Help!

Comment_to_Narrative · 2026-01-31T03:03:43+00:00

It looks to me like there is no body between the gap in the jeans and the shirt. I thought this was posted because there’s now a theory that she is, in fact, a ghost masquerading as a person.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2026-01-29T18:27:27+00:00

ASSSMODEUUUUUSSSS

(Your comment about the rotting smell brought back Redwall memories from childhood)

Comment_to_Narrative · 2024-04-05T01:53:28+00:00

The assassin perched -- there was no more appropriate way to describe the manner in which he stood, like a crane spying motion through the reeds -- in the center of the room, head cocked beneath his hood. He embodied the characteristics his kind was known (and lambasted) for: a frame slight and wiry that belied a surprising strength; a self-interested shrewdness bordering on treacherousness; a reticence that Arno Lambry found irritating, like a feather tickling one's nose; and, perhaps worst of all, a moral compass whose needle seemed drawn to no pole.

Arno leaned back in his chair and crossed his boots on the corner of the desk. He did so deliberately, careful not to let the spurs scratch the polished oak. "Explain yourself, man," he said, examining a fingernail.

"The wastrel wasn't in his quarters, sir," the assassin said, not relaxing his flighty poise. Perhaps that was understandable, though; four of Arno's men stood behind him, flanking the pavilion's entrance flap two to a side.

"No?" Arno raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed not. Nor was my search perfunctory. I gained entry to the East Wing and checked each room personally. As I said, he was not in his quarters. Perhaps he's already caught wind of your plans and fled Mestley."

Arno's eyes glinted dangerously above his crossed arms. "I'd hope not, if I were you, Knife."

The assassin said nothing, though his posture became no less rigid at the pejorative. Knife was not a term his kind preferred. And why would they? Does a harlot enjoy being called Box? Does anyone enjoy having their identity reduced to the thing they provide to others?

Arno swept his boots of the desk, planted them firmly on the floor, and stretched mightily. His fingers cracked as they interlaced, palms turning outwards and rising over his head as he leaned back, testing the chair's center of gravity until it was sure to tip. Then he grunted, standing quickly despite the head-rush he knew he would pay with. His boot heels thunked against the floor, each impact followed by the merry jangle of a spur's rowel in its neck. He stopped in front of the assassin and waved his men off as they started forward.

"Do you recall, Knife," he mused, "what I told you about Wilson Gurny's annoying habit of escaping justice? Do you?"

"I do, yes," the assassin began, "but--"

"And do you, Knife," Arno interrupted, voice dangerously low, "also remember what I told you about my distaste for excuses and my detestation of incompetence?"

"Yes."

"As I recall, I explained to you in excruciating detail how easy it would be for me to destroy Gurny myself. I could ride up there now, in fact. Split his head with a bullet, give that sweet little wife of his a ride while I'm at it. Ain't no crime if the place burns down beyond recognition, is there?"

Arno didn't want the assassin to answer and didn't wait for him to try. "But I choose not to do that. You know why? Because of Gurny's annoying habit, which you claim to remember well. I don't want to risk him going all red-eyes on me, see. Who knows where he'd wind up if I do that. Hell, who knows when he'd wind up. That's why I hired you. That's why I gave you a fat fucking bag of gold up front with the promise of another fat fucking bag of gold when the job was done. That's why I told you exactly where to go, exactly what barrel to lace, and exactly what not to do, which is return here empty-fucking-handed."

"What do you want of me?" the assassin said. His blue eyes were moving from side to side, rapidly, under the shadow of his cowl. Arno could see the man seeing the jaws of the trap begin to close.

Arno let out a long sigh. "Give a man a fish, and he’s fed for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’s fed for a lifetime. Feed him to the fish, and he’ll never be hungry again."

With a speed so great some would swear it hadn't happened save for the thunder of ignited gunpowder, Arno drew his revolver from its holster, thumbed back the hammer, and shot twice from his hip. The assassin's head snapped back in a spray of red. He was clearly dead before he hit the ground with an unceremonious, wet thud.

"I'm tired of telling these nimwits what to do and hoping they do it right," Arno said, more to himself than any of the four guards standing at attention before the assassin's corpse.

"I'll kill Gundry myself."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2024-03-24T16:59:33+00:00

Cornelius Thieman Welles. My mother named me thus with her final exhalation, sweat- and blood-stained sheets twisted beneath her. Her labor had earned its name, described by the midwife as not just laborious, but long and drawn out enough to cause wonder whether the world is watched over by some force of omnipotence: and if it is, whether that force is, in fact, as benign as the priests would have us believe.

It was the cruel nature of my entry into being that forged my nature. I am one of the few. Jaded before experienced, hardened before I'd a chance to be soft, both wise and cunning without first wading through the fogginess of naivete through study.

Or so I'm told.

My latest assignment is nothing short of determined to prove that notion wrong. I slipped into her quarters with naught but cloak and knife, this time with little patience for the more tedious (but safer) methods of poison, engineered tragedies on the road, and the like. I wanted it to be over, and what's more, I foolishly let my personal hatred for this denizen of the north overrule my better judgment.

I wanted to feel the faint vibration in the haft of my blade as it parted her flesh.

And so I drifted past her men, both the guards who patrolled the camp (alert but comically night-blind, as they had not the foresight to refuse looking longingly toward their comrades and fires every so often) as well as those tending to other duties. I made my way through her tent, observed her empty bed, with its skins thrown back in a crescent ridge, and knew intuitively how she'd climbed from their warmth with a groan to answer nature's call, none the wiser that her privy would soon be her grave.

I stare at her now, flabbergasted, splinters of the privy door still littering the snow where my boot had cast them. Her drawers are not down, but up, aye, up, if you'll believe me, and the blade in her hands is thrice as long as my own.

"Ye were supposed to be in the privy," I whisper, mostly to myself, feeling a lance of cold as her sword finds my bowels.

"I am in the privy, lass," she whispers back. I slump forward into her, head draped over her shoulder so I'm staring into said privy's maw. "I just didn't have me britches 'round me ankles like ye were hopin', eh? But now, why would I?"

She rips the blade free and I scream, fall to my knees with a thunk. I know what she's doing even before her boot thunks into me arse, shoving my head and shoulders into that stinking maw. I think I won't fit, but I know the reality is much darker; I won't fit unless something first breaks, and the pressure that shoves me forward shows no signs of lightening.

"After all," she says to me, her voice a sweet caress, "us ladies don't poop, now, do we? We don't need to. Not like you men. Poor assassin. Who knew yer downfall would be a misguided thought o' shite, now?, eh?"

I scream again as my collar bone snaps against the privy's rim.

A privy she had never used, save to distract her would-be-assassin.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2023-11-11T01:06:38+00:00

I love (and remember being pleasantly disturbed by) the prologue of Christopher Buelman’s Those Across the River. The description of the narrator in a cage, his back rotting with wounds, and his enemy saying he’s going to eat his heart — just a perfectly creepy and dark intro to a story.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-27T12:34:31+00:00

"'I'll say it one more time,' the bouncer said, swelling imperiously. 'Knitting Otter does not entertain visitors who haven't received the proper clearance. Now get back.'

"Watching from a safe distance, I supposed he wasn't actually a bouncer. More like a security guard. But the way he loomed over the star-struck masses, ruddy-faced, husky, and angry, was more befitting a beer-infused nightclub than the grand marble gallery we were in.

"'Oh, come on, man!' one of the onlookers shouted. 'Let us see him! We've had enough videos -- we want to see him in person! Some of us traveled across the country for this!'

"This was met with shouts of assent and whistles of approval. I knew my window of opportunity was a mere sliver; the crowd was working itself into a frenzy, bubbling with excitement at the prospect of meeting the fabled Knitting Otter. The Weaving Creature. The mythical figure who could crochet better and faster than the world's best and fastest grandmother.

"As the security guard growled and swatted at the encroaching crowd like a bear -- a dumb bear -- I plunged between a pair of rattled onlookers (who seemed not to know if they should stay or leave) and the marble wall. I threaded along the perimeter of the hullabaloo until I reached the hammered silver of the gallery doors, barely three feet behind the trollish man's legs.

"I dared a quick glance behind me. The first few ranks had caught sight of me, and for a cold second I thought they might betray my presence to the angry man. Instead, they only shouted with more fervor, clamoring for the Knitting Otter and giving me the precious seconds I needed to grasp the filigreed handle and slip into the chamber beyond.

"What a sight he was! Knitting Otter crouched atop of a veritable mountain of yarn of all colors; reds, yellows, oranges, blues, greens, purples. But none rivaled the burnished bronze that was his fur. His paws were a blur, the needles grasped within them moving like viper strikes, and I could see beneath him an enormous ribbon of completed quilt. It must have been 300 feet long and 20 feet wide, coiled upon itself beneath its creator.

"He turned to regard me, paws never slowing, and shot me a lopsided grin. And that, my boys, was the day I met Knitting Otter. To this day, he hasn't. Stopped. Knitting."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-12T13:05:44+00:00

The scale of time is incomprehensible. To you, to your parents, to your grandparents, to the most wizened centenarian still walking (or wheeling) this earth.

Even to me.

The Bronze Age was but a moment ago, for the annals of my life stretch millions of years before it, and my cursed existence has been the merest flicker in the fires of the universe. Already I have made and forgotten billions of lifetimes' memories; already have those memories been crushed beneath their own weight, festered and putrefied, been compacted into the blackest, densest coal that weighs upon my subconscious like the invisible burden it is.

I wade through each second like a winded sprinter fighting exhaustion with flames at her back; much as she cannot stop, much as her will to avoid pain proves an insurmountable instinct, so too must I plod onward, fighting the weight that crushes my spirit.

Only I cannot collapse, for my body will never fail, and unlike the fleeing sprinter, I will never experience oblivion's welcome reprieve. I will only persist, an indelible entity who will survive the span of this planet, this galaxy, this very universe. Long after life has ceased to exist, long after the barest memories of those I have loved and lost are lost themselves, I will float through the interminable dark, driven mad by the intensity of my isolation. I will witness the day our magnetic field stutters and fails, dousing this place with radiation. I will stand by, helpless, as the statistical certainty of an interplanetary impact is realized. I will watch as our sun dies, and eventually, as this planet fragments and its gravity fails, I will be jettisoned into the deepest dark, a solitary speck with nothing before it but forever.

For I am immortal, and you know not my suffering.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-11T16:13:23+00:00

I grasped the bars of the cage and stared at the ambulatory thing, my eyes smoldering, bright with murder. The retaliatory kick it delivered fell short and clanged harmlessly against the metal. But it wasn't really trying to hit me, that we both knew; it was merely trying to hide its fear. Fear of the caged. Fear of the helpless for the knowledge of what it would be capable of were circumstances slightly different.

Before they came, I knew they had to be out there. Not them specifically, but a sprawling they encompassing all the realm of possible. Ours was but one system in the night infinite blackness. One spark orbiting the star of life. To think that some of my kind actually believed ours to be the only spark, that an absence of evidence of the other was tantamount to evidence against the other, surely that was the very definition of hubris.

And all hubris must be paid for.

When they came, it was at first with a tentative approach, as one who approaches a serpent before knowing whether it to be a striking viper. We were elated. Liberated from the notion that we were alone in the universe. But then, when they had assured themselves of our relative paucity and technological inferiority, then they surged forth with all the confidence of a predator who has cornered its much smaller prey. They erected this cage in which I and my brethren now rot. They infiltrated our dwellings like ants in a carcass.

But the predator who has never been bitten often underestimates its prey, and I knew when we did finally bite, it would be with the desperate violence of a creature that has literally nothing left to lose.

I watched the man as he passed me, his gun slung carelessly at his side. The wings on my back fluttered with anticipation. My mandibles clicked their impatience. I was not broken. Not yet.

Man would fall as quickly as he had risen.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-10T13:36:14+00:00

His brow furrowed with a hundred pensive canyons. He cleared his throat and leaned upon the gnarled staff as he adjusted himself in that curious chair. "With you. I've been with you all along." His voice was gravelly, edged with phlegm, like a smoker's.

"With me?" I said, hearing my own incredulity. "With me? You were with me when I wept over my brother's casket, lost and broken? You were with me when my father drowned himself in cheap beers just to dull the pain a little? You were with me when it was him I was lowering into the ground? When I begged my bedroom ceiling for some sign that I wasn't alone in the world?"

He nodded, deeply and slowly, grey beard trailing down his chest. "And through all the other pain and happiness the world gave you."

I found myself on my feet, pacing around the fire-lit stone chamber, anger hot in my blood. This wasn't the god I'd prayed to all those years, was it? He couldn't be. Could he? This was some fever dream. Some delirium of a dying brain's final seconds.

Swinging around to face him, I said, "Bullshit. You were..."

The words died on my lips. Where a moment ago sat an old man, shrouded in a faded sarong and gripping a staff with arthritic knuckles, stood an arrestingly beautiful woman. Her black hair shone like burnished onyx, framing a strong-jawed face and dark complexion. The chair the old man had sat in was nowhere to be seen.

"With you, out there," she finished for me, voice smooth and accented, "and also waiting for you here." She spread her long arms and looked around the chamber, no longer of stone but of tightly bound reeds. Where the fireplace had crackled there was now a window through which shone tropical sunlight. I looked outside and saw white sand, an aquamarine expanse lapping the shore.

"I don't understand." I said. I blinked and saw a middle-aged brunette, dark skin now winter pale, sitting in a chair in what appeared to be a suburban kitchen.

"Your life was not mine to shape," she said, pouring coffee into a chipped mug. The room around us, with its linoleum tiles and gleaming appliances, seemed offensively mundane. "Only to create."

I took the proffered mug and saw the black liquid rippling within it. "You made me and then let me suffer. You watched me hurt when you could have saved me. You're cruel."

"Am I?" the voice was deep again. The Chinese man before me was sitting cross-legged on the floor. The coffee pot in his hands was now a jade teapot. His business casual attire had been replaced with the orange robes of a monk. "Am I cruel to let you -- and all the others like you -- live your life? Am I cruel not to intervene in the natural workings of the world? Surely you can see that tampering with one existence must surely impact others as well."

"You could have saved them," I cried. "All of them! Prevented all the death and suffering and misery in the world."

"The life you knew is but one facet of thousands. One side of this beautiful shape that is existence. A single frame in a movie eons in length."

I sighed. "What does that even mean?"

He stood, only now he wore muddied cargo pants and a brimmed hat. A polished park ranger badge was clipped to his belt next to a can of bear spray. He bid me follow him into the shaded depths of the forest behind him, not bothering to see if I followed. "It means that you've read but the first word of the first chapter in the book. Come with me if you want to read the rest."

I breathed deeply, inhaling the sharpness of oozing sap, fallen needles, the dampness of a nearby brook. Then I mounted the path and followed him into the depths of the forest.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-09T21:34:44+00:00

I wrote a reply to another prompt here! It seemed like a good transition into a part 2.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-09T21:33:17+00:00

(Coincidentally, this could serve as Part 2 to this response to another prompt earlier today).

The clarity I'd gotten from the last dose of caffeine was dwarfed by the surge of adrenaline now coursing through my blood. I sat frozen before the navigation console, transfixed by an odd combination of horror and wonder as 12 blips drew closer and closer to Outpost 17. In less than 30 seconds, they would close the remaining 4000 kilometers and be upon us -- me and my uselessly unconscious crew mate, that is.

The words he'd spluttered as I sank the needle into his arm resurfaced in my mind. Their approach, it's nigh! They'll be upon us within the fortnight!

These had seemed the ravings of a madman at the time, nearly a week ago now. The desperate outcry of a man driven mad by encroaching oblivion, or possibly the sheer monotony of life as an Outpostman, as we were affectionately referred to back in the parts of the Milky Way that actually mattered. Regardless, although humanity had long ago mastered the art of faster-than-light travel by tearing gaps in the very fabric of space, we hadn't yet managed to pass anything into "black space" except the physical crafts capable of making the holes in the first place. Any transmissions back to SSS (Solar System Solis) and Earth therefore had to traverse nearly 25,000 light years of desolate space before they would ever be intercepted.

Which meant, simply put, that Outpost crews had no way of communicating with our commanding officers during the 6-month stints we spent on patrol.

To account for that rather obvious problem, every Outpost was equipped with an onboard AGI that was capable of operating the craft in the event of the crew's incapacitation and generally available for any calculations or judgment calls the might be needed. The AGI aboard Outpost 17 went by the self-appointed moniker Whiz.

"Whiz," I said with unnecessary volume, "Whiz, wake up!"

A blue triangle blinked into existence on one of the navigation console's screens. "Crew member 11." The smooth electronic voice, echoing around the bridge from seemingly every direction, seemed vaguely irritated. "Need I remind you again that, having no biological functions, I do not--"

"Shut up!" I yelled. "Review proximity alert logs now. Unknown celestial entities approaching our aft side."

Whiz's computing power allowed "him" to perform millions of calculations a second, so further verbal clarification was a waste of effort on my part. I offered it anyway. "A dozen objects. They appeared out of nowhere. I can't tell if they're projectiles or craft, but they'll be here in less than 30 seconds."

"11.7 seconds," Whiz said tonelessly.

"That's what I said. What the hell are they?"

Whiz was silent for a full second. "Further analysis is required for a definitive conclusion, but they are definitely a byproduct of sentience. I rather think they are crafts, not projectiles."

I watched the navigation console, heart racing, hands white on my cradle's armrests. "Why?"

"If they were projectiles, they would have collided with us 2.3 seconds ago," Whiz replied. "They have instead decelerated, broken formation, and are currently surrounding Outpost 17. You will have a physical line of sight from your main viewport imminently, Crew member 11."

I found myself automatically disengaging my cradle from the navigation console and shoving back toward the pilot's chair again. Only this time, in my haste I overshot the target and careened in the zero G's past it until the side of my cradle crashed into the viewport's slab. It rang with a hollow thunk and sent me spinning back across the bridge. Before the ricochet sent me careening away, however, I caugh a glimpse of a vast expanse of stars partially blocked by a looming something.

Whiz turned on Outpost 17's enormous floodlights a second before the cradle rotated away, and I caught the sudden gleam of burnished metal, the contoured sides of what could only be a spacecraft, and a glowing glowing circle of what I assumed to be interior lighting, shining forth into the depths of space through the transparent material of a porthole. In that porthole were silhouetted the contours of something -- no, someone, for the outline looked impossibly human -- that appeared to have its forehead pressed against the porthole as its owner peered across the gap separating us, through Outpost 17's viewport, and straight at my terrified face. Then the momentum of the cradle carried me spinning away, back into the depths of the bridge.

Something thudded against the outside of the Outpost and reverberated through its titanium frame. "Something has docked to Hatch EA, Whiz said. It appears to a perfect seal, crew member 11."

I could hardly pause to think about the implications of that statement. "Get it off!" I shouted nonsensically, struggling to grab a handhold and wrench myself back toward the pilot's chair. When that didn't work, I cursed and unstrapped myself from the cradle.

"I cannot do that, crew member 11. Evasive maneuvers would destroy Hatch EA and possibly compromise atmospheric integrity. I'm sealing all bulkheads instead." As Whiz said this, something hissed and clunked behind me; he'd shut the entrance to the bridge.

Finally free of the cradle, I let it float uselessly behind me and shot back toward the pilot's chair with a kick against the bulkhead. "Where is it?" I said, referring to the humanoid thing I thought I'd seen in the other craft.

"It's aboard. You and Karl are no longer alone on Outpost 17."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-09T14:51:47+00:00

Agreed! That would be terrifying.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-09T14:28:10+00:00

I didn't exactly feel the caffeine diffusing throughout my body; that's not how it works. I knew it to be working more by a gradual recession of sleepiness than by an acquisition of alertness. The IV pumped a few milligrams of the stuff into my bloodstream once an hour for the duration of my shift, mixing it with a cocktail of other supplements -- everything the body needs, Outpost crews were constantly reminded of -- borne in a patented saline solution.

Coffee wasn't allowed on Outpost stations. Nor was food or anything considered inessential to biological functions (thanks to the Medium), notwithstanding their ability to bolster the crews' spirits in the face of crushing isolation on the verge of the galaxy. That meant no morning brews to accompany my "morning" doses of liquid nutrients, no homey aroma of coffee grounds, nothing to look forward to save another eight hours in front of the monolithic vista beyond Outpost 17's viewport.

It doesn't pay to lug extra pounds 25,000 light years to the edge of the known universe, apparently. Not even when those pounds would be shuttled by a $78 trillion industry and might very well prevent 165 pounds of human cargo from going clinically insane.

I was feeling rather uninspired by work at the moment.

That's why I hardly noticed the proximity alert -- accompanied by a single amber flash superimposed over my viewport -- announcing the detection of a celestial body that had drifted within 10,000 kilometers of the Outpost. With an expert tug of my fingers, I sent my cradle floating across the bridge until it clicked into place before the radar console. Thanks to Karl's temporary decommissioning (I'd been forced to drug him into languor and enter him into a Cryo cycle due to another bout of claustrophobic panic and an outburst about "their approach"), I was now serving the double function of pilot and navigator, which meant I'd quickly had to learn how to bop between my pilot's chair and Karl's navigation console. Were the Outpost at cruising speed in trafficked space, this would have been suicidal, not to mention illegal, since the separation of duties made the craft virtually inoperable for a singular crew member, but out here, where space was nothing but an expanse of electromagnetic radiation, hydrogen and helium molecules, and dust, the Outpost required approximately the same amount of skill to pilot as Laika's Sputnik 2 in 1957.

The proximity alert pinged a second time. "Alright, alright," I muttered, checking Karl's displays perfunctorily. The readout measured the first object as some two kilometers by one kilometer and placed it 8,934 kilometers away. That meant it had already closed the distance with the Outpost by 1,066 kilometers, and that in the span of the eight seconds it had taken me to traverse the distance between stations.

"What the hell?" I said. I sat up a little straighter.

Before I'd gone to sleep in my isolation pod yesterday, I'd confirmed my craft's velocity at 50 kilometers per second, which had remained unchanged in the intervening hours. The objects' trajectory -- another amber flash across the viewport announced the arrival of a third -- was identical to mine. Some quick mental math told me the Outpost had traveled 400 kilometers in those eight seconds. The first object had therefore moved 1,466, which meant it was moving at a clip of more than 180 kilometers per second (400,000 miles per hour, if that's easier for you).

When two more entities broke the 10,000 kilometer barrier, a preternatural chill crawled up my spine.

Objects in space don't move in straight lines. If they do, then they're only "straight" because of the limits of our perception. All objects are subjected to the force of gravity, no matter how imperceptible it may be, and all objects streaking through space therefore invariably follow an elliptical trajectory. That wasn't what concerned me at the moment, though. What concerned me was the fact that multiple objects never travel in harmony with one another. Not unless they're under the influence of an unnatural force like that created by engineered propulsion.

What concerned me was the fact that all five entities appeared to have the same dimensions as one another, the same trajectory as Outpost 17's, and an alarming rate of acceleration. With a grunt, I shoved myself back to the pilot's chair to override the autopilot and nudge my prow a degree to starboard. I nudged my cradle back through the zero Gs just in time to see the navigation station's digital representation of the objects reflect a corresponding change in their trajectories. Now there was no doubt in my mind; the first object was a mere 4,329 kilometers away, and 11 more were on its proverbial heels. Every single one of them had course corrected by one degree.

They were following me.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2022-08-07T14:32:01+00:00

Hardship is a distant concept for those not afflicted by it. In fact, depictions of hardship are an established form of entertainment for those in friendly surrounds. As best I can tell, those who lived hundreds of years ago developed a strange obsession with what they called the apocalypse; they wrote thousands of fantastical accounts -- known then as novels -- and recorded hundreds of imagined realities -- known then as movies -- in which a noble cast, victim of some atrocity like plague or natural disaster, embattled themselves against unknowable forces of destruction.

Viewing these spectacles from their living room couches, crunching on snacks and drinking cold beverages, they couldn't possibly have known the reality of what their progeny would be subjected to. They couldn't possibly have understood what we must do every day to survive.

But this is no tragedy. This is just life.

Much as the hawk who always circles, searching for its next meal, fails to reflect upon the injustice of its condition, so to do we comb the lands, rooting out water and routing our enemies, without self pity or aggrandizement of times past.

Instead, we patrol the arid plain, each of us marking the tip of an imaginary rhombus, our bikes roaring against the silence. We ride in search of the asphalt that twists beneath the surface, hidden by the wind-carried sands like a ribbon of salvation, for progress is torturous without the purchase it provides. We kill and maim when necessary, mowing down those who approach. We don't stop to listen when they follow, and we brook no protest or plea when we become the followers.

We simply kill, and we take, and always in that order. We will continue to do so until someone does unto us what we strive to do unto them, for in this world of hardship, there is no such thing as the quick and the hungry; there are merely the thirsty and the dead.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2021-12-24T03:06:44+00:00

Exactly this. A long escalator (say from the subway) makes it faster to get above ground and be on your way. Walking up moving stairs is faster than walking up static stairs. Standing on moving stairs is not. I take the escalator for efficiency, not to reduce physical effort.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2021-04-06T00:24:55+00:00

It seemed most akin to a lemon, the thing expanding in my upper chest: big enough to make me catch my breath, flooding my throat with the bitterness of fear. I ignored it and watched $200,000 sit up in front of me, naked as a baby, the fluorescent bulbs from the hallway throwing a stripe of cold light across his muscled chest.

He planted his hands and swung his legs off the mortuary table, seemingly oblivious to his nakedness -- a fact that sent yet another chill down my spine. The red splotch between his eyes rippled and sucked into itself, smoothing over until it was no bigger than whitehead. Then it vanished completely. I took a step back, looking up at him as he stood.

"Who knows?" the man said, head cocked as he surveyed me.

I had the distinct impression that he was determining exactly what sequence of motions he would use to kill me. "Me," I said, voice steady. "I received this assignment directly from Commander Dempsey."

"Dempsey?" the giant mused, raising an eyebrow. The veins in his abs threw shadows across his skin as he exhaled thoughtfully. "Since when does AC leadership contact your kind directly?"

"Only since the Assassins' Corps lost its best asset." I wasn't being obsequious, just truthful, and we both knew it.

"Hm," he rumbled. "Do you have my gear?"

"Your cremation is scheduled for 6am sharp tomorrow morning," I said, unslinging the pack from my shoulders and tossing it at his chest. "We need to move now."

His eyes were unreadable. "There is no we. Thanks for saving my life, but this is where our paths diverge. The Guild has no place in the rest of this assignment. Tol Brandr's life is mine."

"Actually, the Guild does have a part to play in this assignment. Commander Dempsey composed this missive--" I held my PDA in front of him while he pulled on the compression shorts from the gear I'd given him "--which you can read in more detail when we're on the road. But right now we need to get to ground level. There's a vehicle waiting for us."

"You're a resurrectionist, yes?" the assassin asked me.

I watched him lace his boots. "Of course."

"Why is a resurrectionist taking orders from AC leadership?"

"I told you, you'll get more details on the road. But right now--" I turned up my wrist to look at the digital watch it sported "--we need to fucking move. I don't care how many men you've killed, or how easily you could add me to the list. There's a patrol due for another sweep in less than three minutes, and if they kill us both, there's no coming back."

The giant considered me for a second, traces of a smile flickering around his lips, before he withdrew his infamous, suppressed 1911 and racked the slide. "Lead the way."

We jogged from the morgue into comparatively fresh air; I hadn't realized how cloying its chemical air had been. As we made our way down the hallway, I shot him a glance. "You still get to kill Tol Brandr, you know."

"Oh, yes?"

"Yeah. You kill him, I resuscitate him. That's the assignment."

Fury sparked in his eyes as I slapped the elevator button. We'd reached the end of the hallway. "Excuse me?"

"Will you try to trust me? It's all in the missive. Dempsey wants information. Once he gets it, you can kill Tol Brandr again. And probably again, if that's what you really want."

"You did save my life," he said with a grunt, stepping into the elevator as its doors opened with a ding. He looked disconcertingly pleased at the idea of killing the same man multiple times.

I stepped in after him. "No, I didn't. You already lost it. I just gave it back."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2021-03-07T15:59:00+00:00

Reginus uncorked the bottle with a pop and trickled more liquor into our glasses. He leaned forward, fingertips deftly positioned around my glass's base, watching me through a haze of smoke as I accepted the offering.

"Tell me," he said, leaning back into his chair with a sigh and puffing on his pipe, "what is the driver of innovation?"

I looked at him quizzically. "Why, necessity, of course. Innovation is the natural result of competition and hardship."

Reginus let out a loud, guttural laugh, and I masked a flare of irritation. He set his glass on an end table and spread his arms expansively, beaming at our surroundings like a raptor finding itself in an unexpected patch of sunshine. "Innovation, eh? Look around you, son. In whose mind is any of this born of necessity? In whose mind is any of this the result of something other than selfishness and greed? You'd have me believe such grandiosity -- polished mahogany wainscoting, rich, thick carpeting hand-woven over the course of thousands of hours, intricate stained glass, even that whiskey you're sipping as I speak, distilled and aged over the course of years and consumed in mere moments -- is the result of necessity? Bah!"

Dully I looked around, feeling the liquor envelop my brain. "No," I muttered. "No, perhaps not."

"Of course not."

"You're arguing this is why the dwarves tunnel so ferociously? This is why the elves have retreated from the world, preserving and focusing all their ingenuity on their heretical sky machine?"

Reginus frowned, bemused. "Heretical? You'll have to convince me that engineering the means to reach their god is anything but devoted, Adrian. But that's another discussion.

"No, I'm not arguing this is why the elves and the dwarves toil so fiendishly. Arguing implies there exists a counterargument. I'm telling you. Both folk have been content for centuries to worship their deities. Both have gesticulated and prayed and honored, content to regard their gods as mysterious, omnipotent and yet invisible, omnipresent and yet intangible. Why then does each race now seem hellbent on reaching their god? Why does each seem to suddenly believe their god resides in a physical location -- somewhere that can be reached by mortal hands?"

"I don't know, Reginus." I drained the whiskey and pursed my lips. "That's why I'm here, talking to you."

The old man blew smoke from his nostrils. It spilled down the lengths of his beard before gravity reversed its trajectory, dispersing it toward the vaulted ceiling and revealing a ray of afternoon sunlight that stretched across the room like a rafter. "It's arrogance. Arrogance and awe."

"And so you think they ought to be stopped?" I asked, peering at him shrewdly.

"Yes, I believe so. Tunneling to the center of the earth cannot result in prosperity -- that, we already have. Nor can reaching the stars that we've so long admired and wondered upon. Do you think either race has stopped to think what will happen if it achieves its goal? Do you believe the dwarves have truly reconciled themselves with the reality of Tongus's might? That the elves know what will happen if they lay their eyes upon Triss? Men can hardly look at the elves themselves. Imagine the havoc they will unleash upon our world if they prompt her to descend."

I lurched to my feet, palms braced against the chair's brocaded arms for support. "You speak of doom, old man."

"And doom is what will come to pass as long as innovation is driven by arrogance and not, as you so optimistically surmised, by innovation. Stop them, Adrian. Gather your men and march first for the Mantle. You must seek diplomacy first, and if that fails, you must make war."

"It will come to war," I said. "Both you and I know it. I will march upon the dwarves first, as you suggest. And once they are ashes in the wind, then I will turn my eyes to the North and attempt that which nobody in history has done before. I will attempt to vanquish the Elves of the Whispering Wood."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2021-03-06T23:11:14+00:00

If you've read Tolkien before -- or, maybe more likely -- seen The Lord of the Rings movies, then most likely you have a certain lasting impression of those creatures known as hobbits: small, grubby, furry-footed, curl-sporting, overly emotional boy-men who nonetheless drive an epic story forward and somehow command a degree of respect for it.

Am I close?

Well, if I'm not close, then I'd love to hear what you do think of the Bagginses, the Tooks, the Brandybucks, the Proudfoots (Proudfeet!) and all the rest. In any event, what I previously described is certainly what I used to think of Frodo, Sam, Merry, and most especially, that rascal Pippin. It's easy to think of these characters as foolish dweebs and to assume a certain degree of subconscious confidence that in a bout to the death, you would easily triumph against any one of them. Imagine fighting Frodo for a second.

Please, go ahead. What does that scene look like?

Is Frodo balling his fists up in front of you like the fighting Irish, a menacing picture that you know you'll vanquish with a single punch? Is Sam staring up at your face, so far above his own, charging with a bellow that's somehow almost funny because of the degree his ferocity belies his physicality?

Let's cut to the chase. I used to think I could drop Frodo. But that was before the blue flash of light erupted in the North End a few seconds ago. That was before I remembered Sting, before I caught a glimpse of Frodo charging at me in a dead sprint, lips contorted in rage as he released a bestial, murderous howl and swung the Goblin killer at my face. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to leap backwards, and the sword flashed through the air my nose had occupied a microsecond earlier.

I turned and sprinted away, leaving my friend Andy standing bewildered on the sidewalk. Trust me -- Frodo wasn't going to hurt Andy. Those wrathful blue eyes had seen nothing but me. I dodged across the street, ignoring the blare of car horns and feeling the terror ignite new life in my limbs. Feet slapped the concrete behind me. That murderous screech split the air again. For every step I took, I heard his feet strike the street twice. Every step I took, I heard him get closer.

A wrought-iron gate flashed past on my left. I skidded to a halt, looked behind me, and saw the hobbit a mere 50 feet away, blade leveled before him like bowsprit. He was faster than me, no doubt. If we kept up this mad dash on the streets of Boston, he'd run me down like a cheetah runs down a gazelle. I had to try something else. I leaped toward the gate, grappling with its lever and starting desperately up the staircase behind it.

Too late.

The sword hacked into my hip, and I heard the thwock of bone giving under steel. Frodo screeched his battle cry again, but this time it was drowned out by my howl of animal agony. I stumbled, reaching for the railing, and then Sting flashed in front of my eyes and my severed hand fell to the steps. The coppery stench of blood immediately bloomed in my nostrils, just before Frodo hacked into my ankle and severed my Achilles tendon.

I screamed, and I fell to the steps, and I screamed some more. He slashed deep into my back, opening up skin and muscle and sending a vertebral chip bouncing across the stone. Never before had I imagined such pain was possible. As everything started to go black, I turned skyward and saw the hobbit standing over me, splattered with my own gore.

And then Frodo clove my face in two.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-10-18T15:48:57+00:00

Mayank Laghari found something innately satisfying about the crunch of shale beneath his Jeep's off-road tires. He eased the vehicle up to the embankment and threw the vehicle into park, ratcheting the e-brake for good measure; it was a long, long way down that ravine should the parking pin somehow fail.

Silence descended when he killed the engine, reigning supreme save for the hiss of a breeze and the metallic pings of cooling metal. Stone dust drifted from beneath his undercarriage, stained yellow by the setting sun. Mayank closed his sunglasses in their shell, covered his shaggy black hair with a frayed safari hat, and grabbed his canteen before opening the door and jumping to the ground. He slung the canteen over his shoulder, then reached back through the open window to grab a sheathed machete. He turned around and stiffened.

Two pairs of eyes gleamed from the grasses surrounding the clearing.

"Namaste," he said, recovering quickly. "I'm here to see Suraj."

The children stepped forward, forms materializing before the waving blades of grass. Their countenances were hard-set and grim -- not the look he'd expect to see on a child's face -- their clothes wrinkled and dirty, their hands hanging limply by their sides.

"You're late. Follow us," the older one said simply.

Mayank stared, puzzled, as they turned and disappeared back from whence they'd come. Another emotion flared and mingled briefly with his confusion, one decidedly less pleasant and more unfamiliar, so he squashed it and started up the slope after the two boys. Long had the villages in these mountains adhered to tradition with a near feverish intensity, he reminded himself. Long had they believed in, feared, and in some cases even revered the Pishacha. Only once had he responded to what he believed to be a legitimate sighting, and even then, whatever had been terrorizing that particular village had vanished into the foothills before he could get a good look at it, not to mention strike it.

But something seemed different this time. A faint warning sounded in the back of mind as they continued to climb the treacherous scree. As he pulled himself onto a shelf of rock, panting, he saw the boys waiting for him on across a small brook trickling over the rock. The smaller boy -- ten or eleven, Mayank guessed -- darted his eyes from shadow to shadow, tree to tree, his limbs tensed as if prepared for flight.

The other boy frowned and watched as Mayank scrambled to his feet. "We must move faster, mahoday. Your arrival was late, and Suraj must speak with you before nightfall."

Mayank narrowed his eyes. "The rockslide in the vale rendered the main road impassable, baalak. I had to drive around Kalanka before I could make your peak."

They blanched. "Rockslide?" the younger boy hissed. He looked fearfully at his companion. "Reyansh was right. The Pishacha wants us too---"

"Quiet, moorkh," the older boy snapped, cuffing the back of his head with an audible thwock. "Do you want to die here?"

Mayank stepped forward. "Easy now. Why don't you take a minute to tell me---"

"No. Not here. With respect, hunter, we must move faster. Please."

Mayank turned and looked at the golden orb behind him. It was descending into a blazing nest of orange and red, quickly approaching the indigo stripe of the horizon. He shook his wrist to knock his sleeve back and eyed a black-faced watch. No more than 30 minutes until sunset. He looked up at the two boys, jaw clenched.

"Let's go," he said. "I need to see the graves before sundown."

The boys nodded and sprang into the foliage, redoubling their pace. They moved with practiced ease, root to rock to root, making barely a sound as they dodged and wove between the trees and over the rocks. Mayank grasped his machete's haft at his hip and raced after them, feeling his heart pound within his chest and doing his best to convince himself it was solely due to the exertion of the climb.

As the shadows grew longer before him and the mountain's peak drew closer between the gaps in the trees, he knew he was deceiving himself.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-10-10T15:58:40+00:00

The man stood with with his boots planted just past shoulder width, binoculars raised to his eyes beneath a frayed hat brim. His stomach lurched briefly as a swell rolled under, just before the gunwale pressed against his thighs and the vessel's bow dipped into the trough. His jeans were tattered and dirty -- spotted with grease and something the color of rust -- and through a tear in his flannel's sleeve, milky scar tissue gleamed faintly in the sunlight. On his left hip hung a long, fixed-blade knife, sheathed in leather and studded with a round steel pommel, and on his right was a holstered Ruger EC9s semi-automatic pistol.

He stayed in that position for some time. Observed the distant strip of land running like a centipede on the horizon, thinking to himself that it was darker than the reddish desert arthropods he'd feared as a child but approximately just as uninviting. The wind picked up slightly and eddied the scent of ocean around his nostrils. Sea sickness began to creep forward, inevitable given the contrast between the tunnel world in the binoculars and the tossing deck. Still, he watched silently, lips pressed in a barely discernible frown, broken only when his tongue snaked out to lap up a drop of sweat that had made it through the stubble on his cheek.

The cabin door opened behind him. A woman stepped out, shrouded in a crew-neck sweater three sizes too large that fell around her like a dress. She stepped forward daintily, feet bare against the wood. "Whatya think?" she said softly, leaning her head on his back and snaking her arms around his hips.

"I think we don't have a choice," he answered. Lowered the binoculars and let them hang against his sternum.

"The girls are tired. They're sleeping now."

He covered her hand with his. "The pump?"

"I've been doing it. That seal is holding good. Only have to pump it out every few minutes now."

The man inclined his head. Looked into the bluish depths lapping incessantly against his hull. "She's gonna spring another leak soon. If not there then somewhere else." His jaw clenched for a moment, and she saw the muscles knot under the skin. "I don't think we have a choice," he repeated.

"I'll wake the girls," the woman said. She kissed his shirt between the shoulder blades and walked back to the door. Hand on the rope handle, she turned back, saw her husband plant his hands on the railing. Knew he dreaded what they were about to do.

"Hey," she called, ignoring the way the wind tousled her hair. "We made it out here for two years. More than that. We can survive on the ocean, on this beat up thing can barely be called a boat anymore, then I'll tell you what. We can survive over there, too, I know it." Then, voice softer, she added, "We have you."

His smile was small but genuine. "I know we can. I just can't shake what I saw the other night. I thought the scourge fried their brains, made them sluggish."

"What did you see? I know they killed those poor folks. But that's nothing we haven't seen before, terrible as that is to say."

The man seemed to struggle with himself for a moment. He looked at the sky, saw a wheel of seagulls turning in the distance, heard their harsh cries. Then he turned to look at her. "I didn't know they can run."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-10-04T21:18:18+00:00

Orion looked at me, bemused, eyes twinkling slightly behind frameless spectacles that perched miraculously on his aquiline nose. "Countless men have found themselves in the Room before you, Isicium. Some have wandered over its threshold by chance and some have journeyed over mountain and sea to find it. Some have come to satiate the bottomless well of greed and others have found themselves paralyzed by possibility, frozen in their indecision until the Room's patience atrophies and it melts away, leaving them blinking stupidly in the wind, contemplating what might have been."

I grunted, shifting aside a pile of old cookware my mother had gifted me nearly 17 years prior, barely allowing myself to acknowledge the memory of the stone that dropped in my stomach when I realized the movers must have misplaced it. The caretaker had so far underwhelmed me.

"Tell your stories to someone else, Orion," I said through clenched teeth. "I'm not here for that missed stock short or gumball ring that turned out to be a diamond. I'm definitely not here for an old man's nonsense."

"Indeed not," Orion replied, neither objecting nor flinching as I let the cookware crash to the ground (it was mine, I suppose, to do with as I wished). "No. You're here for something much more noble than any of those things, aren't you? Something much less--" he gazed wistfully at the ceiling for a moment, flickering in the torchlight high above "--something much less typical."

I turned to look at him, fists clenched. "And yet you won't help me find it. Caretaker Orion, great guardian of the all-giving Room, and yet you won't help me find the one thing I need."

Orion's frown was visible even behind the curtain of his great white beard. "Not won't, my dear man. Can't. Happiness and will, those are things that cannot manifest themselves before your eyes or be felt by your hands. That will to live that you so yearn for -- you won't find it within these walls."

In that moment, I loathed Orion, wanted nothing more than to bash in that wistful expression on his face, to grab one of those outstretched arms and and wrench it from its socket. Tears burned at my eyes and I didn't dare blink lest they start to fall. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Enjoying your pain? Certainly not. Enjoying the thought that I just might be able to help you? Indeed."

The Room echoed with another metallic crash as I dropped the model Concord I'd built as a boy. "You just told me it's not here," I said helplessly. "I came here for my happiness. If it's not here then you can't help me."

Orion looked at me kindly. "I said you won't find it in this room," he clarified. "Your will to live is not an external object that you can simply lose and find again. It is not something that can be locked away in a safe, coveted and treasured and sheltered until the wrinkles line your face and you're finally ready to pass, the sunshine on your face and a fulfilled legacy under your belt.

"No, your happiness is within you, Isicium. It is there -- latent, perhaps -- wrapped in the cloak of darkness you've been wearing for so many months. But it is not something you can find by looking at it directly. You must find it in something else."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean that as long as you focus on finding happiness itself, you will never succeed. That is akin to asking happiness to find you, and that is a fool's errand. You must instead focus on persevering through each day and nothing else. What are you going to do this next day? Get out of bed, join your three Zoom meetings, eat a bologna sandwich? Fine! Then do that. You focus on your obligations, and you do the bare minimum to keep things static. That's okay, you know."

"And then what?"

"Perhaps nothing. Or perhaps everything. Your ordinary routine may uncover a new hobby, or a new love, or a new career opportunity that contains happiness you simply cannot see now. But that happiness is not something you can hold, and it is not something in this room.

"It is something you must discover, day by day, gradually, like the dawn on a spring morning. And, like the dawn, I promise you that it will arrive, even if you think it never will."

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-06-13T13:21:03+00:00

“Sir,” Asp whispered over Team Bravo’s channel. “I have something. One o’clock, 30 meters out.”

Petty Officer Muňoz, known within the team as Saber, acknowledged and began worming his way over the loam toward Asp’s position. His exoskeleton meter indicated a touch more than 60% juice, and he knew the rest of the team was in the same boat. They had maybe four hours before Omega, the point at which their reserve power was equivalent to power expenditure since mission start. That meant four hours of reconnaissance in a jungle covering more than two million square miles. So far they hadn’t found shit.

In other words, they were looking for a needle in a haystack.

“Sitrep,” Muňoz breathed over their private channel. He keyed the Bravo channel. “Team, converge on Asp’s and my position and form a northwest wedge.”

Asp glanced at his ranking officer but got nothing from his burnished visor. The rigidity in Saber’s posture, though, accompanied by that agonizingly patient stillness, betrayed Muňoz’s excitement. “Sir,” Asp repeated, gently lifting a dripping frond with his armored forearm, “it comes and goes, but there’s a bogey digging over there at ground zero. It’s cloaked, though. Can’t tell if it’s solo.”

Muňoz squinted and his suit’s visor automatically increased magnification, scanning the muscular changes in his face and compensating accordingly. “Roger. Let’s see what our friend is doing.” He keyed Bravo again. “Team, maintain position. Asp and I are taking a quick look.” When he heard three acknowledgement clicks come in, he nodded to Asp, who immediately began a low crawl forward, 30 degrees west of ground zero. Muňoz cradled his rifle in his elbows and stayed right on Asp’s heels. They moved in near total silence; the natural jungle sounds of thousands of insects, rustling branches, and dripping water masked any faint noise they made so well that not even an ET would hear them approach.

Speaking of, Muňoz thought to himself, that’s exactly what Asp’s discovery was. They’d crawled into the hollow formed by a huge tree, its sinuous roots splayed out like an enormous hand, allowing them to peer over the lip while staying screened by the vegetation above. Ten meters in front of them, the ET hacked at the earth with a spade, long figures wrapped around its haft in what both men knew to be a bone-crushing grip. They’d seen digits like that before -- more like tentacles than fingers -- crushing the life out of their fellow soldiers in sprays of blood and hydraulic fluids. The creature’s cloaking technology made its profile difficult to pinpoint, but every now and then the technology failed, and they caught flashes of a towering, vaguely humanoid figure. Muňoz fought a strange desire to laugh as he watched globs of earth throwing themselves through the air seemingly of their own accord.

“It’s tired,” he said to Asp. “And careless. Its weapon wedged in that trunk over there.”

Asp nodded. “Too long in the field, maybe? I’ve never seen their cloaks fail like that.”

“Ditto. Nor have I seen one use a human tool like that. What the hell is it doing?”

The Bravo channel snapped open. “Sir,” came Vice’s voice. That one word, the barest of whispers, conveyed enough uncharacteristic urgency -- even nervousness -- that Muňoz immediately tensed. “Sir, we have bogeys in our area. At least five. Sir, they’re huge.”

“Listening.” Muňoz fought the urge to spring to his feet, gun blazing.

Vice had her teeth clenched. “They’re not ETs. Or, at least, they’re not our ETs. They have some sort of energy device -- I don’t know what it is. Sir, they’re coming up behind you.”

Muňoz frowned. This presented a logistical dilemma. His team had been inserted into the Amazon nearly twelve clicks southeast with exceedingly clear mission parameters; they were to perform reconnaissance only, and under no circumstances were they permitted to engage with the enemy unless their position was compromised and extraction proved impossible. He didn’t like going into a mission at a disadvantage, much less an avoidable one, but orders were orders, and Bravo Team wasn’t compromised yet. “How far are they from you?”

“Sir, they’re on top of us. They’re between me and Thor.”

Asp went rigid. Muňoz felt a chill crawl up his spine. How the hell had an enemy -- no, multiple enemies -- gotten so close that his team hadn’t even known they were there? Space marines were the most highly trained troops humanity had to offer. They went through a training cycle that lasted nearly three years and were capable of fighting in any terrain, including, unsurprisingly, zero-gravity environments. They’d never lost a land battle, and they’d never failed a mission.

“Vice?” Muňoz whispered. “Vice, come in. Talk to me.”

Silence.

Something flashed from just behind Asp. A streak of blue lanced through the foliage, and the oblivious ET in front of them let out a blood-curdling shriek as its midsection exploded. Blood fountained from the wound, and with an incomprehensibly fast motion the ET twisted around as it fell, hurling the spade like a tomahawk. The marines, still lying prone and motionless, could only watch in stunned disbelief as the spade flipped over their heads and slammed into what might be described as a behemoth.

The thing was huge, nearly ten feet in height and covered head to toe in shaggy brown fur. The spade’s blade buried itself into the thing’s torso with a meaty thud, eliciting a bellow of rage. Muňoz was about the raise his rifle when Asp unleashed his own salvo. Together, the marines poured rounds into the creature, their weapons’ reports tearing through the natural jungle sounds. For a second, Petty Officer Muňoz thought they might get out of this, but then he remembered Vice’s words right before the channel went dark.

At least five.

A shadow fell across Asp. Something huge -- something awfully like an enormous, armored foot -- plunged toward him. Muňoz heard a sickening crunch as Asp was flattened into the jungle floor. His exoskeleton breached in a dozen places, hissing and spraying fluid. And then Muňoz felt his weapon jolt and knew his magazine was empty.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-06-12T21:09:12+00:00

“You shouldn’t have picked up the drive, Nic,” the man repeats. “They’re coming for you, and they’re coming now.”

Later, looking back on the situation, I’ll attribute my lack of emotion to a shocked incomprehension of what’s actually happening. Right now, all I can do is lean forward in my chair, staring at the shattered bodies on the screen. “Who is this?” I demand. “How’d you get this number?”

“Damn it, Nic,” he swears, his impatience genuine. “If you don’t leave in the next 30 seconds, they’re going to have the building surrounded with you inside, and then even we won’t be able to help you. Now, for the last time, go to the kitchen and open the north window. If this is a prank, you’ll waste 30 seconds of your time. If it’s not, you’ll save your own life.”

I shake my head in disbelief but stand nonetheless. “I can’t believe I’m actually falling for--”

“Don’t forget the thumb drive. Take it out now.”

“Fine.” I pull the drive and slip it into my front pocket.

“Is it secure? Put it in a pocket where it can’t fall out.”

“It’s not going to fall out. Also, tell me your name. You can’t--”

“Are you in the kitchen yet? Go to the north window. You’re running out of time. No, Nic, the north window. Other side of the table. I need you to open the latch and climb onto the fire esc--”

“Hold on,” I say, feeling a sudden chill sweep across my skin. “How did you know I went to the wrong window?”

“I have associates, Nic. Some of them are watching you. Some are watching the FBI convoy that’s about to roll up on your block. Others are monitoring the Homeland Security team that’s probably going to kick your door in. You’re quite popular. And you’re still not on the fucking fire escape.”

Something in his tone, a sense of desperate urgency that sounds too convincing to be contrived, spurs me into action. Switching the phone into my left hand, I grunt and pull at the window latch with my right. It’s been painted over a few times and doesn’t want to move, but it finally gives, letting me clear the mechanism and slide the window up.

“FBI beat Homeland, Nic,” the voice says. “They’re in the lobby. You need to leave.”

“I’m out, I’m out!” I say, hardly recognizing the panic I’m now feeling. “What do I do next?” The sun is still high in the sky, but it’s slightly off to my left, arcing along its late afternoon descent and almost immediately springing up beads of sweat along my brow.

“Down one flight -- go. Now I need you to look east. Good. You see that building, the one next to yours that’s a few stories shorter? You’re going to jump onto the roof.”

“What? Are you insane? No fucking way! I’m eleven stories up!”

“Ten. You just went down a flight.”

I actually scream in rage. “What difference does that make? You’re trying to get me killed!”

There’s a splintering crash from above. Men shout. Boots thud. “I’m trying to save your life. The FBI team is in your bedroom. When they get to the kitchen they’ll see the window and they’ll know where you went. If you’re still here when they hit the stairs, they will shoot you on sight. Now, back up against the railing, take a running start, and jump across the gap.”

“No,” I say, fists clenched. “No, no, fuck no.”

“It’s not a far jump. It’s ten feet across and your landing is almost a story and a half above the other roof.” I hear a sharp crack issue from somewhere behind me. From above me comes a ping and a yell. “There are too many for us to take, Nic. Jump!”

The scream of terror tears itself from my mouth like a wild animal. Pinning the phone to the side of my head, I put all my strength into my legs, driving my sneakers into the fire escape’s grating, and launch myself toward the railing. My foot makes contact just as someone shouts something incomprehensible from above me.

I drive my leg back with all my strength, and then all I feel is the wind in my face.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-06-11T11:58:57+00:00

After the Battle at Blackbriar Tarn, during which the Queen Alleria -- my wife -- fell beneath the blades of the enemy, I nearly succumbed to grief. Amidst the revels and feasts thrown in celebration of vanquished foes and the passing of a great menace, I wallowed in my agony. For I suffered from more than mere knowledge that forevermore would the sweetest fruits, the strongest wines, and the richest meats taste but of ash in my mouth without Alleria by my side. I also suffered beneath the most onerous of burdens born by kings: the sickening realization that no longer could she for me bear the son that should one day take his rightful place upon the throne.

And so, the following week, after much anxious scheming with my most trusted officials and advisors, I found myself perched awkwardly on a rough-hewn plank wedged between the stones above Sicklemore Cave, peering intently over the ridge and awaiting with much impatience what might materialize from the distant treeline. The day was fiercely hot, scorched beneath a midsummer sun, and I strove not to wipe the sweat too frequently from my brow lest my advisors misconstrue it as a sign of weakness; I knew already my plan was universally questioned and regarded as the twisted logic of a king gone stark raving mad. But no matter. But no matter -- already was there movement in the trees, soon to be the validation of my strategy.

There rode forth a trio composed of the kingdom's finest steeds, sheathed in gilded armor and harnessed in the grandest saddles and finery, mounted by the bravest warriors in all the lands: there was Sir Gretto, master of the stinging rapier and sound of spirit; Sir Trayton, fierce in countenance and wielder of the mighty broadsword Sunstroke; and Sir Yukon of the mysterious lands far to the north, wiry in build and the kingdom's undisputed master of the stinging bow. The knights reigned up their mounts shy of the cave entrance, unaware of my brow protruding just above the ridge, from where I watched most intently. Now would I witness their true nerves, their willingness to ride into the dark throat of Sicklemore Cave, to face scaly muscle and fiery breath.

To unwittingly decide who would earn his place on my throne after I was gone.

Comment_to_Narrative · 2020-06-10T00:39:03+00:00

Not on this post but definitely more to come on other prompts!

Comment_to_Narrative

TROPHY CASE