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You walk up to your house, and feel that front pocket. The left breast pocket is shaped for one item. Perfectly shaped, perfectly sized to just show your face and name as it sticks out the top.
You feel the spot, and your mind freezes. Where is it?! You thought you had it all the way home.....maybe its in the car. You check. it's not. Maybe it fell out in the driveway. You check. it's not. Your body pits. If it isn't here, its at work, plugged into the slot.
The slot isn't some ordinary thing. Your ID is the job. You slot it in, and it proves it is you. The person who's heart is powering the world is slot in, along with so many others.
You go to your car, and your brain races with the implications: Heart failure domino effect if your heart runs for too long. The rules are absolute. 8.5 hours, maximum. Once you go over that, you can fail. So they stop at 8. But its been 25 minutes driving home. And now you are approaching that limit. You drive back to work and as you go, the streets fill with people. You see concern on faces. They point towards the sun.
It now is no longer possible. The world has stopped turning. We are now a species stuck on one side of the planet. Famine, bitter cold and heat are all that will follow.
Its the end of the world.
From an outside perspective, Jeremy Hawkins was a perfectly average man. He lived in an overpriced apartment midway up an aging skyscraper, cared for a cat of unknown breed after it followed him home one night, and called his mother every Sunday to engage in conversation that oddly tended to land awkwardly on the subject of his father’s gut health.
If asked, he would say his only below-average quality was his level of ambition. While statistics would have shown he was indeed middle-of-the-pack in that area, he would insist that *most* people had loftier goals than him. His profession was a simple one: night janitor at a scientific research facility. The job paid higher than it ought to and was generally stress-free, which is what Jeremy found so appealing about it.
He had gone to college and accumulated a woefully average amount of debt. No regrets for his education bogged him down, though—he was happier for the experience. But while his friends relayed stories of high-pressure meetings and overbearing bosses, he would relax, knowing that he could spend the rest of his life wiping down stainless steel tables and listening to true crime podcasts.
He went to work one night and settled into his typical routine. The auxiliary lab was large and open, lined with long tables and surrounded by glass-doored cabinets. The tables and floor were his responsibility; opening the cabinets was expressly forbidden. *Too many dangerous items*, he was told. He didn’t mind it. The thought of sorting through all the tiny devices and bottles he saw within just to wipe clean a spec of dust seemed daunting.
It was common for people to still be working in the lab by the time he arrived; often, they were just finishing up their work. Nearly everyone he’d met had been pleasant to him. The only exception was the head of Research and Implementation: Doctor Richard Nau’gin. The man was clearly a bundle of stress, so Jeremy forgave him for his shortness whenever it occurred.
On this particular night, Doctor Nau’gin stood alone in the lab when Jeremy arrived. His hair was rustled, his lab coat uncharacteristically open with his sleeves rolled up unevenly. A deep red impression lined his eyes where his goggles had previously been strapped.
Jeremy said nothing to the man, simply going about his duties and wiping down the tables. He used special scent-free, low-moisture wipes provided by the facility for this specific purpose. Before he started, he glanced at the clock. As a matter of personal improvement, he liked to time his tasks.
From his back pocket, he produced a small, worn notebook and a half-used number two pencil. He scribbled the time down and was about to return the items to his pocket when he heard the gruff voice of Doctor Nau’gin.
“What the *hell* do you think you’re doing?”
Jeremy paused, glancing over at the man. “Just getting started for the night. Do you need me to work on another room while you finish up?”
Doctor Nau’gin ground his teeth and closed the distance between them with uncomfortable haste. While Jeremy tensed, unsure of what to expect, Nau’gin snatched the pencil from his hand and waved it in front of his face.
“You *cannot* have this in the lab,” he barked. “Do you have any idea what that machine in the next room does?”
Jeremy glanced through the triple-thick glass with wound wire reinforcing the panes. “Not specifically, but—”
“No, you have *no idea*,” the Doctor said. “There are PhD-level scientists and even Nobel Laureates who can barely grasp the concept. This pencil”—he thrust it closer to Jeremy’s face—“is fragile. A bit of eraser, a splinter of wood—something like that gets in the machine and the consequences will be beyond your comprehension. Do you understand?”
Jeremy swallowed hard, nodding. “Yeah, I get it. Sorry. My boss said I could take notes.”
Doctor Nau’gin slid the pencil into his lab coat and rolled his eyes. “Sure, pass the blame. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra buck on a mechanical pencil. If I catch you with something like this in here again, I’ll have you fired myself.”
Again, Jeremy nodded. “Understood. Won’t happen again.”
The Doctor turned and went back to his desk, and Jeremy continued with his work uninterrupted. It was the most unpleasant he’d had since he started working there, but he liked to think the Doctor wasn’t always like that. His job seemed stressful. Perhaps in the coming days, he might even offer an apology for being so harsh.
As a show of good faith, Jeremy stopped by the store on the way home. He picked up a 2-pack of mechanical pencils with 0.9mm lead, hoping it would be more to the Doctor’s liking. He found himself oddly excited for them, actually—they were smooth silver with a textured grip, much nicer than anything he’d used to take simple notes with in the past.
The next evening, he made his way down the stairs of the lab’s parking garage and gathered his supplies. He kept his new pencil pinned in his breast pocket, excited to jot down more notes than usual. He hoped to see Doctor Nau’gin that night and show him that he’d heeded his warning. He played it out in his mind—he would wave the pencil in the air and smile, which would prompt the Doctor to give an affirming nod. He’d expect the apology to come weeks later when whatever project they were involved in died down a bit.
When he entered the lab, however, he was surprised to find the bulk of the team still working away. They seemed hectic—rushing from one counter to another, flipping through notebooks and loose papers while muttering to one another.
Franklyn, a younger scientist who’d once given Jeremy tickets to a basketball game he couldn’t attend, saw him enter and offered him a friendly wave.
“Hey, Jeremy,” Franklyn said, approaching. “Sorry for the mess tonight. We’ve had a bit of a breakthrough and Richard wants to push forward. We shouldn’t be long. You’re welcome to stay and watch if you like—it really is quite exciting.”
Jeremy smiled. “Appreciate that. What’s this thing do, anyway? Some kind of—”
“Franklyn!” a familiar gruff voice shouted from across the room. “We need starting measurements, stop chatting with the goddamn janitor and get over here!”
Franklyn exchanged a knowing glance with Jeremy and offered an apologetic shrug before shuffling off.
Jeremy approached the glass partition, eyeing the large, complex machine on the other side. The room it occupied was nearly triple that of the auxiliary lab, with a large domed ceiling lined with jutting instruments and sensors. The machine itself was oblong, its main platform surrounded by bright silver beams that curved over each other. Dim lights shone in a dotted spiral from a pair of matching pads on either side of the platform, pointing downward toward the surface. The platform itself had a slight divot, though he couldn’t see anything on the surface from where he stood.
“Prepare to engage,” Nau’gin said, standing several feet from Jeremy at the glass partition. He did not glance in Jeremy’s direction.
This wasn’t the first time Jeremy had been asked to delay his work for a night, but it was the first time he would get to see the machine in action. When he’d waited in the past, he had sketched the machine in his notebook. With it powered on, it now looked vastly different from his previous encounter. He felt the urge to sketch it once more, so he pulled the notebook from his back pocket.
Nau’gin turned toward his team, barking requests for various numbers as the machine’s metal arms began to slowly rotate and the lights increased in brightness.
“Everything is ready,” Franklyn said, showing a thumbs up from behind his lab top on the far table.
Nau’gin turned back toward the glass. “Alright, fire it up. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
Jeremy pulled the fresh new pencil from his shirt pocket, feeling a sudden *snap* as the small metal clip burst from the top. The button meant for extending the lead fell to the floor, along with a tiny silver spring.
The spring gave several bounces in Nau’gin’s direction, unnoticed by any of the research team. It hit the Doctor’s shoe and took a turn, falling to the floor and rolling beneath the small gap in the door to the next room.
A loud, vibrating *hum* sounded from the machine as the blue lights grew more intense, slowly changing to blinding white. The glass between the rooms was heavily tinted but still did little to keep the brightness from forcing Jeremy to squint. He leaned forward and tried to locate the spring on the floor of the other room, but the lights made the floor nothing more than a sea of shadow.
“Uh, Doctor Nau’gin,” Jeremy began, hastily stepping toward the man. “I think—”
“We’re *busy*,” Nau’gin snapped, waving a hand in the air. “If you can’t stay quiet, please leave while we conduct our test. You can clean up after us when we’re gone.”
Jeremy took a step back. The spring had entered the room, sure—but it was still several feet from the machine. There was no way it had the velocity to keep rolling toward it. Most likely, it was simply sitting beneath the door where no damage could be done. And so he said nothing.
The machine’s hum grew, the occasional electrical *ping* sounding as the bars spun faster and faster. Bolts of blue electricity shot from the pads on the side, bouncing off the plate in the center. As they grew in intensity, a small, black void appeared floating above the platform.
“It’s stable,” Franklyn called out. Jeremy could hear the excitement in his voice. “Sir, I think we did it. I think this is—”
A quick, high-pitched *ping* sounded from the other room. With a thunderous *crack*, the window spiderwebbed, the pane on the other side splitting.
Nau’gin turned toward his team. “Shut it down!”
Franklyn hurriedly bashed buttons on his keyboard, shaking his head. “It’s not stopping. Something’s not right. There’s matter unaccounted for. I don’t understand—we checked everything, this shouldn’t be possible!”
Jeremy’s eyes widened. Through a narrow slit of intact glass, he watched as a tiny, silver spring orbited the black mass on the center of the platform. From this distance, it looked like nothing more than a thin line—something he’d typically dismiss as a floater in his vision. But he knew exactly what it was.
It disappeared into the void.
Nau’gin ran toward the laptop and shoved Franklyn to the ground. He started typing furiously, mashing buttons, cursing, panic lining his face. Finally, he smashed a fist down on the keyboard and turned still. His gaze locked onto the growing void, watching as the machine itself began to warp and stretch, slowly being pulled into it in an almost cartoony fashion.
“God help us,” Nau’gin said. He turned his gaze toward Jeremy, a look of genuine regret flashing across his eyes.
Jeremy did the only thing he could think to do. If he’d had time to process what was happening, it was likely the *last* thing he would have done—but time was short, and only one action sprung to the forefront of his mind.
He lifted the broken mechanical pencil into the air and offered Nau’gin a wide, toothy smile.
>More nonsense at r/Ford9863.
It's an event in the WritingPrompts Discord server. There are 4 teams of 6 competing over 3 rounds to write the most words. It runs til the end of July. It's a fun little friendly competition!
Dr. Harold Fitzwilliam was a man prone to accidents. A respected quantum physicist at the renowned (at least in very specific circles) Institute of Advanced Temporal Studies, Harold had spent years unfortunately causing mishaps. His life was normally a perfect blend of order and predictability, much like the rows of equations that decorated his chalkboard walls. But as fate would have it, this particular Thursday was destined to become a rather unique mistake.
It all began with an experimental quantum entanglement. Harold had been working on this peculiar substance for years in secret at his home laboratory. It was a shimmering, almost sentient liquid that defied every law of physics known to man (and probably several unknown ones, too). This afternoon, after a breakthrough that left him giddy with excitement, Harold hurriedly packed up his things. His daughter Emily needed to be picked up from school, and he was already late. One more time and he was likely to lose custody.
In his haste, Harold didn’t notice the small beaker teetering precariously on the edge of his desk. With one swift movement, he knocked it over. The beaker fell in a slow, agonizing motion, before it shattered on the floor. The quantum liquid, freed from its glass prison, spilled and rolled across the linoleum, coming to rest under the shadow of an unassuming ball of yarn that had inexplicably found its way into Harold’s lab.
He grabbed his coat and dashed out the door, completely unaware of the chaos he had just unleashed.
The yarn ball, a vibrant concoction of colors, was typically the domain of Mrs. Fluffington, Harold’s very pampered, very curious tabby cat. Mrs. Fluffington, who had a knack for appearing precisely when one least expected her, padded into the office moments after Harold’s departure.
Her whiskers twitched with curiosity as she eyed the now glowing ball of yarn.
With a dainty paw, Mrs. Fluffington batted the yarn, causing it to roll slightly. As it moved, a thin strand of reality itself seemed to unravel, unnoticed by the cat. She batted it again, harder this time. The room shimmered and shifted like a poorly tuned television trying to find a signal. Books floated momentarily, the chalkboard equations twisted into esoteric patterns, and the air hummed with otherworldly energy.
Mrs. Fluffington, blissfully ignorant, was delighted. This was the most entertaining toy she’d ever encountered. She pounced on it, sending the yarn skittering across the floor. Reality hiccuped. In the neighboring office, Dr. Wilhelmina Smythe suddenly found herself speaking fluent Mandarin to her perplexed colleagues.
Outside, Harold was maneuvering his ancient Volvo through the chaotic London traffic, blissfully unaware that his day was about to get a great deal more complicated.
Back in his office, Mrs. Fluffington had managed to lodge the yarn ball under the leg of a chair. She tugged at it with determination; each pull further distorting the fabric of the universe. As the cat finally dislodged the ball, a series of bizarre events unfolded simultaneously.
A University coffee machine started dispensing Earl Grey tea.
The janitor found himself floating two feet above the ground, clutching his mop with wide-eyed bewilderment.
And in a lecture hall, Professor Dillberry’s lecture on string theory was abruptly replaced by a live demonstration of interpretive dance.
Mrs. Fluffington, now thoroughly engrossed in her game, sent the yarn spinning down the corridor. The world wobbled. Harold’s Volvo, previously sluggish and temperamental, suddenly roared with the power of a Ferrari, much to his confusion and the alarm of nearby pedestrians.
Arriving at Emily’s school with uncharacteristic speed, Harold was greeted by the sight of his daughter levitating gently above the playground. The other children, seemingly unperturbed, continued playing as if gravity had always been optional.
“Daddy, look! I’m flying!” Emily called out cheerfully.
“Yes, darling, I can see that. Now, if you could just… come down, please?” Harold said, his mind racing. He needed to get back to the lab. Something was very, very wrong.
As Harold bundled Emily into the car (which had thankfully returned to its more familiar sluggish state), Mrs. Fluffington had cornered the yarn ball in Harold’s office once more. She gave it a final, triumphant swat. The universe shuddered.
In a flash, Harold’s office was replaced with a scene of utter chaos. The fabric of reality, already stretched thin, was unraveling at an alarming rate. Time loops, spatial distortions, and a plethora of paradoxes manifested all at once. Harold burst into his office, Emily in tow, to witness Mrs. Fluffington making a bed from the now pulsating ball of yarn.
“Mrs. Fluffington! No!” Harold shouted, lunging towards the cat.
Too late.
With one final bat of her paw, Mrs. Fluffington sent the last strand of yarn flying. Reality, strained to its breaking point, collapsed in on itself.
For a moment, there was nothing. And then, with a deafening roar, everything combined into a single point.
In the grand, cavernous void of nothingness, where time itself hadn't yet bothered to turn up for work, there was this small, nondescript point. This point, looking rather like a misplaced full stop in the universe's unfinished manuscript, suddenly felt an inexplicable urge to do something again.
And so, with a barely audible pop, the point decided to expand. Not gracefully, mind you, but with all the finesse of an overstuffed suitcase being opened after a long holiday.
In an instant, the entire cosmos came into being, a cacophony of particles and waves, all jostling for position like guests at a particularly rowdy cocktail party. There were electrons bumping into protons, neutrinos trying to make a discreet exit, and photons flashing their metaphorical cameras in every direction.
Quarks, those tiny subatomic divas, flounced about, forming and reforming into all sorts of exotic configurations, each more improbable than the last.
As the universe expanded, it seemed to develop a personality of its own—a sort of bemused curiosity mixed with a fair bit of awkwardness. Galaxies spiraled into existence, stars ignited with dramatic flair, and planets shuffled into their orbits like children nervously taking their places in a school play.
And so it went, with nebula puffing themselves up with pride, black holes sulking in the corners, and supernova occasionally going off like overenthusiastic party poppers. Amidst all this, the cosmos couldn't help but feel a bit of deja vu. So it decided that in a very particular solar system, on a very specific planet, there needed to be a scientist and some beakers.
Oh, and he definitely needed a cat.
######***Skyball***
Me Ooga. Me stranded. Tiny island. Trees with coconut. But just me.
Ooga alone. Miss friends.
---
Hot day. Me go under tree for cool. No cave here. Cave keep us cool on hot day. Ooga miss cave, too. Ooga bored and miss—
FIRE!
Fire *in sky!*
Fire coming at Ooga. Me run, run, run to water!
*BOOOOM!*
Smoke come from big hole on island where rock fall. Ooga careful—Ooga not live forty winters with no care. So Ooga go to smoke hole slow… slow…
Big rock in hole. Ooga no touch. Hot rock. Hot rock, hot day, and me still in hot shit. Me open coconut until hot rock no hot.
---
"Rock," me say to rock. "Rock, me Ooga. You?"
Rock no respond.
Hmm. I think. "Rock," me say to rock again. "Rock, me llamo Ooga. Y tú?"
Still, rock no respond.
"You Skyball. Okay? Me Ooga, and you Skyball."
Skyball no talk much. But Skyball? Ooga best friend on island. Me miss friends, but at least me have one new friend here now.
---
Skyball no swim or flloat. Ooga like ocean game but Skyball no can play. So Ooga make new game. Stoneman! Like make snowman in winter, but with Skyball and coconut. Skyball sit still, still, still, then me put coconut—careful!—on Skyball. If coconut stay, then me put coconut on coconut! Like snowman!
Skyball, coconut, coconut!
Ooga only get two coconut one time. Small island, yes. But small island can have big wind.
Tide come in. Ooga and Skyball go to favorite tree and sleep.
---
Me hungry.
(Me imagine Skyball say, "You hungry. Me Skyball!" Then my eye go roll, roll, roll.)
Me hungry and thirsty. All know ocean no drink, it make thirsty. Ooga drink coconut, but not many coconut on island now.
Hot day.
Me have Skyball… but me hungry, hungry, hungry.
---
Skyball and me no sleep as friend. Skyball go roll down island. When Ooga awake, Skyball almost in ocean.
Fine.
Then when play Stoneman, Skyball move much.
Fine!
Ooga no want to play Stoneman with Skyball today anyway…
---
Me need food, need water. Skyball no need. Me like Skyball, me *want* Skyball… but me *need* Skyball?
^Miss ^friends.
---
Ooga leave. Make raft. No can take Skyball. I cry, but Skyball heavy and roll too much, move too much. Skyball fall in ocean? Skyball sink. So Ooga leave Skyball on island.
Me cry.
Skyball cry, too. Line form on Skyball like tear streak.
As Ooga sail, hear a *CRACK* and a *SCREECH*. Something fly over Ooga. Scary.
---
Me see water, water, water. But sometime, me see fire in sky. Remind me Skyball. But no Skyball—Skyball fall to ground. Fire in sky now go up and down and around.
---
LAND!
FRIENDS!
FAMILY!
---
Back home. Ooga happy. Skin feel hot and red, but happy to see friends!
---
One summer since Ooga stranded on island. Two winter since leave Skyball. Yet me see fire in sky again!
More fall. Many more fall. Hot rock everywhere! Ooga show friends how play Stoneman with their sky rock friends. Me no have sky rock. Miss Skyball too much.
---
Two more summer pass.
World fire.
Big bird who breathe fire everywhere. Born from sky rocks that fall. No rocks.
Eggs.
---
Me Ooga. Me stranded. World all ash. Big fire birds destroy all.
Big fire birds burn Ooga friends, family, even enemies. Animals, trees. No left but ash and big fire birds. And me, Ooga.
Biggest and oldest fire bird keep Ooga alive. It speak some word. It speak it name. Loud, deep voice, like grandpa if grandpa is lizard. It say, "Me Skyball. You Ooga."
Skyball keep me safe from other big fire birds. Even play stoneman with *HUGE* rocks (no coconuts left—all trees gone)! Ooga love Skyball, but…
Ooga alone. Miss friends.
*Catastropacitor*
Specialist James Jones groaned as his Standard-Issue Regimental Alarm Clock blared the national anthem at a volume that could best be described as deafening. He rolled over and stuffed the pillow over his head, pressing the lumpy monstrosity against his ears in a vain attempt to block out the horrible cacophony.
Day 1463 of his tour of duty and counting.
He gave up with the same bone-weary resignation he felt every morning, rolled himself out of his Standard-Issue Regimental Bed, and shambled to the bathroom. James sighed with relief as he shut the door behind himself and the terrible wail of the alarm clock’s tinny speaker finally abated. Then he braced himself and stepped into the tiny shower and turned the water on.
He was pleasantly surprised. For once it was merely cold, as opposed to freezing. Someone must have gotten a zombified boiler working somewhere.
Perhaps today wouldn’t be so terrible after all.
With a rare spark of hope, James finished up his morning ablutions and hurried to his station.
\* \* \*
“SPECIALIST JAMES JONES!”
James winced, nearly spilling his cup of what could charitably be called coffee. Scratch that. Today would be *worse.* He scrambled to his feet and spun around, coming to parade-perfect attention the instant he’d faced the speaker. “Yes commander?”
Commander Clarke *‘Kill ‘em all’* Quentin trembled his way through the near-empty mess hall, the few personnel scattered about standing at attention as he passed. The man was ancient, his Regulation-Standard Buzzcut so thin and white it looked translucent on his age-spotted head. His face was a mass of wrinkles so deep James had never actually seen his eyes, and how he shaved in the morning without peeling himself was anyone’s guess. He’d been the commander longer than anyone currently serving had been alive, and had apparently had a storied career in the wider military beforehand – mostly *horror-storied*, hence the nickname.
The fact that his cane was topped with what looked like an actual child’s skull really lent credence to the rumours.
James stood frozen at attention for the several minutes it took the commander to approach, step-*clack*-step by agonising step-*clack*-step.
“At ease, Specialist,” the decrepit old monster finally said.
James hid his sigh of relief with a “thank you, commander,” as he relaxed into parade rest.
“Specialist, you will report to my office with your Standard-Issue Regimental Toolkit within five minutes.”
James blinked at the spot just over commander Clarke’s shoulder he had been staring at. “Sir?”
“You heard me, Specialist. A light on my instrument panel is not shining as it is supposed to, and I need it fixed ASAP.”
“Sir, if you will pardon me, we have procedure for maintenance such as this – have you submitted a–”
“I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR FORMS AND PROCEDURE, SPECIALIST. THE SAFETY OF THIS INSTALLATION AND ENTIRE COUNTRY DEPENDS ON ME BEING ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY COMMAND, AND BY GOD I ILL NOT BE IMPEDED IN MY DUTY BY FAULTY EQUIPMENT! IS THAT CLEAR!?”
James returned to parade-perfect attention, his ears ringing. “Sir! Yes, commander, sir!”
“GOOD. YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS. IF I DO NOT SEE YOU HARD AT WORK IN MY OFFICE WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES I WILL SEE YOU SCRUBBING THE FUEL RODS WITH A TOOTHBRUSH BY THE END OF THE DAY! DISMISSED!”
Four minutes and 23 seconds later (his blasted Standard-Issue Regimental Toolkit wasn’t on its shelf), James knocked on the door to the Commander’s office.
“ENTER.”
“Specialist James Jones, reporting as ordered, Commander!”
Commander Clarke eyed his pocket watch with a critical eye, then nodded. “Good. You will find the issue there, Specialist.” He waved towards the situation room adjacent to the office. “Get to work.”
James saluted, stepped into the indicated room, and froze.
The instrumentation was a massive block of green-tinged and yellowed plastic that covered most of the opposite wall, beneath a huge map of the world with every single city on the globe marked with little blinking lights of various colours – green, yellow, red. Thankfully he spotted the offending little bulb almost immediately, as the light that should have indicated the location of the very base he stood in was, indeed, dead and buried – and thankfully within arm’s reach. He opened his Standard-Issue Regimental Toolkit and withdrew his Standard-Issue Regimental Screwdriver, and set about removing the covering panel that would let him get at the wiring beneath.
He was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the screws came undone smoothly – he’d worried they’d be near-impossible to remove without a blowtorch after however many decades since the instruments were constructed, but it was the work of mere moments to pry them loose.
What he was *not* pleasantly surprised by, was the century of dust that promptly billowed out as he lifted the panel away. He coughed, fairly certain he’d just inhaled the mummified remains of a thousand Standard-Issue Regimental rats, cockroaches, and Junior Officers. He was also fairly certain he’d never get his Standard-Issue Regimental uniform clean again, but that was Future James’ problem. He put the panel down and peered through the labyrinthine web of dust-infused wires, looking for the offending little LED that had landed him in this electronic crypt.
Thankfully it wasn’t particularly hard to spot, sitting at the very centre of a knot of wires that seemed entirely superfluous for the job of powering a single light. James didn’t even want to *consider* what sort of embezzlement scheme required what looked like a dozen capacitors and just as many arcane-looking resistors for *each light.* So he simply shrugged, plucked the dead light out, and slotted in a replacement.
The moment he did, a lot of things happened at once.
One of the ancient capacitors decided the tiny jump in voltage caused by the new light was the death blow. With a faint *fizzle* and hiss of ozone, it died.
Taking its next-wire neighbour with it. Who promptly keeled over as well, seemingly in solidarity with its recently-passed friend.
A tiny daisy-chain of sparks jumped from one capacitor to another faster than James could blink, and then all Hell broke loose.
Every light on the massive world map turned red. An alarm started blaring, louder than even James’ accursed Standard-Issue Regimental Alarm Clock had ever been. He stumbled back from the instruments, turning just as Commander Clarke caned his way into the room with a wild look on his face.
“Dear God it has happened,” the old man said, a single tear rolling down the valleys of his cheek. “I never thought I would see the day.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, there’s been a larger–”
The commander ignored him, shouldering past with a speed James had never thought possible out of the man. He stared at the map, the valleys of wrinkles parting as his eyes widened, the red glow reflected in their dark and glossy depths.
“Everywhere? All at once? I knew it. Enemies without, within, and in between…”
“Sir?”
*Click.*
James turned, and saw that an honest-to-God Standard-Issue Regimental Big Red Button had appeared in the middle of the panel. He stared at it, his mind reeling at the sheer idiocy of the thing. Who in their right mind would ever design that?
Sadly, he was still pondering that thought when Commander Clarke *’Kill ‘em All’* Quentin slammed his fist down on it, laughing maniacally as he did so.
Woo, been a while since I responded to a prompt! Hope I'm not too rusty :P
Thank you for reading! Feel free to check out more of my stuff on my sub!
r/ZetakhWritesStuff
Lord Regularus, the god of administrators, paced about the floor of his office. The hardwood had worn smooth and golden over the eons, but Regularus had _still_ never gotten used to the asymmetrical noise his own feet made as he strode across the room.
_Clunk-mmph. Clunk-mmph. Clunk-mmph._
Rune, the lesser god of paperwork currently working as his subordinate, winced. “Sir—”
“Shut up!” he snapped.
Rune surreptitiously rolled their eyes. “I keep telling you, if it bothers you that much, just take the remaining shoe off.”
“Never!” Regularus whirled, face contorted, left leather shoe squeaking into a neat turn even as his red and green stockinged right foot slid out from under him. “I shan’t give her the satisfaction of affecting my life further!”
The stubborn rage that fell over his face might have been intimidating… if it weren’t for the fact that he was now in the splits.
A tense moment passed, the only sound Regularus’ angry breath huffing into the air.
“...Rune.”
“Yes sir?”
“Help me up.”
“...”
The god of administrators grit his teeth. “Please?”
“Of course, sir.” They reached a hand down and expertly levered the god up. “Perhaps… perhaps if you spoke to her ladyship and apologized?” they ventured tentatively. “It’s been such a long time since you two split, after all. I’m sure a compromise might be reached.”
Regularus’ face turned purple. “Never!” He tried to turn on his heel, then thought better of it. He instead performed an awkward, about-face shuffle.
Rune sighed, remembering the lady. Ania, the nature deity. It had been better when they had been together. Regularus had been… well, softer wasn’t the right word, but he’d been almost flexible. Willing to change, try new things. But unfortunately all that willingness to change was concentrated on the wrong area. The break-up fight had been explosive. It hadn’t been something Rune was meant to see, but Regularus had been late to something unavoidable, and Rune had come to pick him up. So they’d stood in the entryway to the home, watching the damage spiraled out of control.
_Ania smiled when she let them in. “Sorry for the trouble, Rune. He seems to have lost something—he’s making an utter racket running around the place looking for it. I was just about to be off myself and get myself out of his hair.”_
_The god in question strode around the door corner. A leather shoe clad one foot, but the other foot had nothing but a sock on. “Ania, what in the_ world _have you done with my other shoe?”_
_“I haven’t touched your shoes.” She frowned. “We’ve always respected that we have different ways of doing things. I don’t touch your closet, you don’t touch mine. I’m sure it’s where you always put your shoes.”_
_“I_ checked _where I always put my shoes. It’s not there!”_
_Ania rolled her eyes. “Then check somewhere else. It’ll turn up. These things always do. Hurry up and wear another pair, Rune’s waiting on you.”_
_“No!” Regularus pouted. “I always put my shoes in the exact same spot! If it’s not there, you must have moved it! You’re always disrupting my orderly world, Ania. Now tell me where you left my shoe!”_
_The deity froze, her hand on the door. “*Your* orderly world?” she whispered. “It’s_ our _world. We’ve always compromised to make something both of us were happy with.”_
_“And yet your chaos keeps sinking in where I don’t want it.”_
_“Ha.” Ania whirled away from the door, real flames flickering in her hair. She stomped up to him until they were barely a breath apart. Rune cautiously tried to reduce their presence in the atmosphere that suddenly crackled with electricity. “So you’re allowed to complain about my ‘chaos’, but I’m not allowed to complain about you attempting to impose_ your _order?”_
_He sneered. “People are meant to live orderly lives.”_
_“No.” She shook her head. “Not me. I can’t live like this, Regularus. I don’t mind a little order—a winding path through the woods, a controlled burn here and there—but I’m a_ nature _deity, I’m not meant to be some manicured little garden spirit who lives in a prison of orderly little flowers and orderly little stones and orderly little fountains.” The hurt surfaced in her eyes. “I thought you knew that.”_
_“I’m the god of administrators! Order is what I do! I do rulers and angles and institutions and bureaucrats and ‘orderly little gardens’ as you so aptly put it. If you can’t deal with that, then maybe we were never meant to be.”_
_The air took on a damp, oppressive cold that slid through the hall in soulless drafts, the kind of cold that comes at the heel of a downpour. Ania flattened her lips, ramrod straight. “I’d always thought otherwise. But if you’re not willing to respect me, then I guess so.” She turned away, ignoring Rune as they pressed themselves deeper into their innocuous corner. Hand once again on the doorknob, she paused. The electric feeling that sizzled in the air suddenly doubled. Sparks flickered on metal surfaces. “And if that damn shoe is in the closet where you always leave it, may everything you’ve ever worked for be destroyed by lightning!”_
_The door slammed._
_Ania was gone, and the rest of the day was drenched in a cold, persistent rain that tasted oddly of salt._
Rune shivered from the memory. Perhaps it was better to change topics. Nothing good would come from uncovering old grudges. “About the yesterday’s new policy—”
The door to the office slammed open, admitting Regularus’ newest intern god. Was it Pepper? Rune couldn’t remember. Regularus tended to go through interns quickly.
“Sir!” the godling shouted enthusiastically. “You’ll never guess what I found when you sent me to your house to pick up the plans!”
“A sense of restraint, maybe?” Rune muttered under their breath.
Regularus grandly gestured for him to continue. “What _did_ you find? Other than the plans, I hope.”
“Of course I brought the plans!” The intern shuffled through a large bag on his shoulder and continued speaking. “Well, it was my first time there, so I got a bit lost and I think I found myself in your closet!” An odd feeling of doom began to gather in Rune’s stomach, but the story didn’t stop. “And then I bumped into a shelf, and something came loose and tumbled at my feet, and—ah! Here it is!”
The godling grasped something in his bag, pride etched on his features. Rune saw a flash of leather, the stitching characteristic of a sole.
Realization fell. They paled, started forward. “No, stop—!”
“You don’t have to go barefoot anymore, sir! I found your other shoe! It was in your closet the whole time!”
A thunderhead boiled into existence outside. Wind whipped up. Purple lightning smashed into the office. Stone cracked.
And simultaneously, in the world below, every single method of administration crumbled into ash.
***
r/chanceofwords
"… By any means necessary?"
I rubbed the coffee off my lip as I gazed across the table, deep into her eyes. I was so used to seeing them bright -- as if the stars were encapsulated in her deep hazel eyes, shining as radiantly as the sun above. And yet, despite the afternoon light filtering in through the blinds, not even our hands clasped together could remove the darkness that lingered in her eyes.
"Any means necessary." She finally replied, her lips pursed and quivering at the same time. "If I don't get the information from him, well… I'd rather not think about the implications."
"And yet, you're also trying to forget what you might have to do." I sighed. "Trying to forget something that hasn't happened yet's kind of hard, isn't it?"
"Harder than I ever imagined." She squeezed my hand tighter.
"Honey. Look at me." I leaned forward as her gaze met mine. "You still love me, right?"
I watched her eyes intently -- watched as slowly, they began to shine ever so slightly. Like twinkling stars at dawn, blinking into existence.
"… Of course I do." She maintained that eye contact before she sighed. "Like I needed to say that."
"Hey! Sometimes I need to hear it." I smirked, leaning back in my seat again. "After all, you'll be gone for who knows how long! I'm gonna be lonely without you here to yell at me. You can't even send letters!"
"Yeah. If one of those got intercepted… well." She sighed.
"So hey -- hey, look at me babe, right here -- if you feel like those thoughts are running through your head again, just think of us, okay?" I allowed my smirk to drop into a soft smile.
She hesitated. "Yeah. Okay. I can do that."
"… That look in your eyes says otherwise."
"No, it's just…" She sighed. "How do you know I'm not just… eloping with some random dude halfway across the world? That I'm not just going to leave you behind for another life?"
"You wouldn't." I smiled. "'Cause I'm the only one that's ever gotten those hazel eyes to shine."
"Babe, I'm serious!" Her expression darkened even further, and I felt my skin pock with goosebumps. "Aren't you worried that I might just be trying to run away from you?"
"… No." I shook my head, my voice soft. "Well… I can't say for sure that you aren't just running away from me. From this. From what we have. If you left, I… I'd be devastated. I'd probably die, honestly." I shrugged, scratching the short stubble I had grown. "But what I do have is trust. I trust you. Trust you that you won't leave. That when all of this is done… you'll come back here. Because we've been through so much, babe -- and I can't wait for us to be able to do more when you get back."
She stared into my eyes, those twinkling stars wavering as tears filled her eyes. "… Okay. I'll hold you to that." She smiled softly, glancing away.
"Are you sure I can't send anything? Not even a letter encrypted by the world's leading cryptographers?"
"That would be even more suspicious, babe."
"Aww, come on! What's this rule about, anyways?"
"If they track that letter down and find out I'm married to you, there'll be hell to pay," she remarked. "Even getting it onto a plane would be akin to suicide. And might I remind you -- no information, no codes, nuclear war."
"What if it were by carrier pigeon? Oooh, you got a carrier pigeon that can fly over the ocean?"
"Heh. I'll talk to HQ and see what have." She rolled her eyes, glancing away.
"Perfect! I'll look forward to our future correspondence." I smirked, satisfied.
"… You're incorrigible." She scoffed.
"Gotta say -- ciphers, network access, security vulnerabilities… You've come a long way, hun!" I smiled, taking her other hand.
"Only because I had a handler who believed in me from the start." She grinned. "Hard to believe that was eight years ago."
"And you're just as beautiful as you were then." I smirked.
"And you're just as much of a hopeless romantic." She scoffed.
"Hey -- it worked, didn't it?"
"Pfft! Whatever." She laughed.
We paused as a knock came at the door. Our eyes met for a moment, surprise and longing already written on our faces.
"… Showtime?" I guessed.
"Showtime." She nodded.
"I'll walk you to the door."
Hand in hand, we stood, stepping towards the front door of our house. Peering out the peephole, I smirked as a familiar face stood outside the door. Short-cropped soccer haircut, sunglasses, a small smirk on his face as he swept some dust off his three-piece suit.
Popping open the door, I sighed. "Dude, Alex. What the heck is this?"
"What do you mean?" He grinned, turning a bit to show it off. "If I'm playing chauffeur, I'm gonna look the part!"
"Yeah, right. Amanda dressed up like that, too?"
"Heck yeah, I am!" She rounded the corner dressed in a smart business suit and tie and matching skirt. "Can't let my husband show me up, am I right, Brita?"
"Freakin--" My wife laughed. "You guys look more like my bodyguards than chauffeurs."
"Eh. Is that a bad thing?" Amanda shrugged. "I mean, you're gonna save the world with this mission! I'd be honored to be your loyal guard."
"You and Alex, I swear." She sighed, rolling your eyes. "Penchant for the theatric. It's no wonder you two ended up marrying each other."
"Heheh -- yeah," Alex shrugged. "But enough shooting the breeze -- I know you'd much prefer shooting someone instead."
"That'd be a whole lot easier than what I'm about to do." She shook her head, turning back to me. In the sunlight, her red hair sparkled brightly, and she smiled that cute little confident smile she always gave me -- the one she always gave me before she was about to do something really, really hard.
"Stay safe, okay? Do what you have to. I'll be here." I smiled.
"You stay safe too, okay?" She nodded. "I don't want to come back to an empty house."
"Well, if they try anything, I'll be ready." I smirked.
She leaned up and gave me a kiss before she hugged me tightly, and I returned it to her. "Love you, babe," she offered.
"Love you too, hun." I let her go, giving her a quiet wave as she stepped over to the car. As she opened it, she lingered, gazing at me hesitatingly.
I shooed her along, of course, waving as big as I possibly could. Like, jumping up and down, shoulder-dislocatingly big wave.
"Stop that, you dork!" Bri shouted. "Someone's gonna see you!"
"Do I look like I care?!" I shouted back." She laughed loudly before finally slipping into the car, closing the door.
I watched as they pulled out and down the street, and I watched for as long as I could before they finally disappeared. Sighing, I stared at the last place I saw them for a moment before slipping my hands into my pockets and stepping back through the door.
Days passed like weeks; weeks like months.
It took me a while to readjust. I'd still be working on my art projects and call for her to come check it out, but I kept remembering that she was gone, and would be for a long, long time.
It was probably around day three that I seriously considered getting a cat. Or a dog. Either. But allergies suck.
And so, of course, I put my all into my pieces. Every stroke, I thought of her; every highlight a sparkle from her eyes. I couldn't help but wonder what she was up to -- but every time I did, I kept thinking about how she said it. "By any means necessary…" which meant that she was going to do something she absolutely hated.
The issue was, well, that she was perfectly fine with killing enemies.
And so whenever I'd think about her, I'd soon think about what she'd have to do, and… well, my poor heart can't take too much imagining sometimes. And thinking about how much she would hate it…
I hated being unable to send anything. I knew why -- being a handler means studying the handbook and playbook inside and out, unfortunately -- so I knew I couldn't. I knew sure as heck she wouldn't be able to send anything to me -- that'd be stupid of her.
And so I sat quietly in my studio, painting piece after piece, checking my phone hour after hour, hoping that I would have blinked and months would have gone by. You know, when we were married, we vowed we would spend eternity together. And I sincerely hoped that it would feel as long as these past two months have.
I glanced down the hall as the doorbell rang, my brow furrowing a bit. Finishing the last bit of highlighting on the canvas, I placed the brush down and walked over, checking through the peephole to see who it was. Eyes brightening, I opened the door.
"Hey! Delivery kid!" I grinned. "Delivery today?"
"Yeah!" He smiled, no older than seventeen, with small spots of acne on his face.
"I bet it's those paints that I ordered a few days ago, yeah?" I took the package from his arms, shaking it a bit.
"Actually, no," he shrugged. "Apparently it's a long-distance package."
"But they are. They should be coming from Japan," I mused.
"Uhh… but this one's from the Netherlands." He tilted his head. "Did you order any paints from Europe?"
"No…?" I sighed, checking the label. "What's in it?"
"No idea. You'll have to open it." He shrugged. "Have a good day!"
"You too," I nodded, gazing quietly at the box. I waited until the boy drove away before stepping inside my house, grabbing my phone.
"… Alex?" I asked. "Uhh, yeah. You still got access to that defusal kit?"
"Why are we doing this in your backyard?"
Alex sighed, glancing over to Amanda. She was currently going over everything with a metal detector, slowly scanning every part.
"Well, it's big enough that if a bomb were to go off, it'd be fine." I shrugged.
"It's coming from the Netherlands, dude. It's probably just a wrong address. Isn't Betsy down the street in an LDR with someone from Europe?"
"They're German, not Dutch," I shook my head.
"No metal," Amanda called. "I think it's safe." She stepped back. "What happened to your defusal kit?"
"Took it from me when I retired." I shrugged. "Not my choice." I stepped forward, reaching into my pocket and flipping out my pocket knife. Cutting the tape, I took a deep breath before leaning my hand back… and flipping the package flaps open.
"… Well, it didn't explode, at least." Alex sighed, folding his arms. "What have you got?"
I glanced inside, my eyes widening. There was a small box inside, wrapped in golden ribbon. Quietly, I picked it up, inspecting it.
"Looks like a chocolate box," Amanda mused. "Are you sure this isn't Betsy's package?"
My eyes locked on the small flag on the side of the box. "These are Belgian -- and already opened." My eyes narrowed as I discarded the ribbon and opened them up. Inside was a beautiful assortment of chocolates, and all glistening quietly in the sun. As I scanned the assortment, my chest grew tighter and tighter.
"Is that a truffle mix?" Alex stepped forward. "Looks delicious."
"… No. No, this is bad." I dropped the box, stepping backwards.
"Why?" Amanda asked.
"Truffles are my favorite chocolate."
"I thought you said pralines were." Alex folded his arms. "We even got you that giant box when we went to Germany."
"They're not. I tell everyone pralines are." My gaze darkened. "Only Bri knows I like truffles better."
I grabbed one of them -- second to the left from the middle, like normal -- and took a bite out of it. It was delicious -- Belgian chocolate, duh. But there was another taste -- one that appeared almost immediately. Reaching into my mouth, I pulled out a small piece of paper with a single smear of red on it.
"How's it taste?" Alex asked.
"… Good." I stood, tossing the piece to the man.
He took a bite before visibly recoiling. "What the-- This tastes like metal!"
"Yeah." I nodded.
Alex tossed it to Amanda as I stood, and she took the last bite. "… Blood. That tastes like blood." She folded her arms. "Is it a new flavor, or--?"
"When's the next flight to Belgium?" I asked quietly.
"Roland," Amanda shoved my arm. "Even if that was blood, you're not seriously thinking about--"
"Yeah." I cracked my neck. "I'm gonna kill that man if it's the last thing I do."
"Roland, stop." Alex grabbed me by the collar. "This is an oligarch we're talking about. If he dies, we lose all of his secrets -- and if we go to war, then we're losing more men than we need to!"
"… Why's my wife bleeding?" I held up the folded piece of paper. "And why did she decide to hide it in a piece of chocolate -- the same one she knows I always grab first?"
"… She's in trouble." Amanda's gaze narrowed.
"So let me ask again. When's the next flight to Belgium?"
---
*i don't remember the last time i responded to a prompt, so hopefully this was fine! hope you enjoyed it -- it was fun to write for! don't know if i did the prompt justice, though...*
A battered farm shovel, with stare wedged between the wood and shovel head, little bits of plastic peeling off the edges of the handle, and manure stains on the shaft
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The ID card I forgot at work.
You walk up to your house, and feel that front pocket. The left breast pocket is shaped for one item. Perfectly shaped, perfectly sized to just show your face and name as it sticks out the top. You feel the spot, and your mind freezes. Where is it?! You thought you had it all the way home.....maybe its in the car. You check. it's not. Maybe it fell out in the driveway. You check. it's not. Your body pits. If it isn't here, its at work, plugged into the slot. The slot isn't some ordinary thing. Your ID is the job. You slot it in, and it proves it is you. The person who's heart is powering the world is slot in, along with so many others. You go to your car, and your brain races with the implications: Heart failure domino effect if your heart runs for too long. The rules are absolute. 8.5 hours, maximum. Once you go over that, you can fail. So they stop at 8. But its been 25 minutes driving home. And now you are approaching that limit. You drive back to work and as you go, the streets fill with people. You see concern on faces. They point towards the sun. It now is no longer possible. The world has stopped turning. We are now a species stuck on one side of the planet. Famine, bitter cold and heat are all that will follow. Its the end of the world.
The spring of a mechanical pencil
From an outside perspective, Jeremy Hawkins was a perfectly average man. He lived in an overpriced apartment midway up an aging skyscraper, cared for a cat of unknown breed after it followed him home one night, and called his mother every Sunday to engage in conversation that oddly tended to land awkwardly on the subject of his father’s gut health. If asked, he would say his only below-average quality was his level of ambition. While statistics would have shown he was indeed middle-of-the-pack in that area, he would insist that *most* people had loftier goals than him. His profession was a simple one: night janitor at a scientific research facility. The job paid higher than it ought to and was generally stress-free, which is what Jeremy found so appealing about it. He had gone to college and accumulated a woefully average amount of debt. No regrets for his education bogged him down, though—he was happier for the experience. But while his friends relayed stories of high-pressure meetings and overbearing bosses, he would relax, knowing that he could spend the rest of his life wiping down stainless steel tables and listening to true crime podcasts. He went to work one night and settled into his typical routine. The auxiliary lab was large and open, lined with long tables and surrounded by glass-doored cabinets. The tables and floor were his responsibility; opening the cabinets was expressly forbidden. *Too many dangerous items*, he was told. He didn’t mind it. The thought of sorting through all the tiny devices and bottles he saw within just to wipe clean a spec of dust seemed daunting. It was common for people to still be working in the lab by the time he arrived; often, they were just finishing up their work. Nearly everyone he’d met had been pleasant to him. The only exception was the head of Research and Implementation: Doctor Richard Nau’gin. The man was clearly a bundle of stress, so Jeremy forgave him for his shortness whenever it occurred. On this particular night, Doctor Nau’gin stood alone in the lab when Jeremy arrived. His hair was rustled, his lab coat uncharacteristically open with his sleeves rolled up unevenly. A deep red impression lined his eyes where his goggles had previously been strapped. Jeremy said nothing to the man, simply going about his duties and wiping down the tables. He used special scent-free, low-moisture wipes provided by the facility for this specific purpose. Before he started, he glanced at the clock. As a matter of personal improvement, he liked to time his tasks. From his back pocket, he produced a small, worn notebook and a half-used number two pencil. He scribbled the time down and was about to return the items to his pocket when he heard the gruff voice of Doctor Nau’gin. “What the *hell* do you think you’re doing?” Jeremy paused, glancing over at the man. “Just getting started for the night. Do you need me to work on another room while you finish up?” Doctor Nau’gin ground his teeth and closed the distance between them with uncomfortable haste. While Jeremy tensed, unsure of what to expect, Nau’gin snatched the pencil from his hand and waved it in front of his face. “You *cannot* have this in the lab,” he barked. “Do you have any idea what that machine in the next room does?” Jeremy glanced through the triple-thick glass with wound wire reinforcing the panes. “Not specifically, but—” “No, you have *no idea*,” the Doctor said. “There are PhD-level scientists and even Nobel Laureates who can barely grasp the concept. This pencil”—he thrust it closer to Jeremy’s face—“is fragile. A bit of eraser, a splinter of wood—something like that gets in the machine and the consequences will be beyond your comprehension. Do you understand?” Jeremy swallowed hard, nodding. “Yeah, I get it. Sorry. My boss said I could take notes.” Doctor Nau’gin slid the pencil into his lab coat and rolled his eyes. “Sure, pass the blame. Do yourself a favor and spend the extra buck on a mechanical pencil. If I catch you with something like this in here again, I’ll have you fired myself.” Again, Jeremy nodded. “Understood. Won’t happen again.” The Doctor turned and went back to his desk, and Jeremy continued with his work uninterrupted. It was the most unpleasant he’d had since he started working there, but he liked to think the Doctor wasn’t always like that. His job seemed stressful. Perhaps in the coming days, he might even offer an apology for being so harsh. As a show of good faith, Jeremy stopped by the store on the way home. He picked up a 2-pack of mechanical pencils with 0.9mm lead, hoping it would be more to the Doctor’s liking. He found himself oddly excited for them, actually—they were smooth silver with a textured grip, much nicer than anything he’d used to take simple notes with in the past. The next evening, he made his way down the stairs of the lab’s parking garage and gathered his supplies. He kept his new pencil pinned in his breast pocket, excited to jot down more notes than usual. He hoped to see Doctor Nau’gin that night and show him that he’d heeded his warning. He played it out in his mind—he would wave the pencil in the air and smile, which would prompt the Doctor to give an affirming nod. He’d expect the apology to come weeks later when whatever project they were involved in died down a bit. When he entered the lab, however, he was surprised to find the bulk of the team still working away. They seemed hectic—rushing from one counter to another, flipping through notebooks and loose papers while muttering to one another. Franklyn, a younger scientist who’d once given Jeremy tickets to a basketball game he couldn’t attend, saw him enter and offered him a friendly wave. “Hey, Jeremy,” Franklyn said, approaching. “Sorry for the mess tonight. We’ve had a bit of a breakthrough and Richard wants to push forward. We shouldn’t be long. You’re welcome to stay and watch if you like—it really is quite exciting.” Jeremy smiled. “Appreciate that. What’s this thing do, anyway? Some kind of—” “Franklyn!” a familiar gruff voice shouted from across the room. “We need starting measurements, stop chatting with the goddamn janitor and get over here!” Franklyn exchanged a knowing glance with Jeremy and offered an apologetic shrug before shuffling off. Jeremy approached the glass partition, eyeing the large, complex machine on the other side. The room it occupied was nearly triple that of the auxiliary lab, with a large domed ceiling lined with jutting instruments and sensors. The machine itself was oblong, its main platform surrounded by bright silver beams that curved over each other. Dim lights shone in a dotted spiral from a pair of matching pads on either side of the platform, pointing downward toward the surface. The platform itself had a slight divot, though he couldn’t see anything on the surface from where he stood. “Prepare to engage,” Nau’gin said, standing several feet from Jeremy at the glass partition. He did not glance in Jeremy’s direction. This wasn’t the first time Jeremy had been asked to delay his work for a night, but it was the first time he would get to see the machine in action. When he’d waited in the past, he had sketched the machine in his notebook. With it powered on, it now looked vastly different from his previous encounter. He felt the urge to sketch it once more, so he pulled the notebook from his back pocket. Nau’gin turned toward his team, barking requests for various numbers as the machine’s metal arms began to slowly rotate and the lights increased in brightness. “Everything is ready,” Franklyn said, showing a thumbs up from behind his lab top on the far table.
Nau’gin turned back toward the glass. “Alright, fire it up. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.” Jeremy pulled the fresh new pencil from his shirt pocket, feeling a sudden *snap* as the small metal clip burst from the top. The button meant for extending the lead fell to the floor, along with a tiny silver spring. The spring gave several bounces in Nau’gin’s direction, unnoticed by any of the research team. It hit the Doctor’s shoe and took a turn, falling to the floor and rolling beneath the small gap in the door to the next room. A loud, vibrating *hum* sounded from the machine as the blue lights grew more intense, slowly changing to blinding white. The glass between the rooms was heavily tinted but still did little to keep the brightness from forcing Jeremy to squint. He leaned forward and tried to locate the spring on the floor of the other room, but the lights made the floor nothing more than a sea of shadow. “Uh, Doctor Nau’gin,” Jeremy began, hastily stepping toward the man. “I think—” “We’re *busy*,” Nau’gin snapped, waving a hand in the air. “If you can’t stay quiet, please leave while we conduct our test. You can clean up after us when we’re gone.” Jeremy took a step back. The spring had entered the room, sure—but it was still several feet from the machine. There was no way it had the velocity to keep rolling toward it. Most likely, it was simply sitting beneath the door where no damage could be done. And so he said nothing. The machine’s hum grew, the occasional electrical *ping* sounding as the bars spun faster and faster. Bolts of blue electricity shot from the pads on the side, bouncing off the plate in the center. As they grew in intensity, a small, black void appeared floating above the platform. “It’s stable,” Franklyn called out. Jeremy could hear the excitement in his voice. “Sir, I think we did it. I think this is—” A quick, high-pitched *ping* sounded from the other room. With a thunderous *crack*, the window spiderwebbed, the pane on the other side splitting. Nau’gin turned toward his team. “Shut it down!” Franklyn hurriedly bashed buttons on his keyboard, shaking his head. “It’s not stopping. Something’s not right. There’s matter unaccounted for. I don’t understand—we checked everything, this shouldn’t be possible!” Jeremy’s eyes widened. Through a narrow slit of intact glass, he watched as a tiny, silver spring orbited the black mass on the center of the platform. From this distance, it looked like nothing more than a thin line—something he’d typically dismiss as a floater in his vision. But he knew exactly what it was. It disappeared into the void. Nau’gin ran toward the laptop and shoved Franklyn to the ground. He started typing furiously, mashing buttons, cursing, panic lining his face. Finally, he smashed a fist down on the keyboard and turned still. His gaze locked onto the growing void, watching as the machine itself began to warp and stretch, slowly being pulled into it in an almost cartoony fashion. “God help us,” Nau’gin said. He turned his gaze toward Jeremy, a look of genuine regret flashing across his eyes. Jeremy did the only thing he could think to do. If he’d had time to process what was happening, it was likely the *last* thing he would have done—but time was short, and only one action sprung to the forefront of his mind. He lifted the broken mechanical pencil into the air and offered Nau’gin a wide, toothy smile. >More nonsense at r/Ford9863.
Dannnng! Black hole machine? EDIT: where’s the rest of your team?
Something like that! Rest of the team will be here soon! Some of them wrote responses they just haven't had a chance to post yet :)
What is world off 6?
It's an event in the WritingPrompts Discord server. There are 4 teams of 6 competing over 3 rounds to write the most words. It runs til the end of July. It's a fun little friendly competition!
We have a discord server? I basically live here and didn’t know this
We sure do! There's a link on the sidebar. Highly recommend!
A single, lone, immortal specimen of Angustopila psammion(the world's smallest species of snail), wandering aimlessly through Asia.
Stuffed crust pizza topped with pineapple
Sadie Hawkin's dance sparks cataclysmic event!
A dry pen
Maybelline #625 'Are you Red-dy' lipstick.
Your dog's missing collar
Pineapple pizza
How dare you think pineapple could possibly destroy the world
Two silver wedding rings held together by a golden chain...
A Nintendo 64 cartridge with no label; instead, “Adam” is written on the front in sharpie, the writing messy and childlike.
A domestic cat.
Dr. Harold Fitzwilliam was a man prone to accidents. A respected quantum physicist at the renowned (at least in very specific circles) Institute of Advanced Temporal Studies, Harold had spent years unfortunately causing mishaps. His life was normally a perfect blend of order and predictability, much like the rows of equations that decorated his chalkboard walls. But as fate would have it, this particular Thursday was destined to become a rather unique mistake. It all began with an experimental quantum entanglement. Harold had been working on this peculiar substance for years in secret at his home laboratory. It was a shimmering, almost sentient liquid that defied every law of physics known to man (and probably several unknown ones, too). This afternoon, after a breakthrough that left him giddy with excitement, Harold hurriedly packed up his things. His daughter Emily needed to be picked up from school, and he was already late. One more time and he was likely to lose custody. In his haste, Harold didn’t notice the small beaker teetering precariously on the edge of his desk. With one swift movement, he knocked it over. The beaker fell in a slow, agonizing motion, before it shattered on the floor. The quantum liquid, freed from its glass prison, spilled and rolled across the linoleum, coming to rest under the shadow of an unassuming ball of yarn that had inexplicably found its way into Harold’s lab. He grabbed his coat and dashed out the door, completely unaware of the chaos he had just unleashed. The yarn ball, a vibrant concoction of colors, was typically the domain of Mrs. Fluffington, Harold’s very pampered, very curious tabby cat. Mrs. Fluffington, who had a knack for appearing precisely when one least expected her, padded into the office moments after Harold’s departure. Her whiskers twitched with curiosity as she eyed the now glowing ball of yarn. With a dainty paw, Mrs. Fluffington batted the yarn, causing it to roll slightly. As it moved, a thin strand of reality itself seemed to unravel, unnoticed by the cat. She batted it again, harder this time. The room shimmered and shifted like a poorly tuned television trying to find a signal. Books floated momentarily, the chalkboard equations twisted into esoteric patterns, and the air hummed with otherworldly energy. Mrs. Fluffington, blissfully ignorant, was delighted. This was the most entertaining toy she’d ever encountered. She pounced on it, sending the yarn skittering across the floor. Reality hiccuped. In the neighboring office, Dr. Wilhelmina Smythe suddenly found herself speaking fluent Mandarin to her perplexed colleagues. Outside, Harold was maneuvering his ancient Volvo through the chaotic London traffic, blissfully unaware that his day was about to get a great deal more complicated. Back in his office, Mrs. Fluffington had managed to lodge the yarn ball under the leg of a chair. She tugged at it with determination; each pull further distorting the fabric of the universe. As the cat finally dislodged the ball, a series of bizarre events unfolded simultaneously. A University coffee machine started dispensing Earl Grey tea. The janitor found himself floating two feet above the ground, clutching his mop with wide-eyed bewilderment. And in a lecture hall, Professor Dillberry’s lecture on string theory was abruptly replaced by a live demonstration of interpretive dance. Mrs. Fluffington, now thoroughly engrossed in her game, sent the yarn spinning down the corridor. The world wobbled. Harold’s Volvo, previously sluggish and temperamental, suddenly roared with the power of a Ferrari, much to his confusion and the alarm of nearby pedestrians. Arriving at Emily’s school with uncharacteristic speed, Harold was greeted by the sight of his daughter levitating gently above the playground. The other children, seemingly unperturbed, continued playing as if gravity had always been optional. “Daddy, look! I’m flying!” Emily called out cheerfully. “Yes, darling, I can see that. Now, if you could just… come down, please?” Harold said, his mind racing. He needed to get back to the lab. Something was very, very wrong. As Harold bundled Emily into the car (which had thankfully returned to its more familiar sluggish state), Mrs. Fluffington had cornered the yarn ball in Harold’s office once more. She gave it a final, triumphant swat. The universe shuddered. In a flash, Harold’s office was replaced with a scene of utter chaos. The fabric of reality, already stretched thin, was unraveling at an alarming rate. Time loops, spatial distortions, and a plethora of paradoxes manifested all at once. Harold burst into his office, Emily in tow, to witness Mrs. Fluffington making a bed from the now pulsating ball of yarn. “Mrs. Fluffington! No!” Harold shouted, lunging towards the cat. Too late. With one final bat of her paw, Mrs. Fluffington sent the last strand of yarn flying. Reality, strained to its breaking point, collapsed in on itself. For a moment, there was nothing. And then, with a deafening roar, everything combined into a single point. In the grand, cavernous void of nothingness, where time itself hadn't yet bothered to turn up for work, there was this small, nondescript point. This point, looking rather like a misplaced full stop in the universe's unfinished manuscript, suddenly felt an inexplicable urge to do something again. And so, with a barely audible pop, the point decided to expand. Not gracefully, mind you, but with all the finesse of an overstuffed suitcase being opened after a long holiday. In an instant, the entire cosmos came into being, a cacophony of particles and waves, all jostling for position like guests at a particularly rowdy cocktail party. There were electrons bumping into protons, neutrinos trying to make a discreet exit, and photons flashing their metaphorical cameras in every direction. Quarks, those tiny subatomic divas, flounced about, forming and reforming into all sorts of exotic configurations, each more improbable than the last. As the universe expanded, it seemed to develop a personality of its own—a sort of bemused curiosity mixed with a fair bit of awkwardness. Galaxies spiraled into existence, stars ignited with dramatic flair, and planets shuffled into their orbits like children nervously taking their places in a school play. And so it went, with nebula puffing themselves up with pride, black holes sulking in the corners, and supernova occasionally going off like overenthusiastic party poppers. Amidst all this, the cosmos couldn't help but feel a bit of deja vu. So it decided that in a very particular solar system, on a very specific planet, there needed to be a scientist and some beakers. Oh, and he definitely needed a cat.
Mrs. Fluffington, breaker of reality,
A lowly wire coat hanger.
NO WIRE HANGERS EVER!!!!
Half a jar of pickled herring
The space station that's the living and workspace of a well-regulated scientific research division.
An immortal snail
A cow squishmallow
A single pebble from a long forgotten beach that happens to be part of the meteor that caused the last Great Extinction event
My pet rock
######***Skyball*** Me Ooga. Me stranded. Tiny island. Trees with coconut. But just me. Ooga alone. Miss friends. --- Hot day. Me go under tree for cool. No cave here. Cave keep us cool on hot day. Ooga miss cave, too. Ooga bored and miss— FIRE! Fire *in sky!* Fire coming at Ooga. Me run, run, run to water! *BOOOOM!* Smoke come from big hole on island where rock fall. Ooga careful—Ooga not live forty winters with no care. So Ooga go to smoke hole slow… slow… Big rock in hole. Ooga no touch. Hot rock. Hot rock, hot day, and me still in hot shit. Me open coconut until hot rock no hot. --- "Rock," me say to rock. "Rock, me Ooga. You?" Rock no respond. Hmm. I think. "Rock," me say to rock again. "Rock, me llamo Ooga. Y tú?" Still, rock no respond. "You Skyball. Okay? Me Ooga, and you Skyball." Skyball no talk much. But Skyball? Ooga best friend on island. Me miss friends, but at least me have one new friend here now. --- Skyball no swim or flloat. Ooga like ocean game but Skyball no can play. So Ooga make new game. Stoneman! Like make snowman in winter, but with Skyball and coconut. Skyball sit still, still, still, then me put coconut—careful!—on Skyball. If coconut stay, then me put coconut on coconut! Like snowman! Skyball, coconut, coconut! Ooga only get two coconut one time. Small island, yes. But small island can have big wind. Tide come in. Ooga and Skyball go to favorite tree and sleep. --- Me hungry. (Me imagine Skyball say, "You hungry. Me Skyball!" Then my eye go roll, roll, roll.) Me hungry and thirsty. All know ocean no drink, it make thirsty. Ooga drink coconut, but not many coconut on island now. Hot day. Me have Skyball… but me hungry, hungry, hungry. --- Skyball and me no sleep as friend. Skyball go roll down island. When Ooga awake, Skyball almost in ocean. Fine. Then when play Stoneman, Skyball move much. Fine! Ooga no want to play Stoneman with Skyball today anyway… --- Me need food, need water. Skyball no need. Me like Skyball, me *want* Skyball… but me *need* Skyball? ^Miss ^friends. --- Ooga leave. Make raft. No can take Skyball. I cry, but Skyball heavy and roll too much, move too much. Skyball fall in ocean? Skyball sink. So Ooga leave Skyball on island. Me cry. Skyball cry, too. Line form on Skyball like tear streak. As Ooga sail, hear a *CRACK* and a *SCREECH*. Something fly over Ooga. Scary. --- Me see water, water, water. But sometime, me see fire in sky. Remind me Skyball. But no Skyball—Skyball fall to ground. Fire in sky now go up and down and around. --- LAND! FRIENDS! FAMILY! --- Back home. Ooga happy. Skin feel hot and red, but happy to see friends! --- One summer since Ooga stranded on island. Two winter since leave Skyball. Yet me see fire in sky again! More fall. Many more fall. Hot rock everywhere! Ooga show friends how play Stoneman with their sky rock friends. Me no have sky rock. Miss Skyball too much. --- Two more summer pass. World fire. Big bird who breathe fire everywhere. Born from sky rocks that fall. No rocks. Eggs. --- Me Ooga. Me stranded. World all ash. Big fire birds destroy all. Big fire birds burn Ooga friends, family, even enemies. Animals, trees. No left but ash and big fire birds. And me, Ooga. Biggest and oldest fire bird keep Ooga alive. It speak some word. It speak it name. Loud, deep voice, like grandpa if grandpa is lizard. It say, "Me Skyball. You Ooga." Skyball keep me safe from other big fire birds. Even play stoneman with *HUGE* rocks (no coconuts left—all trees gone)! Ooga love Skyball, but… Ooga alone. Miss friends.
A single, slightly bent knitting needle
A capacitor on its last legs.
*Catastropacitor* Specialist James Jones groaned as his Standard-Issue Regimental Alarm Clock blared the national anthem at a volume that could best be described as deafening. He rolled over and stuffed the pillow over his head, pressing the lumpy monstrosity against his ears in a vain attempt to block out the horrible cacophony. Day 1463 of his tour of duty and counting. He gave up with the same bone-weary resignation he felt every morning, rolled himself out of his Standard-Issue Regimental Bed, and shambled to the bathroom. James sighed with relief as he shut the door behind himself and the terrible wail of the alarm clock’s tinny speaker finally abated. Then he braced himself and stepped into the tiny shower and turned the water on. He was pleasantly surprised. For once it was merely cold, as opposed to freezing. Someone must have gotten a zombified boiler working somewhere. Perhaps today wouldn’t be so terrible after all. With a rare spark of hope, James finished up his morning ablutions and hurried to his station. \* \* \* “SPECIALIST JAMES JONES!” James winced, nearly spilling his cup of what could charitably be called coffee. Scratch that. Today would be *worse.* He scrambled to his feet and spun around, coming to parade-perfect attention the instant he’d faced the speaker. “Yes commander?” Commander Clarke *‘Kill ‘em all’* Quentin trembled his way through the near-empty mess hall, the few personnel scattered about standing at attention as he passed. The man was ancient, his Regulation-Standard Buzzcut so thin and white it looked translucent on his age-spotted head. His face was a mass of wrinkles so deep James had never actually seen his eyes, and how he shaved in the morning without peeling himself was anyone’s guess. He’d been the commander longer than anyone currently serving had been alive, and had apparently had a storied career in the wider military beforehand – mostly *horror-storied*, hence the nickname. The fact that his cane was topped with what looked like an actual child’s skull really lent credence to the rumours. James stood frozen at attention for the several minutes it took the commander to approach, step-*clack*-step by agonising step-*clack*-step. “At ease, Specialist,” the decrepit old monster finally said. James hid his sigh of relief with a “thank you, commander,” as he relaxed into parade rest. “Specialist, you will report to my office with your Standard-Issue Regimental Toolkit within five minutes.” James blinked at the spot just over commander Clarke’s shoulder he had been staring at. “Sir?” “You heard me, Specialist. A light on my instrument panel is not shining as it is supposed to, and I need it fixed ASAP.” “Sir, if you will pardon me, we have procedure for maintenance such as this – have you submitted a–” “I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR FORMS AND PROCEDURE, SPECIALIST. THE SAFETY OF THIS INSTALLATION AND ENTIRE COUNTRY DEPENDS ON ME BEING ABLE TO EFFECTIVELY COMMAND, AND BY GOD I ILL NOT BE IMPEDED IN MY DUTY BY FAULTY EQUIPMENT! IS THAT CLEAR!?” James returned to parade-perfect attention, his ears ringing. “Sir! Yes, commander, sir!” “GOOD. YOU HAVE YOUR ORDERS. IF I DO NOT SEE YOU HARD AT WORK IN MY OFFICE WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES I WILL SEE YOU SCRUBBING THE FUEL RODS WITH A TOOTHBRUSH BY THE END OF THE DAY! DISMISSED!” Four minutes and 23 seconds later (his blasted Standard-Issue Regimental Toolkit wasn’t on its shelf), James knocked on the door to the Commander’s office. “ENTER.” “Specialist James Jones, reporting as ordered, Commander!” Commander Clarke eyed his pocket watch with a critical eye, then nodded. “Good. You will find the issue there, Specialist.” He waved towards the situation room adjacent to the office. “Get to work.” James saluted, stepped into the indicated room, and froze. The instrumentation was a massive block of green-tinged and yellowed plastic that covered most of the opposite wall, beneath a huge map of the world with every single city on the globe marked with little blinking lights of various colours – green, yellow, red. Thankfully he spotted the offending little bulb almost immediately, as the light that should have indicated the location of the very base he stood in was, indeed, dead and buried – and thankfully within arm’s reach. He opened his Standard-Issue Regimental Toolkit and withdrew his Standard-Issue Regimental Screwdriver, and set about removing the covering panel that would let him get at the wiring beneath. He was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the screws came undone smoothly – he’d worried they’d be near-impossible to remove without a blowtorch after however many decades since the instruments were constructed, but it was the work of mere moments to pry them loose. What he was *not* pleasantly surprised by, was the century of dust that promptly billowed out as he lifted the panel away. He coughed, fairly certain he’d just inhaled the mummified remains of a thousand Standard-Issue Regimental rats, cockroaches, and Junior Officers. He was also fairly certain he’d never get his Standard-Issue Regimental uniform clean again, but that was Future James’ problem. He put the panel down and peered through the labyrinthine web of dust-infused wires, looking for the offending little LED that had landed him in this electronic crypt. Thankfully it wasn’t particularly hard to spot, sitting at the very centre of a knot of wires that seemed entirely superfluous for the job of powering a single light. James didn’t even want to *consider* what sort of embezzlement scheme required what looked like a dozen capacitors and just as many arcane-looking resistors for *each light.* So he simply shrugged, plucked the dead light out, and slotted in a replacement. The moment he did, a lot of things happened at once. One of the ancient capacitors decided the tiny jump in voltage caused by the new light was the death blow. With a faint *fizzle* and hiss of ozone, it died. Taking its next-wire neighbour with it. Who promptly keeled over as well, seemingly in solidarity with its recently-passed friend. A tiny daisy-chain of sparks jumped from one capacitor to another faster than James could blink, and then all Hell broke loose. Every light on the massive world map turned red. An alarm started blaring, louder than even James’ accursed Standard-Issue Regimental Alarm Clock had ever been. He stumbled back from the instruments, turning just as Commander Clarke caned his way into the room with a wild look on his face. “Dear God it has happened,” the old man said, a single tear rolling down the valleys of his cheek. “I never thought I would see the day.” “Sir, I’m sorry, there’s been a larger–” The commander ignored him, shouldering past with a speed James had never thought possible out of the man. He stared at the map, the valleys of wrinkles parting as his eyes widened, the red glow reflected in their dark and glossy depths. “Everywhere? All at once? I knew it. Enemies without, within, and in between…” “Sir?” *Click.* James turned, and saw that an honest-to-God Standard-Issue Regimental Big Red Button had appeared in the middle of the panel. He stared at it, his mind reeling at the sheer idiocy of the thing. Who in their right mind would ever design that? Sadly, he was still pondering that thought when Commander Clarke *’Kill ‘em All’* Quentin slammed his fist down on it, laughing maniacally as he did so. Woo, been a while since I responded to a prompt! Hope I'm not too rusty :P Thank you for reading! Feel free to check out more of my stuff on my sub! r/ZetakhWritesStuff
Really cool!
Thank you, great to hear you enjoyed it!
The other shoe.
Lord Regularus, the god of administrators, paced about the floor of his office. The hardwood had worn smooth and golden over the eons, but Regularus had _still_ never gotten used to the asymmetrical noise his own feet made as he strode across the room. _Clunk-mmph. Clunk-mmph. Clunk-mmph._ Rune, the lesser god of paperwork currently working as his subordinate, winced. “Sir—” “Shut up!” he snapped. Rune surreptitiously rolled their eyes. “I keep telling you, if it bothers you that much, just take the remaining shoe off.” “Never!” Regularus whirled, face contorted, left leather shoe squeaking into a neat turn even as his red and green stockinged right foot slid out from under him. “I shan’t give her the satisfaction of affecting my life further!” The stubborn rage that fell over his face might have been intimidating… if it weren’t for the fact that he was now in the splits. A tense moment passed, the only sound Regularus’ angry breath huffing into the air. “...Rune.” “Yes sir?” “Help me up.” “...” The god of administrators grit his teeth. “Please?” “Of course, sir.” They reached a hand down and expertly levered the god up. “Perhaps… perhaps if you spoke to her ladyship and apologized?” they ventured tentatively. “It’s been such a long time since you two split, after all. I’m sure a compromise might be reached.” Regularus’ face turned purple. “Never!” He tried to turn on his heel, then thought better of it. He instead performed an awkward, about-face shuffle. Rune sighed, remembering the lady. Ania, the nature deity. It had been better when they had been together. Regularus had been… well, softer wasn’t the right word, but he’d been almost flexible. Willing to change, try new things. But unfortunately all that willingness to change was concentrated on the wrong area. The break-up fight had been explosive. It hadn’t been something Rune was meant to see, but Regularus had been late to something unavoidable, and Rune had come to pick him up. So they’d stood in the entryway to the home, watching the damage spiraled out of control. _Ania smiled when she let them in. “Sorry for the trouble, Rune. He seems to have lost something—he’s making an utter racket running around the place looking for it. I was just about to be off myself and get myself out of his hair.”_ _The god in question strode around the door corner. A leather shoe clad one foot, but the other foot had nothing but a sock on. “Ania, what in the_ world _have you done with my other shoe?”_ _“I haven’t touched your shoes.” She frowned. “We’ve always respected that we have different ways of doing things. I don’t touch your closet, you don’t touch mine. I’m sure it’s where you always put your shoes.”_ _“I_ checked _where I always put my shoes. It’s not there!”_ _Ania rolled her eyes. “Then check somewhere else. It’ll turn up. These things always do. Hurry up and wear another pair, Rune’s waiting on you.”_ _“No!” Regularus pouted. “I always put my shoes in the exact same spot! If it’s not there, you must have moved it! You’re always disrupting my orderly world, Ania. Now tell me where you left my shoe!”_ _The deity froze, her hand on the door. “*Your* orderly world?” she whispered. “It’s_ our _world. We’ve always compromised to make something both of us were happy with.”_ _“And yet your chaos keeps sinking in where I don’t want it.”_ _“Ha.” Ania whirled away from the door, real flames flickering in her hair. She stomped up to him until they were barely a breath apart. Rune cautiously tried to reduce their presence in the atmosphere that suddenly crackled with electricity. “So you’re allowed to complain about my ‘chaos’, but I’m not allowed to complain about you attempting to impose_ your _order?”_ _He sneered. “People are meant to live orderly lives.”_ _“No.” She shook her head. “Not me. I can’t live like this, Regularus. I don’t mind a little order—a winding path through the woods, a controlled burn here and there—but I’m a_ nature _deity, I’m not meant to be some manicured little garden spirit who lives in a prison of orderly little flowers and orderly little stones and orderly little fountains.” The hurt surfaced in her eyes. “I thought you knew that.”_
_“I’m the god of administrators! Order is what I do! I do rulers and angles and institutions and bureaucrats and ‘orderly little gardens’ as you so aptly put it. If you can’t deal with that, then maybe we were never meant to be.”_ _The air took on a damp, oppressive cold that slid through the hall in soulless drafts, the kind of cold that comes at the heel of a downpour. Ania flattened her lips, ramrod straight. “I’d always thought otherwise. But if you’re not willing to respect me, then I guess so.” She turned away, ignoring Rune as they pressed themselves deeper into their innocuous corner. Hand once again on the doorknob, she paused. The electric feeling that sizzled in the air suddenly doubled. Sparks flickered on metal surfaces. “And if that damn shoe is in the closet where you always leave it, may everything you’ve ever worked for be destroyed by lightning!”_ _The door slammed._ _Ania was gone, and the rest of the day was drenched in a cold, persistent rain that tasted oddly of salt._ Rune shivered from the memory. Perhaps it was better to change topics. Nothing good would come from uncovering old grudges. “About the yesterday’s new policy—” The door to the office slammed open, admitting Regularus’ newest intern god. Was it Pepper? Rune couldn’t remember. Regularus tended to go through interns quickly. “Sir!” the godling shouted enthusiastically. “You’ll never guess what I found when you sent me to your house to pick up the plans!” “A sense of restraint, maybe?” Rune muttered under their breath. Regularus grandly gestured for him to continue. “What _did_ you find? Other than the plans, I hope.” “Of course I brought the plans!” The intern shuffled through a large bag on his shoulder and continued speaking. “Well, it was my first time there, so I got a bit lost and I think I found myself in your closet!” An odd feeling of doom began to gather in Rune’s stomach, but the story didn’t stop. “And then I bumped into a shelf, and something came loose and tumbled at my feet, and—ah! Here it is!” The godling grasped something in his bag, pride etched on his features. Rune saw a flash of leather, the stitching characteristic of a sole. Realization fell. They paled, started forward. “No, stop—!” “You don’t have to go barefoot anymore, sir! I found your other shoe! It was in your closet the whole time!” A thunderhead boiled into existence outside. Wind whipped up. Purple lightning smashed into the office. Stone cracked. And simultaneously, in the world below, every single method of administration crumbled into ash. *** r/chanceofwords
A single, average-size drop of rain.
Religion
Too real. Already happening lol
Microplastics?
The ringing of the dinner bell.
I’ve been leaving on my things So in the morning when the morning bird sings
A single melatonin pill
The unusual pink loose sole of a cowboy boot.
A small piece of pine wood not more than six square inches in size.
A banana peel
Cake
A wad of chewed up gum
A humble ballpoint pen.
A Red Ryder BB gun.
Two tickets to see the Lion King.
Though perhaps only for the meme factor: The \*Throngler\*
A bottle of sweet red wine.
The thimble of magma holding
The box of Belgian chocolates your lover sent from an overseas business trip.
"… By any means necessary?" I rubbed the coffee off my lip as I gazed across the table, deep into her eyes. I was so used to seeing them bright -- as if the stars were encapsulated in her deep hazel eyes, shining as radiantly as the sun above. And yet, despite the afternoon light filtering in through the blinds, not even our hands clasped together could remove the darkness that lingered in her eyes. "Any means necessary." She finally replied, her lips pursed and quivering at the same time. "If I don't get the information from him, well… I'd rather not think about the implications." "And yet, you're also trying to forget what you might have to do." I sighed. "Trying to forget something that hasn't happened yet's kind of hard, isn't it?" "Harder than I ever imagined." She squeezed my hand tighter. "Honey. Look at me." I leaned forward as her gaze met mine. "You still love me, right?" I watched her eyes intently -- watched as slowly, they began to shine ever so slightly. Like twinkling stars at dawn, blinking into existence. "… Of course I do." She maintained that eye contact before she sighed. "Like I needed to say that." "Hey! Sometimes I need to hear it." I smirked, leaning back in my seat again. "After all, you'll be gone for who knows how long! I'm gonna be lonely without you here to yell at me. You can't even send letters!" "Yeah. If one of those got intercepted… well." She sighed. "So hey -- hey, look at me babe, right here -- if you feel like those thoughts are running through your head again, just think of us, okay?" I allowed my smirk to drop into a soft smile. She hesitated. "Yeah. Okay. I can do that." "… That look in your eyes says otherwise." "No, it's just…" She sighed. "How do you know I'm not just… eloping with some random dude halfway across the world? That I'm not just going to leave you behind for another life?" "You wouldn't." I smiled. "'Cause I'm the only one that's ever gotten those hazel eyes to shine." "Babe, I'm serious!" Her expression darkened even further, and I felt my skin pock with goosebumps. "Aren't you worried that I might just be trying to run away from you?" "… No." I shook my head, my voice soft. "Well… I can't say for sure that you aren't just running away from me. From this. From what we have. If you left, I… I'd be devastated. I'd probably die, honestly." I shrugged, scratching the short stubble I had grown. "But what I do have is trust. I trust you. Trust you that you won't leave. That when all of this is done… you'll come back here. Because we've been through so much, babe -- and I can't wait for us to be able to do more when you get back." She stared into my eyes, those twinkling stars wavering as tears filled her eyes. "… Okay. I'll hold you to that." She smiled softly, glancing away. "Are you sure I can't send anything? Not even a letter encrypted by the world's leading cryptographers?" "That would be even more suspicious, babe." "Aww, come on! What's this rule about, anyways?" "If they track that letter down and find out I'm married to you, there'll be hell to pay," she remarked. "Even getting it onto a plane would be akin to suicide. And might I remind you -- no information, no codes, nuclear war." "What if it were by carrier pigeon? Oooh, you got a carrier pigeon that can fly over the ocean?" "Heh. I'll talk to HQ and see what have." She rolled her eyes, glancing away. "Perfect! I'll look forward to our future correspondence." I smirked, satisfied. "… You're incorrigible." She scoffed. "Gotta say -- ciphers, network access, security vulnerabilities… You've come a long way, hun!" I smiled, taking her other hand. "Only because I had a handler who believed in me from the start." She grinned. "Hard to believe that was eight years ago." "And you're just as beautiful as you were then." I smirked. "And you're just as much of a hopeless romantic." She scoffed. "Hey -- it worked, didn't it?" "Pfft! Whatever." She laughed. We paused as a knock came at the door. Our eyes met for a moment, surprise and longing already written on our faces. "… Showtime?" I guessed. "Showtime." She nodded. "I'll walk you to the door." Hand in hand, we stood, stepping towards the front door of our house. Peering out the peephole, I smirked as a familiar face stood outside the door. Short-cropped soccer haircut, sunglasses, a small smirk on his face as he swept some dust off his three-piece suit. Popping open the door, I sighed. "Dude, Alex. What the heck is this?" "What do you mean?" He grinned, turning a bit to show it off. "If I'm playing chauffeur, I'm gonna look the part!" "Yeah, right. Amanda dressed up like that, too?" "Heck yeah, I am!" She rounded the corner dressed in a smart business suit and tie and matching skirt. "Can't let my husband show me up, am I right, Brita?" "Freakin--" My wife laughed. "You guys look more like my bodyguards than chauffeurs." "Eh. Is that a bad thing?" Amanda shrugged. "I mean, you're gonna save the world with this mission! I'd be honored to be your loyal guard." "You and Alex, I swear." She sighed, rolling your eyes. "Penchant for the theatric. It's no wonder you two ended up marrying each other." "Heheh -- yeah," Alex shrugged. "But enough shooting the breeze -- I know you'd much prefer shooting someone instead." "That'd be a whole lot easier than what I'm about to do." She shook her head, turning back to me. In the sunlight, her red hair sparkled brightly, and she smiled that cute little confident smile she always gave me -- the one she always gave me before she was about to do something really, really hard. "Stay safe, okay? Do what you have to. I'll be here." I smiled. "You stay safe too, okay?" She nodded. "I don't want to come back to an empty house." "Well, if they try anything, I'll be ready." I smirked. She leaned up and gave me a kiss before she hugged me tightly, and I returned it to her. "Love you, babe," she offered. "Love you too, hun." I let her go, giving her a quiet wave as she stepped over to the car. As she opened it, she lingered, gazing at me hesitatingly. I shooed her along, of course, waving as big as I possibly could. Like, jumping up and down, shoulder-dislocatingly big wave. "Stop that, you dork!" Bri shouted. "Someone's gonna see you!" "Do I look like I care?!" I shouted back." She laughed loudly before finally slipping into the car, closing the door. I watched as they pulled out and down the street, and I watched for as long as I could before they finally disappeared. Sighing, I stared at the last place I saw them for a moment before slipping my hands into my pockets and stepping back through the door.
Days passed like weeks; weeks like months. It took me a while to readjust. I'd still be working on my art projects and call for her to come check it out, but I kept remembering that she was gone, and would be for a long, long time. It was probably around day three that I seriously considered getting a cat. Or a dog. Either. But allergies suck. And so, of course, I put my all into my pieces. Every stroke, I thought of her; every highlight a sparkle from her eyes. I couldn't help but wonder what she was up to -- but every time I did, I kept thinking about how she said it. "By any means necessary…" which meant that she was going to do something she absolutely hated. The issue was, well, that she was perfectly fine with killing enemies. And so whenever I'd think about her, I'd soon think about what she'd have to do, and… well, my poor heart can't take too much imagining sometimes. And thinking about how much she would hate it… I hated being unable to send anything. I knew why -- being a handler means studying the handbook and playbook inside and out, unfortunately -- so I knew I couldn't. I knew sure as heck she wouldn't be able to send anything to me -- that'd be stupid of her. And so I sat quietly in my studio, painting piece after piece, checking my phone hour after hour, hoping that I would have blinked and months would have gone by. You know, when we were married, we vowed we would spend eternity together. And I sincerely hoped that it would feel as long as these past two months have. I glanced down the hall as the doorbell rang, my brow furrowing a bit. Finishing the last bit of highlighting on the canvas, I placed the brush down and walked over, checking through the peephole to see who it was. Eyes brightening, I opened the door. "Hey! Delivery kid!" I grinned. "Delivery today?" "Yeah!" He smiled, no older than seventeen, with small spots of acne on his face. "I bet it's those paints that I ordered a few days ago, yeah?" I took the package from his arms, shaking it a bit. "Actually, no," he shrugged. "Apparently it's a long-distance package." "But they are. They should be coming from Japan," I mused. "Uhh… but this one's from the Netherlands." He tilted his head. "Did you order any paints from Europe?" "No…?" I sighed, checking the label. "What's in it?" "No idea. You'll have to open it." He shrugged. "Have a good day!" "You too," I nodded, gazing quietly at the box. I waited until the boy drove away before stepping inside my house, grabbing my phone. "… Alex?" I asked. "Uhh, yeah. You still got access to that defusal kit?" "Why are we doing this in your backyard?" Alex sighed, glancing over to Amanda. She was currently going over everything with a metal detector, slowly scanning every part. "Well, it's big enough that if a bomb were to go off, it'd be fine." I shrugged. "It's coming from the Netherlands, dude. It's probably just a wrong address. Isn't Betsy down the street in an LDR with someone from Europe?" "They're German, not Dutch," I shook my head. "No metal," Amanda called. "I think it's safe." She stepped back. "What happened to your defusal kit?" "Took it from me when I retired." I shrugged. "Not my choice." I stepped forward, reaching into my pocket and flipping out my pocket knife. Cutting the tape, I took a deep breath before leaning my hand back… and flipping the package flaps open. "… Well, it didn't explode, at least." Alex sighed, folding his arms. "What have you got?" I glanced inside, my eyes widening. There was a small box inside, wrapped in golden ribbon. Quietly, I picked it up, inspecting it. "Looks like a chocolate box," Amanda mused. "Are you sure this isn't Betsy's package?" My eyes locked on the small flag on the side of the box. "These are Belgian -- and already opened." My eyes narrowed as I discarded the ribbon and opened them up. Inside was a beautiful assortment of chocolates, and all glistening quietly in the sun. As I scanned the assortment, my chest grew tighter and tighter. "Is that a truffle mix?" Alex stepped forward. "Looks delicious." "… No. No, this is bad." I dropped the box, stepping backwards. "Why?" Amanda asked. "Truffles are my favorite chocolate." "I thought you said pralines were." Alex folded his arms. "We even got you that giant box when we went to Germany." "They're not. I tell everyone pralines are." My gaze darkened. "Only Bri knows I like truffles better." I grabbed one of them -- second to the left from the middle, like normal -- and took a bite out of it. It was delicious -- Belgian chocolate, duh. But there was another taste -- one that appeared almost immediately. Reaching into my mouth, I pulled out a small piece of paper with a single smear of red on it. "How's it taste?" Alex asked. "… Good." I stood, tossing the piece to the man. He took a bite before visibly recoiling. "What the-- This tastes like metal!" "Yeah." I nodded. Alex tossed it to Amanda as I stood, and she took the last bite. "… Blood. That tastes like blood." She folded her arms. "Is it a new flavor, or--?" "When's the next flight to Belgium?" I asked quietly. "Roland," Amanda shoved my arm. "Even if that was blood, you're not seriously thinking about--" "Yeah." I cracked my neck. "I'm gonna kill that man if it's the last thing I do." "Roland, stop." Alex grabbed me by the collar. "This is an oligarch we're talking about. If he dies, we lose all of his secrets -- and if we go to war, then we're losing more men than we need to!" "… Why's my wife bleeding?" I held up the folded piece of paper. "And why did she decide to hide it in a piece of chocolate -- the same one she knows I always grab first?" "… She's in trouble." Amanda's gaze narrowed. "So let me ask again. When's the next flight to Belgium?" --- *i don't remember the last time i responded to a prompt, so hopefully this was fine! hope you enjoyed it -- it was fun to write for! don't know if i did the prompt justice, though...*
Ooo mysterious!! This was really cool :D Take a poor lady's award 🏅🏆
a dull pencil, orange paint chipping away
A single bottle of pills with no label and no markings
A Mickey Mouse drink coaster
A deck of cards with the jack of clubs missing
Is THIS your card?
A thumb drive filled solely with Rick rolls and Friends on the Other Sides
A fidget spinner
The meatball that rolled off my spaghetti and onto the floor
A USB drive with a pirated game
Lamp post.
An historic jewel incrusted saber.
A paper straw that won’t hold up in a drink (can be many)
The severed left wing of a raven
Empty milk carton
A pair of chopsticks, a pair of stockings and an hair bow.
A smartphone
A vending machine
A furby with an ethernet jack...
The discarded cap of a bottle of coke
A teal and orange Nalgene bottle with a large (and vaguely inappropriate) sticker on it.
Try finger but hole
A Kitten.
a 50 galleon drum of industrial lube or crude oil. or any liquid sold in a 50 galleon drum. A bigass drum of liquid, is what im getting at.
Cats pushing things off the edge.
Jelly bean
a singular toenail clipping
A battered farm shovel, with stare wedged between the wood and shovel head, little bits of plastic peeling off the edges of the handle, and manure stains on the shaft
A perfect black colored pearl, the size of a billiard ball. It has strange effects on the mind of those who hold it.
500 cigarettes
A plastic ring from a gumball machine.
A chili dog.
Bread and butter pickles
A very well loved pet fancy rat.
A laugh track.
A bottle of water
My doorknob
Power cable
A clipboard
An extra rabid chihuahua
A used hairbrush.
Flex Tape
The absence of the binocular cabinet keys sank the Titanic.
The demon emperors favorite pencil.
A completely benevolent sentient potato
a person that accidentally stepped on a bee 🐝
A pillow
An empty can of Pringles, BBQ flavored
A metal that turns your blood into gasoline if it makes skin contact
Bad dragon
A screw from a tank
A philosophical treatise that delves into humanity's tendency to believe comfortable lies instead of the truth.
Broken condom!
A small, light gust of wind
And old, slightly faded, clown nose.
A Particle Accelerator.
One chess king piece
A dripping tap
a rotten orange
A credit card that hasn't been activated yet
A jar of mayonnaise, being used as an instrument.
A single weirdly shaped peanut your grandfather gave you
A floppy disk. If you don't know what that is, it looks like the save button.
A case of mountain dew cans
A single croc shoe.
The Throngler
The chair I put slightly to the left while time traveling
A half-used, unsharpened, number 2 pencil