley]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8346.html
High citadel of culture. 
Cold clad in concrete
and high admission prices. 
Squat, on stilts, a Malay 
village above the Thames.

Here gather high priests,
the social elite, 
to pay homage to the best 
art that money can buy.

Yet, beneath their feet, 
the only music
is canvas slapping
and the crackle of fire.

Here Paddy has built 
a plywood home
in the chill cleavage
of a stone-arched breast.

An art-lover, lost between 
two grey mausoleums, 
falls easy prey
to the creative menace 
of a begging bowl.

Van Gogh, they say, 
was also insane.

Note: The South Bank of the Thames in London houses the main Art Centres.]]>
High citadel of culture. 
Cold clad in concrete
and high admission prices. 
Squat, on stilts, a Malay 
village above the Thames.

Here gather high priests,
the social elite, 
to pay homage to the best 
art that money can buy.

Yet, beneath their feet, 
the only music
is canvas slapping
and the crackle of fire.

Here Paddy has built 
a plywood home
in the chill cleavage
of a stone-arched breast.

An art-lover, lost between 
two grey mausoleums, 
falls easy prey
to the creative menace 
of a begging bowl.

Van Gogh, they say, 
was also insane.

Note: The South Bank of the Thames in London houses the main Art Centres.]]> <![CDATA[Conspiracies Retold]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8314.html Thu, 01 Jul 2021 03:17:02 +0000 kyonides]]> https://www.save-point.org/thread-8314.html
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Conspiracies Retold

by Kyonides


Chapter One

The Magazine and The Board

Did you ever ask you the following question? No, you did not for you usually do not care about silly stuff. You just love to visit the forum and download as many ZIP files, scripts and screenshots as you can find there. Admit it, you are guilty of not partaking in the usual board’s activities.

But what the hell is that question all about? Why do I always forget to formulate it? That is an easy one, folks. I never tell you what it is because you would prefer to ignore it. Even so I will tell you all I know about that fateful event, right here, right now. Get ready for this shocking revelation, guys! Or go buy some popcorn first, if deemed necessary.

I Fred, now working part time for Conspiracies Retold magazine, know nothing about how the board became an actual forum and not just another forgotten bulletin board. Honestly, I was not even a full member back at those early days of the global maker scene. Yet, I have got lots of informants and tons of threads where to search for such vital data. No, I do not expect you to believe me at first, still, you will do it once you overanalyze what I have to tell you today. I am pretty sure you are going to love it.

Let us begin with one of my favorite forum conspiracies now. I got to warn you it is filled with strong pain, an insane dose of sadness and injustice, of course.

Lani’s Destiny

Every so often you might see how she posts a new update on her current project, the very same one she started a few years ago when it was totally free and even included ripoffs here and there. Those were good times indeed, if you do not care about copyright but just game making. I mentioned it because its development has been halted even for months on several occasions. Here is why that ever took place.

Someone close to her, I will not reveal that person’s identity for privacy reasons, had a car crash and was in need of some extra help. That meant Lani had to work like a slave to attend this individual who had been suffering like never before in his or her life. About the rest of our friendly octopus cap wearing lady’s story I can only say you better go ask her all of your questions after you treated her to some chocolate or her favorite pizza.

Now we better focus on that part of her life even she ignored up to this very same day: the reason why she had to endure all of those sorrowful moments.

This is difficult to admit for Kyonides because he does not want to blame anybody else for her sad days that she was too busy as to be able to keep developing her game. And he is right to think it twice. Why would you accuse a friend of yours of committing a heinous crime as that car crash? In his case it is harder than usual due to the curious fact that his little friend cannot defend himself at a   court. You see, we are talking about a minuscule mouse here, namely the adventurous Cheesie James and his crazy anecdotes.

Actually their story began long time ago when he had uploaded several graphical resources under his online nickname, the very same one I will not disclose here for obvious reasons. He simply forgot to tell her and anybody else where did he find them in the first place. As an RXP engine lover, he was unable to prevent himself from posting them on the board.

Sadly, his real life projects did not offer him a chance to leave a healthy warning telling them not to include them if they were going fully commercial. Take in consideration we all are living beings and we tend to leave out some details every so often so do not be so harsh on CJ, please. Seriously, my readers, he has gone through a lot of tough situations as to face your cynical criticism now.

Anyway do not worry, my cyber friends! Lani finally realize that those graphics could not be used legally so she has been working hard on replacing them to the point she hired her own graphical designer. Even so you better become her patron in case you do want her to keep it going for another couple of months. By the way, I am not mentioning who is in charge of her game’s new GUI for Kyonides asked me not to do so. He has never revealed why he refused to ever let me reveal it here. Is this good enough as to be called food for thought? You tell me!

Kyonides and His Smileys

There is a weird rumor about how did a scripter got inspired in such a way as to make about one hundred and seventy smileys using GIMP only. Please admit it now, there is no reason to link scripting with common icons or emoticons and the like. Wrong! There is one now that I think about it. Let us call it boredom. Yes, boredom.

Who would not get bored of picking the same old emoticons over and over again? Err, he did. And nope, he did not rely on some newcomer who might happen to be an expert on graphical design. So how exactly did he manage to produce so many icons? There is no mystery about that, he simply chose to mimic ElJol’s bread slice style, he, he.

Oh right! That does not explain why he even made a couple of cyber threat emoticons. Here is what I have found regarding such electronic critters, he did not make them because he felt like it as he first asserted. No, there is more a lot more to tell you about that story! Nonetheless, a few details should suffice to unveil this local mystery.

By the way, he never reduced the size of any actual photograph to the forum GIF file’s own dimensions. He seriously loves to catch and later reproduce the animals’ essence on a virtual canvas a pixel at a time. As much as he loves ramen, meaning he deeply hated that part of his job. Curiously, he did not complain (much) about drawing that infamous bread slice face eating some plain ramen right in front of you, the forumer. Probably he might have thought at some point that making others watch the character eat popcorn or empanadas or even donuts was good enough as his compensation for uploading the noodles inspired one.

Wulfo’s Ascent to Virtual Power

First go and read some official story on how the board was ever founded by his old friend who once sported some crazy Burton’s character that looked quite creepy. Then you will be ready to learn about what actually happened. Do not come back complaining about how different both versions are! I am warning you about how he has been hiding the truth from you.

OK, in his defense I got to say it is not his fault. The poor!? shapeshifter was forced not to expose his true masters. His reason was he hadd been keeping the secret sub rosa, or he is under oath if you prefer to skip all references to good old Latin. Oh no, I am no expert on such ancient languages anyway. I wish I were!

To be honest with you on his behalf, he has already revealed some of the actual facts in an indirect way. He could not stop his pen to write his long forgotten story handling some nasty birds. It is worth reading it while raining (also known as a rain of bullets) is pouring down in case you DO hate chickens or those winged beasts that do not know when to stop blabbing. You will agree with me once you notice the book is exaggerating the role of their lead characters on purpose.

Wait, my dear friend! If you think that was all, you better stop watching old cartoons right now. He has got another set of masters: the meowing kittens. Well, at this point many of them are full grown cats. Just go ask Good or Evil about how many times he has been fooled to do their feline bidding!

Before I make any further revelations, we better start discussing another interesting topic.

Melana the Sleepy Girl

You cannot even imagine how much I wanted to reveal everything about her. To my dismay I got to realize sooner than later it was becoming impossible for your servitor to unmask her. No matter what I did she remained an unexplained board’s mystery.

We only know a few details about Mel like her natural tendency to fall asleep and start dreaming about pretty much anything weird. She ignored all of my private messages asking her for any explanation or clue that could let us find the truth about her dreams.

At this point we can only speculate that she has been under a very expensive medical treatment to make her become a cat girl hybrid one day. Yet, I cannot guarantee that is her case for Melana’s private records are off limits, and the saddening fact her lawyer refused to ever call us back to discuss anything concerning her dreams.

Fear not, folks! We did find out something about our friend. Actually we learned she has a dark side indeed. Her dream world alter ego is dangerous according to CJ the mouse. Well, we could suspect he is afraid of her feline nature. I conclude he definitely is after reading one of Kyonides’s stories that handles their trip to another world devoid of high technology and how there were two different Melanas at the same place for a brief period of time. And yes, one of them got a tail!

Conclusions

Lani’s friend was not the only victim, Cheesie James was one as well. You see, he was trying to defend himself from a nasty cat called Princess Patches. They had been fighting for quite some time when they got under somebody’s car and broke some parts here and there. The innocent mouse totally ignored the owner would later drive off to his workplace, causing an accident by hitting her friend’s car unwillingly.

Now you have learned the actual reason why nobody wanted to denounce him as a saboteur. The local Rodent Council would certainly prefer not to get involved in his case and offer no legal support to that poor member. He would then depend on some foreign lawyer like a penguin or sloth that would entirely ignore his social background and the council’s secret agenda.

Luckily, the driver had a bad attitude so any cop would rather prefer to arrest him than to go after our tiny hero CJ. This does not mean that no canine agent ever suspected other animals might have been involved in this disturbing case. This magazine attempted to reveal this agent’s identity to no avail. We suspect the sergeant or captain was protecting his or her identity after getting involved in several terrible cases as of late. Time will tell…

As a bonus, you should know Patches is no actual princess but an agent of some feline institution that loves to remain secret for the time being.

Concerning Kyonides’s situation, he once admitted that he had been threatened by some smiley at some point. Who would not fear it? He informed him that it would exterminate him some day if he ever discriminated robots and cyborgs! At the same time somebody asked him about the former criminal dressed like a cat. The scripter answered “She was furiously claiming it was unfair how I had two bats and a single feline representative only!”

Parakeets! Yes, those are some of Wulfo’s masters! His weird story is nothing but his furry way to tell us how crazy they are as to attack some place only to persuade any individual from ever disappointing them by pressing charges against them.

Why would they care about a vegetarian werewolf? Well, he is a witness so draw your own conclusions!

Here is a second but final bonus! Based only on rumors spread by A Short Odyssey’s developer, we have learned that Melana surely looks as if she deeply loved to be evil or playful by nature and planned to run a bar or tavern at suspicious location. Her products would not be restricted by any local or national or even international purity level laws as her very own way to please her shady patrons’ taste.

To be continued depending on the CEO's mood... Confused
]]>
On hiatus. For new story updates please visit my accounts on FictionPress and other specialized websites.

Conspiracies Retold

by Kyonides


Chapter One

The Magazine and The Board

Did you ever ask you the following question? No, you did not for you usually do not care about silly stuff. You just love to visit the forum and download as many ZIP files, scripts and screenshots as you can find there. Admit it, you are guilty of not partaking in the usual board’s activities.

But what the hell is that question all about? Why do I always forget to formulate it? That is an easy one, folks. I never tell you what it is because you would prefer to ignore it. Even so I will tell you all I know about that fateful event, right here, right now. Get ready for this shocking revelation, guys! Or go buy some popcorn first, if deemed necessary.

I Fred, now working part time for Conspiracies Retold magazine, know nothing about how the board became an actual forum and not just another forgotten bulletin board. Honestly, I was not even a full member back at those early days of the global maker scene. Yet, I have got lots of informants and tons of threads where to search for such vital data. No, I do not expect you to believe me at first, still, you will do it once you overanalyze what I have to tell you today. I am pretty sure you are going to love it.

Let us begin with one of my favorite forum conspiracies now. I got to warn you it is filled with strong pain, an insane dose of sadness and injustice, of course.

Lani’s Destiny

Every so often you might see how she posts a new update on her current project, the very same one she started a few years ago when it was totally free and even included ripoffs here and there. Those were good times indeed, if you do not care about copyright but just game making. I mentioned it because its development has been halted even for months on several occasions. Here is why that ever took place.

Someone close to her, I will not reveal that person’s identity for privacy reasons, had a car crash and was in need of some extra help. That meant Lani had to work like a slave to attend this individual who had been suffering like never before in his or her life. About the rest of our friendly octopus cap wearing lady’s story I can only say you better go ask her all of your questions after you treated her to some chocolate or her favorite pizza.

Now we better focus on that part of her life even she ignored up to this very same day: the reason why she had to endure all of those sorrowful moments.

This is difficult to admit for Kyonides because he does not want to blame anybody else for her sad days that she was too busy as to be able to keep developing her game. And he is right to think it twice. Why would you accuse a friend of yours of committing a heinous crime as that car crash? In his case it is harder than usual due to the curious fact that his little friend cannot defend himself at a   court. You see, we are talking about a minuscule mouse here, namely the adventurous Cheesie James and his crazy anecdotes.

Actually their story began long time ago when he had uploaded several graphical resources under his online nickname, the very same one I will not disclose here for obvious reasons. He simply forgot to tell her and anybody else where did he find them in the first place. As an RXP engine lover, he was unable to prevent himself from posting them on the board.

Sadly, his real life projects did not offer him a chance to leave a healthy warning telling them not to include them if they were going fully commercial. Take in consideration we all are living beings and we tend to leave out some details every so often so do not be so harsh on CJ, please. Seriously, my readers, he has gone through a lot of tough situations as to face your cynical criticism now.

Anyway do not worry, my cyber friends! Lani finally realize that those graphics could not be used legally so she has been working hard on replacing them to the point she hired her own graphical designer. Even so you better become her patron in case you do want her to keep it going for another couple of months. By the way, I am not mentioning who is in charge of her game’s new GUI for Kyonides asked me not to do so. He has never revealed why he refused to ever let me reveal it here. Is this good enough as to be called food for thought? You tell me!

Kyonides and His Smileys

There is a weird rumor about how did a scripter got inspired in such a way as to make about one hundred and seventy smileys using GIMP only. Please admit it now, there is no reason to link scripting with common icons or emoticons and the like. Wrong! There is one now that I think about it. Let us call it boredom. Yes, boredom.

Who would not get bored of picking the same old emoticons over and over again? Err, he did. And nope, he did not rely on some newcomer who might happen to be an expert on graphical design. So how exactly did he manage to produce so many icons? There is no mystery about that, he simply chose to mimic ElJol’s bread slice style, he, he.

Oh right! That does not explain why he even made a couple of cyber threat emoticons. Here is what I have found regarding such electronic critters, he did not make them because he felt like it as he first asserted. No, there is more a lot more to tell you about that story! Nonetheless, a few details should suffice to unveil this local mystery.

By the way, he never reduced the size of any actual photograph to the forum GIF file’s own dimensions. He seriously loves to catch and later reproduce the animals’ essence on a virtual canvas a pixel at a time. As much as he loves ramen, meaning he deeply hated that part of his job. Curiously, he did not complain (much) about drawing that infamous bread slice face eating some plain ramen right in front of you, the forumer. Probably he might have thought at some point that making others watch the character eat popcorn or empanadas or even donuts was good enough as his compensation for uploading the noodles inspired one.

Wulfo’s Ascent to Virtual Power

First go and read some official story on how the board was ever founded by his old friend who once sported some crazy Burton’s character that looked quite creepy. Then you will be ready to learn about what actually happened. Do not come back complaining about how different both versions are! I am warning you about how he has been hiding the truth from you.

OK, in his defense I got to say it is not his fault. The poor!? shapeshifter was forced not to expose his true masters. His reason was he hadd been keeping the secret sub rosa, or he is under oath if you prefer to skip all references to good old Latin. Oh no, I am no expert on such ancient languages anyway. I wish I were!

To be honest with you on his behalf, he has already revealed some of the actual facts in an indirect way. He could not stop his pen to write his long forgotten story handling some nasty birds. It is worth reading it while raining (also known as a rain of bullets) is pouring down in case you DO hate chickens or those winged beasts that do not know when to stop blabbing. You will agree with me once you notice the book is exaggerating the role of their lead characters on purpose.

Wait, my dear friend! If you think that was all, you better stop watching old cartoons right now. He has got another set of masters: the meowing kittens. Well, at this point many of them are full grown cats. Just go ask Good or Evil about how many times he has been fooled to do their feline bidding!

Before I make any further revelations, we better start discussing another interesting topic.

Melana the Sleepy Girl

You cannot even imagine how much I wanted to reveal everything about her. To my dismay I got to realize sooner than later it was becoming impossible for your servitor to unmask her. No matter what I did she remained an unexplained board’s mystery.

We only know a few details about Mel like her natural tendency to fall asleep and start dreaming about pretty much anything weird. She ignored all of my private messages asking her for any explanation or clue that could let us find the truth about her dreams.

At this point we can only speculate that she has been under a very expensive medical treatment to make her become a cat girl hybrid one day. Yet, I cannot guarantee that is her case for Melana’s private records are off limits, and the saddening fact her lawyer refused to ever call us back to discuss anything concerning her dreams.

Fear not, folks! We did find out something about our friend. Actually we learned she has a dark side indeed. Her dream world alter ego is dangerous according to CJ the mouse. Well, we could suspect he is afraid of her feline nature. I conclude he definitely is after reading one of Kyonides’s stories that handles their trip to another world devoid of high technology and how there were two different Melanas at the same place for a brief period of time. And yes, one of them got a tail!

Conclusions

Lani’s friend was not the only victim, Cheesie James was one as well. You see, he was trying to defend himself from a nasty cat called Princess Patches. They had been fighting for quite some time when they got under somebody’s car and broke some parts here and there. The innocent mouse totally ignored the owner would later drive off to his workplace, causing an accident by hitting her friend’s car unwillingly.

Now you have learned the actual reason why nobody wanted to denounce him as a saboteur. The local Rodent Council would certainly prefer not to get involved in his case and offer no legal support to that poor member. He would then depend on some foreign lawyer like a penguin or sloth that would entirely ignore his social background and the council’s secret agenda.

Luckily, the driver had a bad attitude so any cop would rather prefer to arrest him than to go after our tiny hero CJ. This does not mean that no canine agent ever suspected other animals might have been involved in this disturbing case. This magazine attempted to reveal this agent’s identity to no avail. We suspect the sergeant or captain was protecting his or her identity after getting involved in several terrible cases as of late. Time will tell…

As a bonus, you should know Patches is no actual princess but an agent of some feline institution that loves to remain secret for the time being.

Concerning Kyonides’s situation, he once admitted that he had been threatened by some smiley at some point. Who would not fear it? He informed him that it would exterminate him some day if he ever discriminated robots and cyborgs! At the same time somebody asked him about the former criminal dressed like a cat. The scripter answered “She was furiously claiming it was unfair how I had two bats and a single feline representative only!”

Parakeets! Yes, those are some of Wulfo’s masters! His weird story is nothing but his furry way to tell us how crazy they are as to attack some place only to persuade any individual from ever disappointing them by pressing charges against them.

Why would they care about a vegetarian werewolf? Well, he is a witness so draw your own conclusions!

Here is a second but final bonus! Based only on rumors spread by A Short Odyssey’s developer, we have learned that Melana surely looks as if she deeply loved to be evil or playful by nature and planned to run a bar or tavern at suspicious location. Her products would not be restricted by any local or national or even international purity level laws as her very own way to please her shady patrons’ taste.

To be continued depending on the CEO's mood... Confused
]]>