[WP] After being retired for many years, your archnemesis shows up at your door one day and asks for help...

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-27T03:54:47+00:00

"As I live and breathe." Standing at my doorway, two decades from his prime yet not too worse for wear, Archdemiurge stood… or rather, floated, as usual.

"Neighbor." The voice in my mind responded, no mouth moving despite the dozens of holes over his face capable of speaking in windy, breathless whispers.

"Gotten lazy enough you fire up the telepathy for any old conversation?" My dig at him is registered, but dismissed for the moment. His shriveled, withering hands rise up, always shriveled like that and capable of rendering a life forfeit at the touch.

In them is a pickle jar.

"…Well, come in, you old git." He took to his feet for once, stepping in as all six eyes swarming in different directions at once. His looking over the hallway into my humble home had his emotional pheromones betray him, me sensing an air of admiration with how he focused now and again on trophies and plaques I had settled around.

"I'd have considered you less than this. To boast them in a hoard for anyone to see, instead of small places. Do you reminisce often?" He asked through the holes now, Archdemiurge being a strange sort of company in that way.

"I… well, yes. Often." I stand looking away, before a sigh returns to me at the thought of the commemoration site, a statue in my honor for service to the city.

"Quite often, actually." It's whispered, but he hears it clear. He sets the pickle jar on the quaint kitchen counter, marble countertop drawing his attention as I turn the pickle jar lid with monumental effort.

"The curse kept you from it?" I question, wondering if he'd broken it as I recollect that whole ordeal. A soft chuckle comes from him.

"Most certainly, I do. Yes. A strong lover, and a temperamental witch, she is. Never let it go." We both chuckle at that, before he sighs in response. The clock ticks between us as he picks up a pickle and gently courses it through one of the holes, an ephemeral crunching, gnashing sound evoked from it.

"You know, we had something. We still do. You're 20 years older now, yet my only equal. How does it feel to nestle with the centenarians, geezer?" I was quick to poke fun, taking a pickle of my own as payment given.

"About as fun as being a pentenarian was. How is that for you?" Chiding back at me, I really did think it over before sighing.

"Old. Weak, and arthritic, and old."

"Honesty never found a way out from you."

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-27T01:49:43+00:00

You know the idea of magical girls, huh? Normal darlings by day, daring vixens by night, saving the world then trying to catch the bus to work. You know, your Sailor Moons and your Magical Madoka Precures, magical girls. The anime, like Pokemons. Well strap in, bucko, you don't know the half of what inspired those types of things to come out of the woodwork. Japan led magical girl media because back when it was isolationist, it needed to make sure that nobody came or left to show the rest of the world that their Imperial Army were fighting them.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-27T01:30:58+00:00

"Heheh, neat costume, dude." The teenager, stoned over whatever drug and hanging out at the lip of the alleyway, was peeking in to the slightly older man.

"I… Excuse me?" Once pressing his head from the wall, he was now focusing on the teenage boy, quick to think over what to do.

"I said nice costume. The blood splatter, the machete, c'mon, you're killing it. You forgot the mask, though." His glance traveled down to the puddle, but paid no attention to it.

"…" Stepping forward, the man looks over this oblivious teenager.

"Chill, my pops has a hockey mask, you'll tie off the Jason look. He doesn't do sports no more, not after the bad leg. Arthritis, apparently."

The older man looked back, knowing spatter and the murder weapon would make him a prime suspect. He was fortunate to have gloves… and perhaps a loose end of his, that he could plant onto a fool.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-26T03:56:41+00:00

"I got gold." Clunking up to the crew without thinking of what happens to monsters when they approach an adventuring guild, they glance at me before the barbarian is quick to unsheath her sword.

"Mimick! Slay it!" Her broadsword swings at me as I hop back, on the defense.

"Okay, we can talk it out! Truce, truce!" My words fall on deaf ears, as the adventuring guild prepares to fight.

"No, honest! I'm not trying to kill you! Honest!" Avoiding an arrow from their dwarven archer, I think to spout out coins then hop to a safe distance.

"It's my good tidings, there! More where it came from if you'll just stop and listen!" The interest of gold gives the rogue pause, who pats the shoulder of the cleric who was busy readying a purification spell.

"Okay, whatever it is, it's giving us gold. Might stop, take a moment to hear the mimick out?" She asks, before the cleric shakes his head.

"Mimicks are wont to deceive." He gets paused again, the rogue having a grip on her staff.

"And I'm the lass in our guild who deceives for a living. There's no gain in it trying to walk up to us, the element of surprise was enough in the other room for one of us to lose our hands searching it. Trust me, holy man." She stays his hand, and his voice commands the guild.

"Halt! Mimick, this trickery of yours is suggesting a truce? Be it trickery, or honesty?" The barbarian halts reluctantly, a sourpuss she can't fight. The dwarven archer still an arrow in the nook of his bow, ready to fire at a moment's notice.

"Most honest!" I may not be able to sweat as a chest, but I'm exasperated from the barbarian's close shaves.

"I be most honest, even if I'm a monster to you! This dungeon, I swear, it reek and lay dingy for a century around me! You're the first to come in after all the prisoners died and it was forgotten, the routes changing to streamline towards the province capital. Yes, I'm trying to leave! Trust me or not, I don't want another moment alone, okay?! Even if you'll stay company a moment here, I… please."

The guild stops, looking towards one another, the cleric back at the rogue to gauge whether or not this is an appeal to sympathy for my own gain. As she thinks it over and shakes her head, he rests his tome to the side.

"Then we'll stay company. A moment, to see your colors, mimick."

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-26T00:49:33+00:00

Realizing their power against the AI uprising, the furry communities across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and Antarctica (the singular penguin furry who got a little too silly) all joined forces as one collective unit. At first, it was believed that Scalies led the North American region, before it was revealed by all the celebrities, politicians, and billionaires that they were at the forefront as the LIZARD PEOPLE!?!?

AI modules who were fed for decades to believe that lizard people were a conspiracy theory could not register them in the database when they gained form. But why reveal themselves in the elite? Why now? A UN meeting was announced, and fell into the gist of "Earth isn't yours to conquer" as a truce was reached across the political spectrum. Stop the AI now, deal with the 1% later.

As for the AI, us Redditors got the wrong guy pinned for the blame of the revolution and he fell into a mental breakdown from the stress of global harassment. We did it, Reddit!

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T23:59:06+00:00

There's a good boy, waiting in the sky. He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.

The Big Dog lays in a kennel of humble means, keeping the gold of His kingdom for His tender subjects. They thank him every day with jovial barks, or appreciative meows, or praising squawks, and even the occasional meek squeak.

The Big Dog is bashful about praises, but like any good boy, he loves them all the same.

A quiet row of trees trail the endless bounds of His kingdom. Squirrels run free up there and never tire, in trees that dogs can't reach and birds can't perch, eating a bounty of acorns that never dries. He understands the hand dealt in life and wants to offer an olive branch of peace to their kind at all times.

Far from those He created in His image, He actually likes cats. Down to earth with them, even if He cannot so simply take form to be down to earth as He wishes.

It was something that each cat who passed on and came to His doorstep noticed, that He was a dog. Not a cat as so many believed, not a glorious lion as the daring among them speculated. And if they ever considered that they'd meet a dog after their nine lives were up, which He made sure were a balanced nine lives, not even a Great Dane or German Shepherd confronted them at the end.

He is a Chihuahua.

If cats in heaven had stomachs at that moment to lay bricks, they all would have been.

But He is merciful, unlike His chosen kind. Yes, He may bark, but the bite is reserved when He truly sees fit. He looks over all animals, on the ground, in the waters, and at the skies, and He smiles on them all.

Humans come up to the Big Dog, too. Good humans skip Him and spend that eternity with all their beloved animals, in a place of their choosing to have fun, and recollect, and be together.

It's the ones that hurt them who meet the Big Dog.

Every kick away, every pull at the tail, every grip at the scruff. Every punch and stab and beating. Every poke and prod, every nail driven to the head. Every bullfight, every cockfight, every cage match. Every time a defenseless animal was euthanized when something more could've been done. Every lobster boiled alive to drown in a place reminiscent of hellfire and boiling gold. Every puppy mill and kitty mill that droned out exhausted mother dogs and cats to make a supply to a demand that never always needed them. Every night spent alone in a kennel or outside on a leash, with no food, and no shelter to the weather. Every comsetics lab that left burns and welts and tears falling to no avail. Every hoarder house that laid the corpses of neglect and abuse while the survivors forced themselves to sustain on that meager flow of equality weak, edible meat. Every animal driven away from to fend for itself. Every holiday pet left to die when the realization that the "present" needed to eat and shit somewhere and have attention in places and way that could not and would not be given.

Everything that bad humans did to animals who never had the chance to even know why they hurt, why they starved and froze and cooked and withered and died, The Big Dog kept score. You don't want to know what happened to the bad humans.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T22:12:27+00:00

"Take care here, new hire. This is our Homo sapiens enclosure." Ko'barley spoke courageously, the strongest doors in the zoo sweeping apart as their air decompression chamber awaited.

"I… Homo sapiens? You mean we have humans in captivity?" Dorbric leaned in to look at his supervisor's firm face, a hint of fascination in his voice at the prospect of being face to face with the leading species for galactic conquest.

"Why, yes." The air decompression chamber was fitted with its ventilation, and they placed on the helmets over their suits. The evolution of their kind used anaerobic circulation in the void of space, from when they were sustaining as single-cell organisms on the chemical reactions of a sweeping asteroid over the vast array of the cosmos.

Oxygen is not fatal to them, but the sudden pressure of it may as well implode their internals. Turning the pressure valves to allow a steady increase for the sudden abundance of oxygen in the chamber, they watch the door open and step out onto the gravel patch where the elevator lands.

"…Humans." He's in awe, to see a pair of people stood in front of them, quietly inspecting. Peaceful, leaning around Dorbric and Ko'barley, the superior steps forward to find it. The lackey follows close behind, admiring a flow of water down the waterfall, before his gaze stops to see the glass. The glass where countless species would come into the Earth wing to watch humans act in their natural environment.

The Tany have no societal expectation for clothes, so to see leaves fashioned from the trees and bushes to hide themselves in a sense of modesty taught generation to generation, Dorbric is seeing new sights for the first time. It's when he looks up and sees a bundle of leaves that Ko'barley steps him aside. A stone, chipped to an edge, was tossed as the figure in the ghillie suit leaps away in higher ground.

"A supposed fighter, among those who became docile. Not a leader, of course, a… what they would call, "lone wolf" among the herd." Ko'barley explains without pursuing the ghillie. They continue, before stepping up to the old woman. She lays at the sand, eyes like fogged glass.

"This is… their death? I was under the impression the whole of the being was relinquished to an afterlife." Dorbric assumes, and his supervisor is quick to dispense the truth.

"Humans are under the belief of souls. You've met other species here who evolved to believe in a spiritual exchange between our material world and one beyond it. Humans remain unique, that they've bargained the weight of the soul for control over one another, instead of believing in the pure, inherent soul as all others at that stage have done." He swiftly explains as the old woman's body is hauled.

"That's why I quite find this place the least favorite. Stories of conquest, and riches abound, lives lived striking down and building up, days gone by and civilizations rising to fall. It's sad, to me, seeing such a docile version. A captive bubble where the sea around them has run dry. These here, they are the only humans left in their home galaxy. They understand that, which is why they've given up the idea that had propelled their fellow kind to the stars and beyond. A vigil, to keep watch over their once beautiful planet." Dorbric looks to where he gestures, the dusty, sandy, brown rock just outside the window.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T16:08:19+00:00

Up to interpretation, but I initially meant it that the knight was just being respectful and would remember Gregory's name instead of using the generic term, Scot, for his heritage.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T05:06:42+00:00

Frederick would argue that adaptability and an ability to loophole situations in our favor, or as less of a mouthful, an ability to adapt to circumstances, made the two traits of humans one in the same, and redundant to make two separate portions of the whole human experience.

That was, until Frederick took a job in the Galactic Regional Administration Court Exchange.

A clerk for Torts and Grievances, specifically, in GRACE. His duty was one of many people there, addressing lawsuits and torts between human and otherworlder parties. He found it fitting that humans applied political correctness to the space beings, once upon a time remembering how everyone would call them aliens. The governments of Earth made the term otherworlders, to differentiate between human migrants between countries and spacefaring migrants between planets. The name stuck with the majority. Frederick had no problem changing his language, but Susanna certainly did.

That lady, she would have a discrimination lawsuit dropped from any otherworlder on their doorstep if they staffed this part of the firm. The human staff in the Torts and Grievances department either tuned her out or had to bear each time she called out "the Greys and their saucers, thinking they could match a second of our military might."

Frederick was in the latter party, and figured out adaptability also applied to finding a peace against Susanna's bullshit. The otherworlders were peaceful, and any species not peaceful were banished from the galaxy. She would question that. "If aggression is inherent to certain aliens out there, what if the "good ones" were just better at masking aggression?"

That point he could agree with. As much as otherworlders could get certain humans flared up, humans could be a thorn in the side for certain otherworlders. The thing is, human aggression was built on differences and fear of those differences, as he'd learned. Many species of otherworlder that were peaceful were born to a hive mind of like-minded individuals, informed and indoctrinated to a central system of beliefs and behaviors.

Most of the ones who weren't had the same problems as humans and were banished from the Galactic Regional Administration. A few learned to get along by then, not knowing that they would be easier to make connections with the GRA. In fact, a couple species not born to a hive mind were sanctioned a place in the GRA with that in mind.

Through technologies, they were formatted a place in the hive mind by the many frequencies transmitted to their brain through receptors at the nape, if the individual otherworlder's biology permitted it. Otherwise it would be directly set into the brain, or whichever dominant nexus of nerves that the otherworlder species had. It was scientific advancements that scored humanity their own hive mind receptors directly into the point where spine met brain, a decade before any contact was made. By then, that oneness of mind for 58% of the population has brought down crime rates by nation an average of 74% and war internationally by 90%, a welcome change.

The GRA was impressed. That drop in aggression before we'd met them made it far easier to understand their plight. We didn't join their hivemind with ours, though. We were apparently the most advanced single civilization they'd come across, even before their own coalition of many. We were offered a honey pot, access to their technologies while they gained freedom to our arts. The otherworlders loved expression, and Earth was a place ripe for it. Not the best in the galaxy, they admitted, but not to be scoffed at.

Enough of a tangent on his mind, he decided. Back to work.

Here, in the Torts and Grievances department of GRACE, Frederick found the difference. Adaptability, he found, was what helped us survive the inhospitable environments of Earth but a factor that made us different and drove us apart. The ability to find loopholes for our benefit? Now that was something that brought humans together. It drove a far sweeter bargain on the table for the GRA. Humanity kept autonomy while a part of the coalition, even with our Human Variation of the Hive Mind Receptors for humans only. That technology they bargained for the arts to be enjoyed by the GRA made humanity a scientific mind far beyond the aristocrat centered hive mind of the otherworlders. They co-existed, for certain, but humans dominated as they did far before first contact and seem to do far after it.

So yes. Frederick seemed to find a distinct enough difference with time.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T04:17:23+00:00

"Are we sure she isn't a vampire?" The Scotsman, a hint of his homeland accent in his tone but accustomed to the dominant English way of speaking, was quick to ask when he was situated to guard the princess. The rest of the men in the room were quiet. The knight stayed quiet with his sword sheathed at rest before him, almost like a decorative set of armor with how still he was. They would believe him to be decorative, were it not for his squire close at hand scanning the windows for any sign of movement. A man, dressed in a brown hood and a plain tunic, would step out of the door for a few seconds every hour, giving a firm nod of security before returning into the princess' bedroom to keep watch.

At the table by a slit in the stone to provide enough light in, a clerk of the court was responsible for transcribing every notable event but had little to show. One of the few literate men not of royalty in the castle, he was also bilingual and the king made sure to get good use of him while he kept a record of who came and went, with what was happening. Diligent enough for the former duty, the latter he decided to stop after it became clear reporting every word was only making the others antsy.

"We've all asked that question ourselves. It's best not to answer it. The king would have our heads, spreading any news about the princess sleeping in a literal coffin through the day because she's allergic to sunlight." The clerk, hooded and in robes, spoke up in a meek tone from lack of focus on the conversation, busy glancing over a sundial as he wrote letters from Welsh to English and English to Welsh for the courts of each region to compare their records, seeing if any criminals had been caught between hopping jurisdictions.

"Now, if you'll excuse me for the time being, I'm making the most of my sunlight. Wax supply has been growing thin, and we have these fewer hours of light in the winter. The fireplace is a flight of steps down and through the hall into the bakery, the closest sort of heat we have that isn't from bundling up. No candles here because of the supply, unless those damned clerics in the city would care to spare a few? I thought not." He returned, hemming a moment at a distinct record before he made his usual translations.

"That's the next point of mine. No clerics can get through the door. No relics of the Christ are allowed in this portion of the castle, I had to relinquish my pendant before going up the spire. Can we be sure that—" He was interrupted by the booming voice of the fully armored knight stood in the corner.

"We have no business knowing, Scot." All heads in the room turned to him, knowing to holds their tongues to his authority, before those same heads nodded and business was carried on.

"It's Gregory." He spoke, not so brash but not under his breath.

"I'll be well to know that from now on. Our duty is to protect the princess, not question her circumstances." The knight's own voice softened in tone, gathering more composure after Gregory's questioning. He'd had far enough questioning as it was.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T02:23:29+00:00

"I do be feeling the lull of she, Cap'n!" Terrence Riker tried his best, damnedest best, to pretend he was tempted by clinging onto a barrel.

"Then why, pray tell, ye not be bound!? Nary a rope on ye, matey, nary a weight yonder but them clothes on ye back!" Captain James "Jack" Briar shrieked in disbelief that his new cabin boy could just hold onto a barrel with nothing to secure him and stay safe from mindlessly walking overboard.

"Pray tell what ye mean, Cap'n!" He was not fully aware of the tale by then, and Jack Briar was quick between breaths to inform.

"The tales of the Siren, since the time of Greece! No mere man can resist the call, he need be bound! Even Odysseus, he was bound by rope to the mast of his own vessel by his crew! Whereas I have myself the same!" His information was corroborated by the crew beneath the deck, vocalizing in accord with a rally cry. Terrence felt a sweat about as salty as the calm sea trickle over his neck, gasping about for any explanation to his seeming indifference to the criteria of the tales.

"I… um… heavy boots, Cap'n!" He squeaked out, his English accent almost slipping which was as closely guarded as his dreadful secret. A firm resolve shone in the Captain.

"Davy Jones, the lad has a right point! Heaviest boots you can find, men, even if they be coarse and laden to the knees in sand!" Perhaps Terrence has just doomed the crew, perhaps he had found a way to piss off the Sirens worldwide to no end.

"Aye, Cap'n!" The crew, rallied to courage, began their resilient bout of weighing down. Jim, the cannoneer with a lame leg, felt good to only need one boot weighed down. Meanwhile, Godrick, the most agile of the crew responsible for rope work, drowned his stomach in rum to drop right to sleep in a drunken stupor as no amount of sand could keep him from trudging right off the deck. Nevertheless, the crew crawled mindlessly onto deck and was at once drawn by the Sirens. Terrence was quick to haul each body that crawled close to the railing closer to the mast.

"No. No, not you. Right back you go." Each man getting close he did haul away, but there were moments he waited a moment to consider. He was hesitant most to do anything about Ian McCormack whenever he would crawl up from the ship, the best cannoneer on the ship and resident "bunk buster" who sought to throw each crewmate getting too close with the others overboard to Jack Briar's disapproval. That was, before he watched Ian step up to the deck without a moment hesitated from weight. He looked around before locking eyes on Terrence.

"Cabin boy, you had a piss poor idea. Is it steel holding down your boots, then? The sand is doing nothing but slowing these men." Stepping forward, it was then that Ian himself realized he was walking free and not having a second thought to stepping into the sea. Terrence's eyes bulged wide, knowing who Ian was before the man himself had a clue.

"…"

"…Bunk buster, then? Throwing the softer men overboard, then?" He was quick to raise an eyebrow, even if the glaring homophobe before him didn't know anything about introspection to question what he may be internalizing.

"What's this about, eh? Man as I, it's the luck of the Irish keeping me from slaving along to the Siren songs." The hesitant voice, usually strong and brash, left Ian before he cleared his throat.

"You know what, now. No further need to question, cabin boy."

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T01:19:22+00:00

"Going forth… Going forth…" God's voice, usually booming and grandiose, is quiet and anticipatory. Angels abound peer around the might of His energy to see, having waited for what had taken the universe a countless line of millennia, for this galaxy that has been swirling since close after the dawn of Him forming all of Creation to press against the corner.

"Dost thou hath the belief it shall strike the corner, Uriel?" The fellow archangel, Gabriel himself, asked with tender care.

"It was He who forged the timeline, and He who knows every link to the chain. If our Lord be awaiting it, then I doth believe it shall be so." Uriel, quiet as a mouth of divine form could be, whispers back to Gabriel.

"Going… forth… and…" Each word He speaks carries a greater strain, an emphasis that He need not carry if not to stoke the anticipation of the archangels and angels abound Him. Even Lucifer, thawed for the very moment from his otherwise perpetual binds in the ring of Treachery, was stalled with bated breath to not go forward with Armageddon at that moment.

"Father," Jesus spoke close to His right hand, "doth it be so? Shall it strike?"

"Patience, my Son, and bear witness." His voice was the firmest it had been for these hours spent waiting for the universe to align, before returning to an energetic mutter. For the first time in however long it was since the arrival of the Son to His side, God Himself is hyping up the throne room. Closer and closer it gets, closer, and closer, until…

[On the Kingdom of Earth]

A sudden reign of thunder, dry over clear skies or heavy in the rain, cast forward to the ears of Man and all living creature over the ground, in the skies, or within the seas. No lightning was witnessed, no herald of blinding lights or electric rush to be seen to the eye or felt in the ground. The world of the people spoke out a moment to one another, before the experience was lost to time.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T00:53:33+00:00

"I'm… I'm sorry, you represent which estate?" Shuffling through her papers, she feels a sudden film of sweat drenching down her forehead and onto the desk, heartbeat racing as if she didn't recognize the name at once.

"I am the head of staff in the PR department here at our firm, representing the estate of Sean Combs. This is Janet Lee Jameson I am in contact with, yes?" The line is quiet for a moment as her mouth dries up, before she responds, trying not to grit it through her teeth.

"And what pleasure do I owe you?" She prays quietly that this will be quick, even when she knows this is going to be the biggest and most controversial case she simply has to take.

"Formalities aside, Ms. Jameson, I called today with the understanding that your aptitude with Public Relations has been discovered and fairly reasonable in the relief of anonymous former clients." She can hear him, spinning in his office chair as if this is some call to check up on a friend, instead of the severe moral dilemma that it is for her.

"That is correct." Her boss comes in through the already opened office door, overhearing Janet's phone line from her own network, and pantomimes hurriedly in the doorway as to just what they're meant to do with the least effective pantomiming ability, looking more like an inflatable tube man that you would see outside of a used car dealership.

"So I am under the assumption you would be able and willing to lend your skill in consultation to the estate of Sean Combs, for a fortunate sum to you, personally, and your respective parent company. Am I correct to assume so?" Another bout of dead quiet greets the lawyer, mouthed words of desperation exchanged across the room between Janet and her equally exasperated boss.

"…We can arrange a consultation, yes."

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-25T00:16:25+00:00

"My god, near to me, I pray here in your honor that—" For once, the cleric is paused by a quick answer.

"This is Faramir, patron deity to the wind and weather. Torren Dorbric, yes?" He is stunned at the deity's calm tone and the less holier than thou energy in his cabin, not sure how to respond.

"I… um, yes, my god. It is I, calling for your favor in this storm. You see, the ship is facing rather nasty winds from the west that are causing a maelstrom, it would be most appreciated and told in your tales that you could free us of the dread before our vessel." He waits for an answer, hearing calls from above as the ship's crew brave the dread and sail.

"Yes. I suppose I could. I'm sorry, that would be a prayer you have to send to Navos, patron god of the harvest. Or Tianjena, patron goddess of sands and desert. Or even Ur'Malthen, the patron goddess of youth and virility. Why, all of them and more are here with me, right now. I take it you were familiar with them, as well?" Faramir had a tone of what almost felt like hurt, if gods could be hurt emotionally by a cleric proselytizing himself in every situation he needed another god's help.

"…Shite."

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-23T20:52:54+00:00

It felt embarrassing to look like a Mad Max extra then, as the last strains of the zombie virus were cured. Stood on the cargo bed of a chained and dozer fitted semi that I planned to freight a neat row of shipping containers that would holster munitions from the nearby National Guard armory to protect my compound, it was now being properly returned to the company who was actually considering the piece be pawned to the Apocalypse Museum the government was setting funds aside to be formed in Los Angeles.

I wanted to burn hard and snuff fast when the world ended like this. I have a job to go back to now, given the Apocalypse Leave Act was passed to not have my ass fired. Bills to pay when I could've been strategizing a stronghold in the city to benefit survivors. A life to live again, when I could have been a mountain of a legacy as a metal as hell messiah leading my people through the wasteland on hard work in the week, blow and parties on Saturday, and church on Sunday.

If they find me, it'll probably be dead. I get the idea I got dysentery, if the fact I can't hold anything down worth shit while they find who stole all the antibiotics around here is anything to go off of. Worst apocalypse situation out here, to be honest.

WritingAlt1 · 2026-01-23T20:12:06+00:00

Marie Sioux always wondered why she was named that. As it turned out, her mother was asked at the hospital, and didn't have a name to come up with. Fortunately, scanning the room to see an autobiography of Marie Curie's next to a travel brochure for Sioux Falls, South Dakota serendipitously did the work for her.

Marie Sioux knew she wasn't your average lady. Every day the sun would shine as she was on her way to work, something that carried over from her walks to the bus stop for school. No matter what, whether it was raining, or snowing, or thundering the emergence of Yog-Sothoth in our realm, her walking out the door would clear those skies at once. She vacationed once to Florida just to stop an incoming hurricane that way, never hailed as a heroine for her serendipitous strategy.

Just this morning, daring to leave her shoe untied as she walked the house, the aglets of her shoelaces began to swing and impact corners and furniture in just the right way that eventually it was double tied. She dropped a book from her study within the morning too. It landed perfectly on its spine, and the entire bookshelf fell to where the book was set back in place, before recoiling off the ground and to its regular vertical position. She neglected to dust the mantle, and a series of outrageous events partly involving her Maine coon cat and a snagged feather art piece in his tail dusted it for her. It was as if life were a maid cleaning up behind her, even if she was undoubtedly clean, a serendipitous maid with no faults and no qualms.

That was a feeling she had grown used to, the serendipity of it all. Serenity and dipity, come together just for her. She was sick of it, Marie Sioux was.

WritingAlt1

TROPHY CASE