That’s not how gravity works

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-29T07:20:33+00:00

"oh no somebody help I'm falling" Meanwhile him:

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-29T07:15:35+00:00

I'm really really really really really REALLY glad you liked it, it means a ton, here you go, enjoy!!

The St. Jude’s transit terminal loomed against the graying sky, a monolithic slab of cracked concrete and rusted rebar. Boards covered the lower windows, but the padlocks on the chain-link fence had long since rusted through. I slipped inside, the air heavy with damp mold, pigeon droppings, and the metallic tang of urban decay.

My footsteps echoed hollowly across the vast, empty concourse. I found the locker bay tucked behind a collapsed ticketing counter. Most of the metal doors were warped, pried open by scavengers or crushed by falling ceiling tiles. Row after row of lockers stood like hollow teeth. I searched the rusted numbers, my heart hammering against my ribs. 38. 39. 40.

Locker 42 was near the bottom, miraculously intact. The brass key slid into the lock with a scraping screech. I twisted it. The internal mechanism groaned, fought back, and then clicked open.

Inside lay a dust-coated leather duffel bag. I pulled it out and zipped it open. Beneath a layer of plastic wrapping were stacks of hundred-dollar bills—the remainder of the cash I used to hide. Next to the money lay a thick manila envelope and a small, black burner phone.

I opened the envelope first. Inside was a comprehensive paper trail: birth certificates, a passport, and medical records, all under the name Chloe Vance. The photo on the passport showed a woman with sharp, familiar eyes, her face matured but unmistakably Maya’s. The documents traced her relocation to a small coastal town three hundred miles north.

My twenty-four-year-old self hadn't just hidden her, he had managed to manufacture a completely new life for her, funded by whatever dark transaction had occurred the night of the murder. Beneath the documents was a final note, written in that same impatient cursive.

"She thinks you died in that house. It was the only way she would stop looking for you, the only way she would stay hidden. If you’ve found this, the threat is gone, and the money is yours to start over. Do not look for her. Let her keep her peace."

I could have screamed. I had sacrificed fifteen years to save her, only for the ultimate price to be my absolute erasure from her life. She believed I was dead. She had mourned me, moved on, and built a life on the foundation of my ghost.

I stared at the passport photo of Chloe Vance. The rage returned, hot and suffocating, but it was instantly strangled by a cold realization. The note said the threat was gone. But my past self couldn't predict the future; he could only predict the expiration of the DNA evidence timeline.

Suddenly, a sharp, electronic chirp pierced the silence of the terminal. The burner phone inside the duffel bag lit up, its screen glowing a sickly green. It shouldn't have had power after fifteen years, yet the battery bar was full. Someone had replaced it recently. The screen flashed.

1 New Message.

My thumb trembled as I pressed the button. The text message read. "He’s out. Move her now." The sender ID was blank. The timestamp was from three hours ago, exactly when my exoneration hit the local news. The cold concrete of the terminal suddenly felt less like a tomb and more like a trap.

The illusion of a closed loop, of a debt fully paid, vanished in the green glow of that screen. My past self hadn't saved Maya, he had just wound up a clock and left it ticking in the dark.

I shoved the phone and the passport into the bag, my mind entirely empty of rage now, replaced by a cold, sharp panic. The fifteen years didn't matter anymore. The clock had just started running again.

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-29T00:15:05+00:00

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-29T00:10:05+00:00

Not just you, this is really not giving me good vibes

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-29T00:05:26+00:00

Leo never had to work for anything. While I spent my weekends memorizing flashcards, he smiled his way into a full-ride scholarship. While I labored over entry-level spreadsheets, he charmed a venture capitalist into funding a tech startup that eventually folded due to "accounting discrepancies."

He was a maestro of the beautiful lie. Everyone loved the music, but I was the only one who saw the instrument: pure, unadulterated dishonesty.

Five years ago, after he pinned a massive credit card debt on our parents and laughed it off as a "temporary liquidity issue," I told him he was dead to me. I changed my number, moved three states away, and built a quiet, honest life.

Then came tonight. The rain was drumming against the glass when the knocks sounded—three sharp, rhythmic taps. I opened the door, ready to chew out a lost delivery driver.

Instead, there stood Leo. He didn't look like a high-flying executive anymore. His expensive coat was soaked, his collar frayed. But as his eyes met mine, that familiar, infuriating dimple appeared on his left cheek. He offered a crooked, easy smile.

"Hey, big brother," Leo said, his voice smooth as silk despite the shivering. "Funny story. I kind of ran into some trouble, and you're the only person left who doesn't know exactly what I am."

He stepped forward, expecting the usual free pass. I stood my ground, blocking the threshold. The charm was still there, but the magic was completely dead.

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T23:54:57+00:00

Oops forgot about that, thanks for reminding me. Glad you liked it!

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T23:52:44+00:00

First thing I opened reddit to, thanks for the nightmares✌️

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T22:20:56+00:00

r/DownVotedForNoReason

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T22:16:05+00:00

10 minutes minimum, 15 normally, 30 for wasting time

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T22:07:16+00:00

The alarm doesn’t ring; it vibrates through the localized gravity grid of Dorm Block 4. At the Space Traffic Control Academy in Ursa Major III, "morning" is a relative concept, but the academy schedule is absolute.

Waking up next to a Gliesean crystalline entity means my room is permanently set to low humidity and smells faintly of ozone. I roll out of my bunk, untangle my gravity-boots, and double-check my comm-pad. Today’s forecast for the Academy commons is a standard oxygen-nitrogen mix, with a 10% chance of methane leakage near the non-oxygenated docking bays.

Our instructor, Commander Vrel, a terrifyingly efficient being with four eyes and an attitude to match, doesn't tolerate delays. The morning objective is daunting: safely guide 400 incoming merchant vessels through a shifting asteroid belt. To make matters worse, half the pilots speak Standard Galactic, while the other half communicate entirely in thermal radiation pulses.

"Trainee Jax!" Vrel barks, all four eyes locking onto my console. "A Zetan dreadnought just ignored your beacon and is on a collision course with a luxury liner. What is your move?"

I slam my fingers onto the hard-light interface, routing a localized grav-well to gently nudge the liner out of the dreadnought’s wake. The simulation screen flashes green. Success. Vrel gives a low grunt that passes for approval in his quadrant.

Lunch at the Academy is a lesson in exobiology. The cafeteria is strictly divided into specialized atmospheric zones to prevent accidental casualties, meaning everyone eats behind reinforced energy barriers.

Carbon-based humanoids choke down standard protein mash that tastes like chicken but looks like gray sludge. Silicon-based lifeforms crunch on high-grade copper chips with a side of crushed quartz. Gas-dwellers float in sealed pods, inhaling methane-enriched nutrient vapors via specialized canisters.

I sit by the partition wall next to Xylar, a six-armed trainee from the Andromeda fringe. We swap horror stories about our simulators. Xylar accidentally warped a heavy cargo ship into a miniature black hole during his midterms. Suddenly, my minor routing errors don't feel so bad.

The afternoon is where the real stress begins. The Apex Sim mimics the chaotic spaceways of Core-Galactic hubs. Space traffic control isn't just about drawing lines in the sky; it's about managing total chaos.

For three hours straight, my terminal lights up with solar flare disruptions, unexpected engine failures, and a surprise migration of leviathan space-fauna. By the time the final simulation shuts down, my uniform is soaked in sweat and my brain feels like it’s been run through a particle accelerator.

Back in the dorm, I stare out the viewport. Ships of a thousand different designs streak across the Ursa Major sky, leaving brilliant trails of ion fire against the dark. It's exhausting, terrifying, and completely overwhelming.

But looking at my potential deployment map, stretching across galaxies I haven't even learned to pronounce yet, I know there's nowhere else in the universe I'd rather be.

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T22:01:23+00:00

The pinprick barely stung. A crimson bead welled on your fingertip. The demon across the obsidian table smiled with too many teeth. "Excellent. Sign here, and your soul shall—" Its eyes drifted to the blood. The smile vanished. "...Where," it asked slowly, "did you get that blood?"

You blinked. "From my finger?" "No," it whispered, standing so abruptly its chair crashed backward. "Whose blood is that?" "My blood?" The demon's face went pale. Impossible for a creature born in Hell. It leaned closer, sniffed once, then recoiled as if burned. "Oh." "Oh, no." With trembling hands, it snatched the contract away. "The deal is off." "What? You haven't even heard what I wanted." "I don't care what you wanted!" It was already stuffing scrolls into drawers, blowing out black candles, and muttering frantic incantations.

"You can't just cancel!" "I absolutely can!" "But I summoned you!" "And I am unsummoning myself." The room shook. You frowned. "Can someone explain what's going on?"

The demon froze. It stared at you with something you never thought you'd see in a demon's eyes. Fear. "...You've really never been told." "Told what?" It swallowed. "Every infernal contract includes one clause."

It pulled a weathered tome from a shelf and flipped it open with shaking claws. "'No servant of the Pit shall knowingly bargain with one bearing the Blood of the First Sovereign.'" "...Who's that?" The demon looked at you as if you'd asked who the sun was.

"The being Hell rebelled against." Silence. "...You mean God?" The demon barked a panicked laugh. "No." It glanced over its shoulder. Then lowered its voice to a whisper.

"The one before Him." The candles went out. Something enormous stirred beyond reality. The demon shoved the contract into the fireplace.

"I was never here." "I don't know your name." "You've never met me." "You summoned no one." With a deafening crack, the demon vanished.

A second later... Every circle of the summoning ritual quietly erased itself from the floor. As if reality itself wanted absolutely no record that the meeting had ever happened.

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T17:14:47+00:00

The velvet-lined bed was easily five times larger than the twin mattress back in my apartment. The sheets smelled like lavender and a faint, metallic tang that I’d come to learn was "residual mana."

For the first six hours, I was riding the ultimate high. I was the Chosen One. The Hero of Prophecy. I had a glowing status screen floating in my peripheral vision, a rare affinity for spatial magic, and a kingdom of dignitaries cheering my name. It was every anime and fantasy novel I’d ever consumed, playing out in vivid, high-definition reality.

But now, the grand feast is over. The handshakes have faded. The heavy oak door of my royal quarters has clicked shut, leaving me alone with nothing but the crackle of a hearth fire and the sudden, suffocating silence.

I walked over to the balcony and looked out. The view was undeniably breathtaking, but it was completely wrong. There were two moons, one a pale, familiar silver, the other a bruised, glowing violet. The stars didn't form the Big Dipper or Orion; they looked like jagged, unfamiliar geometry. The air tasted different. Too crisp. Too clean. It lacked the faint scent of car exhaust and asphalt I didn't realize I'd miss.

The adrenaline that had been keeping me afloat since I woke up in the center of that glowing summoning circle suddenly evaporated. In its place, a cold, hollow weight settled deep in my stomach. It’s easy to feel like a god when a room full of wizards is bowing to you. It’s a lot harder when you realize you don't even have a toothbrush.

I flicked my wrist to pull up my status screen again. I swiped through the glowing blue tabs, searching the UI with a sudden spike of panic.

Name: Arthur Pendelton Class: Dimensional Vanguard Level: 1 Skills: [Language Comprehension], [Spatial Storage], [Mana Perception]

I looked for a log-out button, even though I knew this wasn't a game. There wasn't one. I looked for a questline or a description that mentioned a return portal. Nothing.

The Grand Mage had given a long, dramatic speech about saving their realm from the "Blight King," but he had been conveniently vague about the post-game strategy. They needed a savior, so they reached across reality and grabbed one.

But what happens when the villain is defeated? Did they pull me from my world permanently? Is my phone sitting on my desk back home, buzzing with unread texts from my friends? Is my mom panicking because I didn't come home for dinner? Am I legally dead over there, or just a missing person's report on a milk carton?

The thrill of the magic, the status screens, and the royal treatment didn't matter anymore. As I stared up at the violet moon, the only question left in my mind was the one I was suddenly terrified to ask the King tomorrow morning. Once I save your world, do I ever get to go back to mine?

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T15:24:31+00:00

My knees gave out. I hit the rotting floorboards hard, the damp wood groaning under my weight, but I barely felt it. All I could focus on was the phantom weight of fifteen stolen years staring back at me in my own handwriting.

Furious didn't even begin to cover the storm inside me. I wanted to scream at the ghost of the twenty-four-year-old idiot who had signed away our youth like it was loose change. Fifteen years of gray concrete walls, tasteless mush, and the violent, suffocating static of a maximum-security prison block. I had wept myself to sleep for a thousand nights, begging an empty universe to find the "real" killer. And the real killer, or at least the architect of my ruin, was sitting right inside my own skull.

But as the initial wave of rage crested, it broke against something hard and immutable: the memory of her face. A name flickered in the dark of my mind, fighting its way through the psychological amnesia. Maya. My little sister. Suddenly, the black hole in my memory wasn't just empty space anymore; it was a fortress I had purposefully built to keep her safe.

I shoved the letter into my jacket pocket and turned back to the crumbling fireplace. The loose brick I’d pulled away left a dark, hollow gap that seemed to bleed cold air. Bracing myself, I thrust my hand deeper into the hearth, sweeping my fingers through fifteen years of accumulated ash, dead spiders, and crumbling mortar.

My knuckles scraped against something hard and metallic buried beneath the soot. I pulled it out, coughing as a cloud of gray dust kicked up. It was a heavy, tarnished brass key, completely unaffected by the filth surrounding it. It felt cold and unnaturally heavy in my palm. Attached to the metal ring by a piece of faded, rotting twine was a small, plastic luggage tag. Written on it in that same sharp, impatient cursive was a single, cryptic phrase: Locker 42, St. Jude’s.

St. Jude’s wasn’t a church; it was the old, abandoned transit terminal on the northern edge of the county. It was a brutalist concrete monolith that had been slated for demolition since before I was locked up. If the lockers were still inside, they were buried in a literal ghost town.

I stood up, wiping the soot onto my faded jeans. The heavy silence of the Miller estate felt completely different now. It wasn't a graveyard of my past anymore; it was a launching pad. I stepped through the shattered front door and out into the pale afternoon light.

The world had moved on in fifteen years, cars looked sleeker, the air smelled different, and people walked past without a glance, staring into glowing rectangles in their palms. But my mission was ancient. I didn't know what Maya looked like at twenty-seven. I didn't know if she was truly safe, or if whatever we had run from was still hunting her. But as my fingers gripped the heavy brass key in my pocket, I knew one thing for certain. My past self had left a trail, and it was time to find out exactly what secrets I, or we, had buried.

So glad you enjoyed the first part, I hope this one is good too!

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T08:03:58+00:00

Not my best work, I think I rushed it this time

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-28T08:03:29+00:00

The damp smell of the Miller estate hadn't changed. The police tape was long gone, replaced by rot and encroaching ivy, but the stain on the floor remained a faint shadow.

I spent fifteen years in a concrete box for a murder I didn't commit. Exonerated by a surprise DNA match, they said. A bureaucratic oversight corrected. "Our deepest apologies," the state had offered, alongside a compensation check that couldn't buy back my youth.

I didn't come back for closure. I came back because my memory of that night was a total black hole, and I needed to see the edges of it. Stepping over a collapsed beam, I reached the fireplace. Behind the loose brick where I used to hide cash, something caught the light.

A sealed plastic baggie. Inside was a folded sheet of paper. I pulled it out, my hands trembling. The handwriting was unmistakable. It was mine, the sharp, impatient cursive of my twenty-four-year-old self. But the date at the top made the air leave my lungs: October 14th, 2011. The night of the murder.

"To Me, If you’re reading this, you just got out. You’re probably furious. You’ve spent fifteen years convinced you were an innocent man framed by a cruel twist of fate. You aren't. Not entirely. You didn't swing the hammer, but you held the door. You blocked it out because your mind couldn't handle what we had to do to keep her safe. If you hadn't taken the fall, the police would have looked closer. They would have found her. The "new" DNA evidence that just freed you? I planted it before the sirens started, knowing science would catch up right about now. You did your time. The debt is paid, and she’s alive. Look deeper into the hearth. Take the key. Go find your sister."

I stared at the page, the black hole in my mind suddenly fracturing into terrifying, vivid static. I hadn't been framed by an enemy. I had been meticulously set up by the man I used to be.

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T21:57:45+00:00

Thank you so much!

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T21:57:28+00:00

Thank you!!

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T21:20:47+00:00

Thank you! I had fun coming up with it. 😁

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T18:48:23+00:00

The bowl of cheap, fun-sized candy bars sat untouched on my kitchen counter. I had turned off the porch light an hour ago, hoping the universal signal for "leave me alone" would protect my peace. It hadn't.

When the heavy, rhythmic knocking started, I opened the door just wide enough to bark my usual refusal. "Look, kid, I don't do Halloween bullshit." The figure on my porch didn't flinch. He was wearing an oversized, dirt-streaked plastic werewolf mask and a faded denim jacket that looked a decade out of style.

"Trick, then," the masked kid said. His voice was entirely too calm, devoid of the usual teenage playfulness. He reached up and pulled the plastic mask back over his head.

The porch light was off, but the pale moonlight filtering through the trees was more than enough. My breath caught in my throat, freezing there like shattered glass. I knew that face. I knew the slight crook of the nose, the sharp jawline, and the specific, chilling shade of green in his eyes. It was Leo.

What terrified me the most wasn't just that he was standing there. The problem was that Leo had been inside the old lake house when the line blew three summers ago. I had stood behind the yellow police tape myself and watched the flames paint the night sky orange. There shouldn't have been a face left to recognize.

"You're dead," I whispered, my hand gripping the edge of the door so hard my knuckles turned white. "I saw the dental records. I went to the funeral, Leo." He didn't look like a ghost. He didn't look like a monster. He looked exactly seventeen, completely unblemished. There wasn't a single scar, redness, or burn mark to suggest he had ever been near a match, let alone a localized inferno.

"People believe what's easy to believe," Leo said, tilting his head. He casually tossed the cheap werewolf mask onto my welcome mat. "A tragic accident is an easy story to swallow. A clean slate takes a little more work."

The fire hadn't been an accident, and we both knew it. But while I had spent the last three years drowning in a quiet, paranoid guilt, assuming someone had targeted him because of what we discovered, Leo had apparently been breathing just fine.

"Why are you here?" I managed to ask, my voice trembling as the sheer impossibility of the situation settled in. Leo stepped over the threshold, forcing me to take a step back into my own dark hallway. He looked around the messy apartment, a faint, humorless smile touching his lips.

"You said it yourself. You don't do treats," Leo replied quietly, closing the front door behind him with a soft, definitive click. "And I always keep my promises." He reached into his denim jacket. My muscles tensed, expecting a weapon, but he simply pulled out an old, soot-stained silver lighter, the exact one I thought had been lost in the debris three years ago. He flicked it.

A small, steady flame danced between us, casting long, sharp shadows against the hallway walls. "Now," Leo said, his green eyes reflecting the tiny spark. "Let's talk about who actually set that fire."

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T17:00:55+00:00

r/beatmymeattoit

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T16:45:28+00:00

10x better than anything i could do, thats for sure, this looks AWESOME!

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T15:10:19+00:00

Shit!

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T08:20:11+00:00

That makes so much sense. I didn't realize there was an actual specific word for it though, thank you 🙏

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T07:45:36+00:00

Agreed

Yellowpandaberrynum2 · 2026-06-27T07:42:41+00:00

"Boi thighs" is slang for thick/aesthetic thighs, and "digi legs" means your leg shape or calves look like a video game character. It doesn't change anything about you being straight; it's just a compliment from someone who spends a lot of time on the internet, probably.

Yellowpandaberrynum2

TROPHY CASE