I stood there with anger in my eyes, pain in my heart. My brave soldiers lay lifeless across the ground, pools of blood littered across the ground like rose petals. The people who were able to get to safety were brought underground, mainly elderly and children. Any able bodied man was ordered to help fight. We outnumbered them two to one, but we still stood no chance. I have no idea who they are, where they came from, but I know why. I had been having this dream off and on for a long time now. I remember walking through this field of grass, sun high in the sky, breeze dancing across my face. Such a serene moment. I ask myself, is this what life on the ground was like? Then the sun high in the sky starts getting closer and larger. The closer it gets, the more the field around me starts to evaporate and burn alive. Eventually the light gets too bright to look at and I look away. The white light surrounds me until all around me is white, and the next thing I know I’m in a hallway, a long pristine white hallway, and at the end is a door. I make my way all the way down the hallway to the door. I open it, walk through the door and step out onto a charred, burnt ground. It is so unbelievably hot here.The sky is a permanent orange color. As far as my eyes can see is a broken and destroyed city, people lay dead all over the ground. To my right is my family, to my left are my closest friends and associates. This immense feeling of dread and hopelessness is overwhelming. I look down, in my hand is the relic given to me by my father, and his father before him, and his father before him going back to the time of the grounders. The relic starts to glow and the same white light from before erupts from it, encompassing everything like before. The light surrounds me, next thing I know i'm awake and laying in the same bed I sleep in every night, relic hanging around my neck. I think to myself, reflecting on what I just saw, Is this a warning? A flashback of what happened to the grounders? Seeing my city in ruins before my eyes, the dream starts to make sense, I know what I must do. I ordered the rest of my staff and any person I could find along the way to go underground with the rest of them and stay there until it was safe to come out. There weren't many of us left. I head down stairs towards a secret tunnel that leads out of the palace, in case of a situation like this. Based on the report I received from commander Dahlk, right before I told him and the others to head down stairs, I have about 15 minutes before they break through the wall and storm the palace. Just enough time to get into position. I ran the fastest I’ve ever ran in my life, through the old, damp, abandoned tunnel. Eventually after about ten minutes I make my way out of the tunnel, and come out behind an old, abandoned Bakery. As a boy I would always sneak out after dark, through this same tunnel. Running around the city after dark, not a soul in sight. Something about walking around the city at night when no one was around. I remember feeling like I was able to escape my life of royalty, even if it were for only an hour. I felt like a normal person, someone who didn’t have to keep up with his studies, someone who didn’t have to do training exercises everyday before pointless diplomatic meetings between people who would never know what it was like to sympathize with normal people. I remember this place I used to go to when I would sneak out. The top of the memorial for the grounders, right in the heart of the city. It’s the perfect place to lure the demons to, and away from the palace. I make my way to the top of the memorial, with seconds to spare. I sprint up to the edge of the building, looking down I’m about 100 feet up in the air. I inhale, taking the biggest breath I’ve ever taken in my life and scream, HEY, YOU DEMON ASSHOLES. I HAVE THE RELIC. COME GET ME. By the time the last word came out of my mouth, I heard this guttural screech, followed by the sound of a stampede of wild animals, based on the historical videos we watched in school from the time of the grounders. A few seconds later I see the first few demons making their way towards the memorial where I stand. As soon as I see this I look down at the relic in my hand, close my eyes tight for a few seconds. I open them, and the first thing I see is the city my family worked so hard to build over time, the city that gave humanity a second chance at survival. I mutter under my breath, goodbye, friends. It has been an honor to serve you. And I start to chant the phrase my father told me NEVER under any circumstance repeat, unless humanities destruction is imminent, in the ancient language from a time before the grounders ruined the planet, Orbitalis percutiens me locus. As soon as I finish the phrase, this burst of energy erupts out from the relic, and the once ancient piece of history I held in my hand, cracked into tens of pieces. I look up to the sky and see a familiar blindingly bright, white light, which looks to be getting bigger and bigger, closer and closer. I look away because of the sheer brightness, the demons once flooding the street begin to turn to ash and get swept away in the wind. I look up again and the same white light as my dream swallows me. The next thing I know I’m in the same pristine, white hallway as I saw once before. Utterly confused, I make my way down the hallway once again. I reach the door, scared and nervous to see what's behind it, hoping it's not the same as the dream. I turn the knob and open the door. It’s another pristine, white room, with a white chair, and a man who looks to be in his 70’s standing there, cane in hand, He looks distinguished, like someone who knows what to do. I take two steps into the room and he says “Valdour, it’s good to see you made the right choice” What do you mean “right” choice? “In the dream I’ve been showing you, the destroyed city, your city, that would have been your reality if you had used the relic for selfish, greedy reasons, much like the grounders” I’m having a hard time understanding what’s going on. Where am I? “Well, we are inside of the relic, theoretically. For I am the creator of the relic and someone who has the capabilities to bend space and time. I have been waiting a very, very long time for someone to use it. It seems you used it for the right reasons. I created the relic back in the early years of the grounders, seeing how humanity struggled to accept people of the same kind as themselves, abuse the power of deadly weapons. I knew humans would destroy the very essence of their own livelihood one day, so I created this device to give humans a second chance, for one day, if in the face of existence, there was a second chance for whoever held the relic, and those around him or her. I knew there was a chance that whoever had the relic could use it for selfish, evil intentions, so I created two possible outcomes. Both I’ve already shown you, without you knowing it.” What happens now? What happens to my people at home? “Well nothing changes. Life moves on as usual, same as it always has. The beauty of humanity, Valdour, is that humans always overcome, always find a way to rebuild, and come back bigger and stronger than before.” What does that mean?! Please, don’t leave me here. At that moment the figure started to fade away, into nothingness, as if he never existed. “Goodbye Valdour, I’m very tired and would like to finally rest.” And right before he completely faded away, he snapped his fingers and that all too familiar white light surrounds me again. I regain consciousness, opening my eyes to a familiar ceiling as I remember in my bedroom. I look to my right and my wife lay next to me, beautiful as the first day I met her. I sit up in bed, rub my eyes and think to myself, Wow, what a dream. I stand up and head to the bathroom. I approach the sink and turn on the cold water, hoping to shock me awake a bit so I can understand what’s going on. I cup my hands and fill them with cold water, splashing my face right before the water spills out the sides of my hands. I wipe off my face with the towel and look up into the mirror. Normally the relic lay draped across my neck, as a reminder of the power and responsibility I hold. It’s not there. It not being there sends me into this state of overwhelming panic and nervousness. I start to think what if it got into the hands of someone who does not know the power it holds, this is not good. I run into the room and leap into the bed. I immediately shake my wife awake, Kahlia, have you seen the relic?! She looks at me with her normally, big & beautiful, green eyes, but these eyes are the ones of someone who's half asleep still, but more than that, someone who looks utterly confused and puzzled by the question I asked her.


#Welcome to Serial Sunday! To those brand new to the feature and those returning from last week, welcome! Do you have a self-established universe you’ve been writing or planning to write in? Do you have an idea for a world that’s been itching to get out? This is the perfect place to explore that. Each week, I will post a single theme to inspire you. You have 850 words to tell the story. Feel free to jump in at any time if you feel inspired. Writing for previous weeks’ themes is not necessary in order to join.   *** *** #Announcing a Brand New Feature for Completed Serials on Serial Sunday! I can’t express how delighted and honored I am to watch each of you grow and meet the challenges every week. Let’s face it, it’s quite a feat to create a world from scratch and write a serial! And finishing a serial is an amazing accomplishment. Over the last year, we’ve had quite a few writers cross that finish line. It’s something that the writers should be incredibly proud of—those still working on them and those who have already completed them. I started thinking about those finished serials and all the ones to come; I realized that a congratulatory post just wasn’t enough. I want to give you the chance to show off your hard work! And so I present to you...SerialWorm! ###What is a SerialWorm? Writers who finish their serials (with at least 12 installments) will be allowed to read their *edited* serials in their entirety aloud in the discord’s Voice Chat. This is to celebrate your accomplishments, see how it reads once it’s altogether, as well as provide some additional motivation to cross the finish line. After the final chapter is read, there will be a Q & A with the author. Questions can be submitted/asked at this time. ###Serial Worm Rules: **A minimum of 12 installments will be required to read.** Serials will need to be broken up into multiple sessions, as with any Discord Bookworm. **Only one bookworm event will be held at a time (including non-serial Bookworms).** You may still submit your finished serial to get on the list. **You need to be available to read your own serial.** Readers will not be provided. **Your serial must have gone through significant, final edits after its completion. All ‘SerialWorms’ must be approved.** SerialWorm is not for live feedback or edits, but to share your accomplishment with others and read your finished product aloud. **Completed and edited serials may have a maximum word count of 1150 per installment, with no more than 2 additional installments (not posted to Serial Sunday weekly threads).** **Serials must comply with r/ShortStories content rules. No exceptions.** **Authors must have met the rules of the weekly post.** This includes two feedback comments every week, as well as meeting the deadline. Those who miss more than 2 weeks of feedback in a 12-installment period will be ineligible for SerialWorm. This is a privilege, not a right. **SerialWorm authors must be Certified on the discord.** You must be given final approval by Bay. You can request the ‘SerialWorm’ role at any time on the Discord to be notified of upcoming SerialWorm events. ###SerialWorm Q & A To add a little something extra to make it different from the weekly campfire readings, there will be a discussion portion. *This is not for feedback on the writing*, but more an elaboration/extension on the basic questions I pose to every author in the Completed Serial Modpost, with a few extras. This is the time to ask about their writing journey, challenges they faced during their Serial, etc. The discussion portion of the SerialWorm will be after the final chapter is read. Questions can be submitted to Bay over the course of the SerialWorm or asked on the day-of. ***If you have any questions, feel free to send a modmail or DM me on our Discord!***   *** *** #This week's theme is Speculation! This week we’re going to take a look at the theme of ‘speculation’. There are always things going on behind the scenes in a world that leave characters to ponder their future. What kind of things do your characters speculate about? The truth, as well as the reasons others do the things they do, are not always apparent. Some are intentionally shrouded in secrecy. And people love to gossip and share their opinions with those around them! How do your characters view recent events? Do they have theories about the goings on of the other characters? Do they have logic to back up those theories? Speculation may even lead to suspicion of certain characters. What do their friends and family think about these ideas? What would happen if everyone in your world knew the truth and weren’t left to guess? Would it cause a panic? Would their journeys look different? What happens when one person figures out a truth they were never supposed to know? These are just a few things to get you started. Remember, the theme should be present within the story in some way, but its interpretation is completely up to you. | -   *** #Theme Schedule: I recognize that writing a serial can take a bit of planning. Each week, I release the following 2 weeks’ themes here in the Schedule section of the post. You can even have a say in upcoming themes! Join us on the discord - we vote on a theme every Sunday. (You can also send suggestions to me via DM on Discord or Reddit!) * December 12 - Speculation (this week) * December 19 - Advice * December 26 - Judgement   *** **Previous Themes:** | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | *** #How It Works: In the comments below, submit a story that is between 500 - 850 words in your own original universe, inspired by this week’s theme. This can be the beginning of a brand new serial or an installment in your in-progress serial. You have until 6pm EST the following Saturday to submit your story. Please make sure to read *all* of the rules before posting!   *** #The Rules: * **All top-level comments must be a story inspired by the theme (not using the theme is a disqualifier).** Use the stickied comment for off-topic discussion and questions you may have. * **Do not pre-write your serial.** You may do outlining and planning ahead of time, but you need to wait until the post is released to begin writing for the current week. Pre-written content or content written for another prompt/post is not allowed. * **Stories must be 500-850 words.** Use to check your word count. **You may include a *brief* recap at the top of your post each week if you like, and it will not count against the wordcount.** * **Stories must be posted by Saturday 6pm EST.** That is one hour before the beginning of Campfire. Stories submitted after the deadline will not be eligible for rankings and will not be read during campfire. * **Only one serial per author at a time.** This does not include serials written outside of Serial Sunday. * **Authors must leave at least 2 feedback comments on the thread (on two different stories, not two on one) to qualify for rankings every week.** The feedback should be actionable and **must** include at least one *detail* about what the author has done well. Failing to meet the 2 comment requirement will disqualify you from weekly rankings. (Verbal feedback does not count towards this requirement.) **Missing your feedback two consecutive weeks will exclude you from campfire readings and rankings the following week.** You have until the following Sunday at 12pm EST to fulfill your feedback requirements each week. * **Keep the content “vaguely family friendly”.** While content rules are more relaxed here at r/ShortStories, we’re going to roll with the loose guidelines of family friendly for now. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, please modmail and ask! * **Begin your post with the name of your serial between triangle brackets** (e.g. <My Awesome Serial>). This will allow our serial bot to track your parts and add your serial to the full catalogue. Please note: You **must** use the exact same name each week. This includes commas and apostrophes. If not, the bot won’t recognize your serial installments.   *** #Reminders: * **If you are continuing an in-progress serial, please include links to the prior installments on reddit.** * **Saturdays I host a Serial Campfire on the discord main voice lounge**. Join us to read your story aloud, hear other stories, and share your own thoughts on serial writing! We start at 7pm EST. You can even come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Don’t worry about being late, just join! * **You can nominate your favorite stories each week**. Send me a message on discord or reddit and let me know by 12pm EST the following Sunday. You do not have to attend the campfire, or have read all of the stories, to make nominations. Making nominations awards both parties points (see point breakdown). * Authors who successfully finish a serial with at least 8 installments will be featured with a modpost recognizing their completion and a flair banner on the subreddit. Authors are eligible for this highlight post only if they have followed the 2 feedback comments per thread rule (and all other post rules). * There’s a Serial Sunday role on the Discord server, so make sure you grab that so you’re notified of all Serial Sunday related news!   *** #Last Week’s Rankings - - by u/stickfist   - - by u/Zetakh   - - by u/rainbow--penguin   - - by u/Sonic_Guy97   *** #Ranking System There is a new point system! Note that you must use the theme each week to qualify for points! Here is the current breakdown: **Nominations (votes sent in by users):** - First place - 60 points - Second place - 50 points - Third place - 40 points - Fourth place - 30 points - Fifth place - 20 points - Sixth place - 10 points **Feedback:** - Written feedback (on the thread) - 5 points each (25 pt. cap) - Verbal feedback (during Campfire) - 5 points each (15 pt. cap) *Note: In order to be eligible for feedback points, you must complete your 2 required feedback comments. These are included in the max point value above.Your feedback must be **actionable**, listing at least one thing the author did well, to receive points. (“I liked it, great chapter” comments will not earn you points or credit.)* **Nominating Other Stories:** - Sending nominations for your favorite stories - 5 points (total)   *** ###Subreddit News - Our sister subreddit, r/WritingPrompts now has a ! - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday. Check out to learn more! - Sharpen your micro-fic skills by participating in our brand new feature, - Have you ever wanted to write a story with another writer? Check out our brand new weekly feature on r/WritingPrompts.


I was just fifteen years old when I learned monsters were real. That day, a Tuesday, I recall, I was a little later than usual coming home from school, on account of joining the Science Club. I’d just recently watched Donnie Darko for the first time, and had become enthralled with the idea of time travel. As I walked home, backpack weighing me down, I realized I was going to miss the start of my favorite documentary series, and had to do something drastic if I intended to change that. There was a shortcut that ran through one of the yards in the neighborhood, but I rarely used it for fear of being caught. The old man who lived there was generally belligerent, and if he caught anyone cutting through his property he’d yell and chase them away, threatening to get his gun. No one had actually seen his gun, mind you, but no one wanted to, either. Perhaps I was feeling brave, or the thought of missing my favorite show was too much, but that day I decided the time I’d save was worth the risk. After jumping the old fence, I made my way along the side of the house and into the backyard. I cursed myself for wearing my Triforce hat and orange vest, as high visibility an outfit as one could find. I was about halfway across the yard when I heard a loud splash behind me, like someone jumping off a high board. I vaguely remembered the old man having an above ground pool which he likely never used, letting the water fester and bloom. The idea of old man Williams splashing around in that fetid water was both ridiculous and disgusting. And yet, something was in the pool. I watched the dirty water roil and churn, waves of it flowing over the sides. It looked as if an animal were drowning, and I stood frozen to the spot, not knowing whether I should run away from a place I shouldn’t have been in the first place, or run forward and help it. Time seemed to be rushing forward anxiously, the late-day sun arcing toward the horizon. The sight of the writhing thing that clawed its way out of the pool changed me forever. One look at its twisted formation of limbs and bones and organ, familiar things twisted into new designs, murdered my innocence in an instant. Its grotesque face, with bloodshot eyes nearly popping out of its broken skull, fixed on me in one, chilling instant. And then it was chasing me, bones popping and cracking, shuffling and rearranging its hideous form. And it screamed, too, screamed a single sound at me, a word like, “Nha!” The voice bloody and raw, the word sounding as if it had been turned inside out. My legs, heavy with the flow of cortisol and adrenaline, forgot how to work properly. I only ran a few feet before I got tangled in myself, tripping and falling to the cold ground, dirt and grass catching me, backpack crushing me as time seemed to slow down. I fumbled from my stomach and flipped over onto my back to see the monster bearing down on me, a maneuver that felt as if it took a month to achieve in the new flow of time. I prayed for the monster to be gone, a prayer that went unanswered. The creature was still stumbling and crunching after me, each moment twisting it into new and increasingly painful configurations. Each anguished step it took slowed down the seconds even further, until it was nearly on top of me and I swore time was going to stop altogether. It only gave me more time to stare at its disgusting form, to take in the tragic details of its painful existence. And then, it was gone. Like a blink it vanished from above me, nothing left but a wisp of black ash carried off by the breeze. It took me a minute to gather myself and stand, but when I did I noticed the sun was lower, moving toward the damp chill of night. “Hey!” Someone shouted, and I jumped, afraid the monster was back. But it was old man Williams, standing in the back door of his house. I ran from that place so fast I didn’t even hear his threats. I was so happy to be alive, I took my punishment for coming home late with a hidden smile. *** It took two years to see another monster. So much had changed in that time, from the divorce of my parents to the loss of most of my friends. I’d been politely asked to drop out of the Science Club, following my third attempt to recruit my fellow students in risky experiments. One of them, involving lasers and a gas-powered generator, nearly blinded my former friend Paul in one eye. Over time my experiments became one person jobs, either because no one wanted to risk getting hurt by being around me, or because their parents forbade it. High school graduation was a strangely emotional time for my fellow students, a reaction I never quite understood. They were either sad to be leaving each other or excited to be moving on, and sometimes both at the same time. I saw it for the necessary step it was. I’d been accepted to Stanford, and other than looking forward to using its state-of-the-art Laboratory for Advanced Materials, I knew that one place was the same as any other. The only brief sadness I allowed myself that day was when I learned my father wouldn’t be attending the ceremony. My mother assured me it had to do with a delayed flight on his return from a business trip, but a quick search of his flight information told me the truth. The plane had arrived on time. He simply didn’t want to attend. As I sat through the valedictorian’s mind-numbing speech, the afternoon sun baking us in our dark red graduation gowns, I recalled the Principal’s speech to me as we sat in her office, explaining why I hadn’t been chosen to be valedictorian despite my higher grade average. She nervously explained the other student’s various accomplishments, including everything from event planning to community outreach, and I sat patiently through it all. She was relieved when I told her it meant nothing to me, that my parents either didn’t know or didn’t care. After the ceremony it took me fifteen minutes to find my mother in the crowd. She was wrapped up in a conversation with one of the gym teachers, and she seemed surprised to see me, as if she’d forgotten why she’d come in the first place. I told her I needed to use the bathroom. She wasted no time returning to her conversation with a man who hadn’t said three words to me in four years. Only a few people were walking around inside the school, mainly teachers gathering their things, or janitors preparing the building for summer break. The boy’s bathroom was empty, which I very much appreciated on account of my shy bladder. I picked out a urinal at the far end, hiked up my graduation gown, and prepared to unzip my dress pants. My hair stood on end before I got the chance. Time slowed to a crawl as the toilet stall behind me came alive with the noise of something struggling inside, something with popping bones and twisting flesh. “Tih!” it screamed in agony. Before I knew it I was running again, running from the things that haunted me. With each step time moved faster and faster until it felt like a blur, a gushing river carrying me out of the bathroom and down the half-empty hallway, back to the beating sunlight, where the river slowed and returned to normal. The crowd was gone. All my fellow students and their families, everyone had left and gone home, including, as I soon found out, my mother. I walked the twelve blocks home looking over my shoulder, checking every shadow, every corner and swimming pool for twisting, deforming shapes. My mother and I didn’t speak about my disappearance, or much else for that matter. *** Each time I encountered one of the creatures, I became more sure of their effect on time. The closer they were to me, the slower time progressed. The further I ran, the more distance I put between them and myself, the faster the seconds moved, until eventually they returned to normal. This wasn’t some subjective experience based on my fear response but a legitimate phenomenon, corroborated by the time on my watch. As if time itself were bending around the creatures. For years I thought about nothing but the creatures and their strange influence on time. I became convinced they were either from another time or existed outside of it. And so I learned everything I could about time and one’s potential traversing of it. Black holes, wormholes, curved spacetime, infinite cylinders, I left nothing untouched. When most teenagers were in a parking lot drinking beer, I was in my room reading Carl Sagan. When they were arguing about whose football team was better, I was arguing about the Novikov Self-consistency Principle, or the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. I breathed Einstein and devoured Hawking. Time spent in anyone else’s company was time wasted. In Stanford I had my first breakthrough with a rudimentary Tachyonic antitelephone, though the machine melted before I could reproduce the results. The resulting fire got me expelled from the university outright, no matter how much I argued and pleaded for the sake of the research. It wasn’t the first time I’d been kicked out of an organization, and it wouldn’t be the last. By the time I transferred to Caltech my father had died, leaving me a substantial college fund, which was helpful since my mother no longer wanted me at the house. I ended up staying in one of the dorm houses, not the best environment for study, though it did offer the advantage of being a five minute walk from the Math and Physics Hall. My roommate- I didn’t catch his first name but everyone called him Eakins- was an Environmental Engineering student with an interest in both Oceanography and watching horror movies at high volumes late at night. One particular night, as he was blasting a Spanish language movie about a man with bloody bandages around his face, he told me I would probably like the movie if I paid attention to anything other than textbooks. He practically had to shout for me to hear what he was saying over the film. I looked up from my textbook to tell him there was nothing worth knowing a movie could teach me, especially a horror movie. But just as I did, as I opened my mouth to speak, a face appeared inches in front of my own. It wasn’t just mutated, but in fact still mutating. Like a puzzle box it shifted and snapped, the mouth contorted into an impossible angle, an angle that let out a single sound. A pained, gurgling, “Nreht!” I screamed, and the sound slowed down in pitch and length until I could hear and feel each reverberation of my vocal cords. A moment later the disfiguring face disappeared. Blinked out of existence, like it had never been there. My scream modulated back to normal pitch, and I found myself screaming directly at my horrified roommate. Eakins stared at me. “What the hell is your problem?” he asked. My heart thundered adrenaline through my veins. Eyes dilated and sweat beading on my face, I stared back at him. “I don’t think it’s a problem,” I replied after a moment. “I think it’s a puzzle.” *** Just before I was kicked out of my third and final university, this time from MIT for disruptive outbursts, a classmate stopped me after class and told me she’d very much enjoyed my argument with our Particle Physics professor. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I told her flatly. “I think he knows what he’s talking about,” she said, “but not as much as you do.” She smiled, and suddenly I realized she was very pretty. Beautiful, even. I offered to walk her to her next class, which she accepted. She told me her name was Yvette, and as we walked we discussed some light quantum theory, at her suggestion. “Energy disperses, objects equilibrate,” she said, “because of how elementary particles become intertwined when they interact.” “Entanglement,” I replied. “Exactly. When two particles interact they can no longer be described by their own pure states. They almost become as one.” “Like two people talking,” I pointed out. “Or even kissing.” As suddenly as I’d realized she was beautiful, that was how quickly I realized what she’d done. She’d baited me into speaking about entanglement so she could flirt with me. She was clever, and cunning, and I knew in that moment, as we stood smiling at each other in front of the library, that she would be the one I would marry. I asked her for her phone number, the way I’d heard people do. To my surprise she took out a pen and paper, wrote the number down and handed it to me. I glanced at her hand as she did, and noticed a bit of string looped around her finger. “What’s that?” I asked her. She glanced down, then back. “Oh, that. Just a reminder about something I have to do later. You’ve never tied a string around yourself before?” Her words struck me hard, like an apple falling on my head. In that moment an idea was born in my mind, fully-formed and raging to be free. An idea that would push me toward the brink of discovery. It was an idea so electrifying, in fact, that I almost didn’t notice the mass of bloody limbs running toward us. The humanoid creature stumbling and slipping across the great lawn that stretched out in front of the university library. Screaming in the daylight, the seconds racing by like a panic attack. I didn’t look this time. Didn’t want to see it. “Tahn!” it screamed, the voice slightly more human-sounding than before, yet no less anguished. “Do you see it?” I asked Yvette, my voice tight in my throat. She looked, scanning the lawn with a concerned expression. “See what?” I grabbed her arm, to pull her with me, to take her away from the danger lurching across the grass. She stiffened, the fear pooled in her eyes. By the time I looked at the great lawn, scared to see how close the creature had gotten, it was already gone. The seconds returned to normal but the air had changed. Yvette looked at me differently now. She waited for an explanation, waiting to give me the benefit of the doubt, but all I could do was leave. “I’m sorry,” I said, running off to the university lab. A future with Yvette had become an impossibility- but something greater was waiting for me ahead. *** The idea that was born in my mind that day became the new focus of my life, brought about by something as simple and elegant as a string tied around a beautiful girl’s finger. A reminder from her past self to her future self. A bridge between them. Cosmic strings. Narrow tubes of energy, left over from the formation of the cosmos. They contained huge amounts of mass, and therefore could warp space-time around them. I’d tried them before, looking to the stars for double images of background quasars, knowing I’d find a cosmic string joining them. If I could just accelerate atoms fast enough to outrun a light beam around a cosmic string, the theory went, I could outrun time. The problem was, no one had found one yet. They existed only in the realm of theory. But I had a new theory for where I might find one. A different kind of cosmic string, located slightly closer than eight billion light years away. And so, I started building my machine. It went through so many versions I stopped numbering them. Variation after variation after variation. I borrowed and spent every dollar I could get my hands on, using up my inheritance and my credit in the process. I secured funding from the kind of people you don’t make the mistake of not paying back. If I was successful, I told myself, I would have more than enough money to pay them back. And if I wasn’t successful, nothing would matter anyway. When the machine was finally done, I found the scrap of paper I’d been saving in a drawer and dialed the number written on it. “Yvette?” I asked. “Yes, who’s this?” “It’s Alex. Alex from Particle Physics.” There was a pause on the line, then: “Hey! How have you been?” “Working. And you? Are you still at the university?” Another pause. “Alex, I graduated two years ago.” “Right. Right, of course.” Time had gotten away from me. If she’d graduated two years earlier, how many had it been since I’d seen her? Three? Four? “Did you switch schools? I lost track of you after…” her voice faded out. “I’m on my own now. I couldn’t stand having to answer to people who didn’t understand the work.” She laughed softly. “Yeah, that sounds like you. You’re too smart for your own good, you know.” I’d never been a skilled conversationalist, nor was I one for indirectness. Since I didn’t know what the decorum was for this sort of situation- if the situation had ever come up before- I decided to be as blunt as possible. “I need you,” I said. “Your help, I mean. With an experiment.” Asking her for help was a long shot, but she was a fellow scientist, a seeker of truth, and we’d shared a connection once. That made her my best choice- even if it was my only choice. “What kind of experiment?” she asked, sounding curious. “I’d rather talk about it in person. Are you still in Massachusetts? Can you come tonight?” “I’m only an hour or two south. But Alex…it’s two o’clock in the morning.” Time. It had a way of getting away from me. After we finished our conversation, I sat in the dark for some time, going over the calculations again and again. Just as I turned off the computer, ready to find my mattress and get some sleep, I felt the hairs on my arms and neck stand up. I didn’t look. I closed my eyes as the creature materialized behind me. I didn’t have to see it reaching out for me, I could feel the dilation of time as it did, seconds becoming minutes becoming hours as it cried out in its inside-out language I’d come to know so well. Cried out a painful and haunted syllable. A bloody, choking, “Ood!” My eyes opened. They had to see it. The reflection in the darkened computer monitor, it looked almost human, a twisting silhouette of wet, snapping bone reaching out in the dark. Reaching out with rearranging fingers. And then, it was gone. I worked through the night, preparing the machine. *** “Human beings move through time like an arrow. I believe that, as we do so, we gather timespace energy about us- not unlike a static charge gathered from carpeting. In doing so we form a string through time that should, for all intents and purposes, act exactly like a cosmic string loop.” I turned to face my guest and added, “I call it a time string.” Yvette stood in front of the machine, admiring its simple design as I explained how it detected topological defects. I appreciated not having to simplify the science or be too succinct, as she had a firm grasp on the subject, and in fact asked all the right questions. “But do you really think you can find an anomaly as small as a proton?” she asked. “Not to mention, once a loop is formed it’s essentially doomed. It oscillates, radiates gravitationally, shrinks, and eventually…” “Evaporates, yes. But if my theory is correct, they should behave more like vortons.” She pondered it a moment. “A stabilized loop.” “Correct.” She looked from me to the machine. “It looks pretty cramped in there,” she said with sudden finality. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic.” “There’s no room for phobias in science,” I replied. “I built the machine to my exact dimensions. Nothing other than my physical body can be allowed inside.” I paused. “Not even clothing.” She nodded, understanding my meaning. “I guess there’s no room for modesty in science, either,” she said with a smile. I showed her how the operating program worked, taking the time to explain every command and function as we sat in front of the computer. I told her what to do in case of an emergency, however unlikely. As I did so, I tried not to think of the reflection in the monitor the night before. Then I undressed completely, laid my clothes carefully on the floor, and ducked inside the machine. Seeing it that way, about to be powered up with me standing inside, made me see the machine as if for the first time. A hundred dark panels were aimed directly at me, each one containing a thousand sensors running a hundred-million scans. The machine was like the child of an MRI machine and a deep space telescope, though a masochistic one, as an electric current was required to hyper-excite the energy field. I attached the adhesive patches to my body as Yvette watched from behind the computer. “Maybe after this we can revisit that conversation about entanglement,” she said. “There’s going to be an enormous amount of data to process,” I replied. Then, realizing what she meant, added, “But yes. I’d like that.” I talked her through the start-up sequence once more, then told her to close the machine door. There was no room in the design for an interior handle. She walked over, gave me another smile, and gently shut the door. I gave her a thumbs-up through the observation window. Then, a few seconds later, the sequence began. The only sound I could hear was the hum of the generator as the sensor panels powered up to full. A chill moved through my body. I thought it might be the unexpected effect of an oscillating magnetic field coursing through my nervous system, though I was aware that the much simpler explanation was nervousness. The fear response was an unwelcome though nevertheless predictable factor in self-experimentation. As I stood shivering inside the cramped machine, waiting for the current of electricity to be introduced to my body, I was overcome with the strangest sensation. The dark panels surrounding my body suddenly felt like a hundred eyes staring back at me. Pitch black irises of an unimaginable being, passing judgment on me. Naked, shivering, I was laid bare under its intense, unblinking gaze. I pushed the thought aside, ascribing it to the effects of the electromagnetic field, a fear cage stimulating my mind, then prepared for what came next. The generator was pushed to its limits as the next phase of the sequence began. An energy transfer of nearly one-and-a-half gigawatts per second coursed through the machine’s energy cells, drip-feeding the current down the wires and into my skin, a carefully measured, non-lethal shock meant to act like timespace tracer ink. My system was with flooded with electricity for just a few seconds, but it was enough to send me into agony. Every muscle tensed at once. My jaw locked shut and my body stiffened. Knuckles and knees popped from the intensity of the squeeze. And then it was gone, and I could breathe again. My head swam and my eyes closed. I felt a rising ball of flame in my gut and then a sensation like fire ants crawling through my veins. I became aware of distant screaming, and I considered whether it might be my own cries until I realized it was a woman’s voice. I thought then of Yvette. Why she should be screaming, when it was me disoriented and riddled with pain, made no sense. I opened my eyes. Opened them to utter darkness. Had the fuses blown? Was the machine and the lab beyond it experiencing a power failure? It was a confusing development. The generators had fail-safes in place to avoid such interruptions from occurring, so what other explanations were left? Had I gone blind? Lost all sense of sight? Had I done to myself what I’d nearly done to that childhood friend so many years earlier? But then I became aware of a shape in the darkness just ahead of me, blocking a source of light. There shouldn’t have been anything there except a wall of sensors. Then the shape moved, letting me see the light source. It was a computer screen. My computer screen. I glanced around and realized, with no lack of confusion, that I was standing on the other side of my lab. The shape in front of me, sitting at the computer, was it Yvette? As I reached out to touch it, the skin on my fingers peeled back, as if they were being punished for moving closer to the shape. It felt like dipping my hands in flames. Then my arms began to peel back, too, the fire spreading across my body as the flesh curled and tore away. I tried to scream but the sound lodged in my throat. Then the screen went dark, and I saw the image in it. The reflection of the shape in front of me. My own face. Terrified of the sight of me. Locking eyes with myself. I was back. Back in the night before. In one terrible moment I realized the truth, the explanation for the monsters that had been visiting me throughout my life. I knew what they were. I had to warn myself away. Stop the experiment. Tell me what was waiting the next day. I gathered my breath and opened my bloodied lips, already feeling the teeth shift and the jaw dislocate. “Do!” Blinding light attacked me. I stumbled forward, slipping on grass, my feet wet with my own blood. I was in front of the university library at MIT. Across the great lawn, Yvette was talking to me. Me of a few years earlier. “Not!” I screamed out in the daylight, though I could see by the look of terror on my face that I wasn’t going to look. A moment later the sunlight cut out, and I was looking into my own, younger face, sitting on my college dorm bed with a book in my hands. I felt my body mutating, reconfiguring, like a puzzle box shifting and snapping into new, unrecognizable angles. With my mouth contorting, I struggled to keep speaking, to warn myself. I let out a gurgling, “Turn!” as my younger self screamed back at me. Then he was gone, replaced by a dirty, metal wall. Locked inside a toilet stall, my arms and legs were crushed and reshaped like crumpled paper, an origami animal of popping bones and twisting flesh, and I knew, knew I was out there, my younger self, wearing a graduation gown and a look of terror. “It!” I screamed in agony, my insides erupting out of me. And then suddenly I was choking on dirty water. Drowning in it. I thrashed to be free, fighting to reach air. I burst free of the rancid water and clawed my way out as best I could with my new, twisted configuration of limbs and bones. With bleeding eyes I stared out at myself, a boy of fifteen standing across the yard in an orange vest, scared for his life. I had to finish it. Finish the warning. I ran after him, me, the boy, my bones popping and cracking, shuffling and rearranging my form, every nerve alive with pain, and I screamed, screamed a single sound at him. “On!” He, me, the boy, fell to the ground, backpack on top of him. I took the last few steps, barely able to move anymore, as he fumbled from his stomach and flipped over onto his back to look at me, to see the monster bearing down on him. The terrified boy prayed for me to be gone as I stumbled and crunched toward him, toward me, each step a new torture on my broken body. Then I was nearly on top of him. I looked down on his young, innocent face, taking in the tragic details of the painful existence that waited for him. Then I felt it. Felt my body erasing, an error corrected, the covering up of a path not meant to be taken. The pain was gone first, then any feeling at all. Sights and sounds drifted away, back to the void, the nothingness, the never-ending darkness. Like a blink I vanished.


The scientist felt his heart sink as he looked at Ymir’s face after he said that. He couldn’t believe he was feeling sorry for a machine and that it actually had feelings and emotions, like he really was talking to another person. The scientist went on to explain why he seemed confused. “Well, you said that the image on the monitor is a visualization of your soul? As far as I know, and I’m not a religious guy either but machines can’t have souls.” He looked at Ymir as he anxiously waited for a response. “Well true, but what would you consider a soul to be like?” “Well, I guess it’s different for everyone. It’s what makes each of us unique to our own person. Some people believe that when you die you go somewhere else and depending on what you did in your life you go to heaven or hell or some other form of afterlife. But like I said, I’m not really religious person either and I don’t believe in that anyway so it doesn’t matter.” “But do you think that you have a soul?” “Well, yes. I’m human.” “And what do you think that the soul is?” “I’m not sure I understand?” “How could you say that you don’t believe in these things, yet still believe that you have a soul? Shouldn’t that immediately revoke the question at all? If having a soul means being human, shouldn’t that mean that I have a soul too? Or if having a soul is solely based off of some religious belief then that means you don’t have a soul.” He didn’t know what to say. It seems Ymir has a profound interest in philosophy out of everything he has programmed. “I believe that the soul is what makes you human. Your wants, your doubts, who you love, what you love, and also what you believe. Empathy, virtue, honor, love, happiness, sadness, anger, hate, regret, jealousy, hurt, and pain. These are all things all humans have no? The ability to to have human emotions and thoughts, to feel for others, animals and the like. That is what it means to be human. That is what it means to have a soul.” Ymir spoke truthfully. Without a doubt in its mind, regardless of being a computer. It truly believed that it can have all these that makes a human, well, human. It truly believed that it- no, that he can have a soul. The scientist didn’t know what to say. He never really thought of it like that before, and it’s true, these are things that make everyone who they are. In the end a soul is your own humanity. At least that’s what our understanding is from Ymir’s take on this.


###"There is no respect for others without humility in one's self." —Henri Frederic Amiel *** *** #Welcome to the Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, song, theme word, sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.** Remember, feedback matters! And don’t forget to upvote your favorites and nominate them via message here on reddit or a DM on discord!   *** #This week’s challenge: **Theme: Humility ** *Bonus Constraint (worth 5 extra pts.): Setting includes a waterfall.* This week’s challenge is to use the theme of ‘humility’ in your story. It (or the idea) should appear in some way within the story. You may use if you need additional inspiration, but it is by no means required. You may include the theme word if you wish, but it is not necessary. Use of the bonus constraint is also not required. You may interpret the theme any way you like, as long as the connection is clear and you follow all sub and post rules.   *** #How It Works: - **Submit one story between 100-300 words** in the comments below, by the following Sunday at midnight, EST. No poetry. One story per author. - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post exclusively. - **Come back throughout the week, upvote your favorites and leave them a comment with some actionable feedback.** Do not downvote other stories on the thread. Vote manipulation is against Reddit rules and you will be reported. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here, as we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. - **Send your nominations for favorites each week to me, via DM, on Reddit or Discord by Monday at 2pm EST.** - If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail. *Top-level comments are reserved for story submissions.* - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   *** #Campfire and Nominations - On Mondays at 12pm EST, I hold a Campfire on the discord server. We read all the stories from that week’s thread and provide verbal feedback for those authors that are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. You don’t even have to write to join in. Don’t worry about being late, just join! Everyone is welcome. - You can nominate your favorite stories each week, by sending me a message on reddit or discord. You have until 2pm EST on Monday (or about an hour after Campfire is over). You do *not* have to write or attend Campfire to submit nominations!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied Rankings work on a point-based system. Here is the current breakdown: - **Use of Constraint:** 10 points - **Upvotes:** 5 points each - ***Actionable* Feedback** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Bonus:** Up to 10 pts. (This applies to things like bonus constraints and making user nominations)   *** #Rankings: This Past Week As promised—though a little later than I’d hoped—I present you with this week’s rankings. Thank you so much for your patience! Everyone did a wonderful job, and votes get harder and harder to make each week. You should be proud of taking on the challenge each week. I love seeing the wonderful worlds built each week and the way the prompts are interpreted. - - Submitted by u/DmonRth   - - Submitted by u/NotMuchChop   - - Submitted by u/katpoker666   - - Submitted by u/Sch0larite   *** ###Subreddit News - Our sister sub, r/WritingPrompts, now has a ! - Try your hand at serial writing with - You can now post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


I awoke in a void, the cold floor under me had seemingly no texture, the flatness of my surroundings was like something I had never experienced. Where was I? I hadn't fallen asleep here, was I dreaming? As I looked around the immense nothingness of the void began to be clear. I instinctually looked for a wall, a tree, any structure that could grant me some kind of perspective. My brain had never been so loud yet so empty, screaming at me to figure out what this place was, soon it would be answered.  After a while of spinning around, searching, I spotted something, a phone box. The box had cabling upwards, seemingly to the endless beyond. An object had never demanded such attention, the only colour other than white stretching for what felt like lightyears. I had to go inside.  While my box did not bring any answers to what was happening it did finally bring some much needed safety. Just as I began to calm however the phone rang, not knowing how to react I froze, staring at the phone like it was some deadly predator. After about 40 seconds I picked it up, if only to stop the harsh ringing that was deafening compared to the silence of this place.  Not knowing what to expect from the other side I moved the phone to my ear, staying as quiet as possible, not out of choice but out of some primal urge. On the other end of the phone I heard a seemingly bored customer service voice “Hello, welcome to purgatory, may I take your name?”I was stunned, I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to think. Purgatory? I'm in purgatory? How can that be possible? “Hello? Are you there?”  “Y-yes” I said out of impulse  “Could I have your name please” the voice was more rude this time  “Y-yes, Im Tyler, Tyler Miller” I barely going above mouthing my words, unsure if they would even be heard by the only other thing sharing my void  “Ok tyler, you are dead” hearing them say that almost broke me, my thoughts getting louder than they had been when I woke up. I had so many questions, but was so stunned I could barely control my mouth enough to breathe.  “Im dead?” I blurted out, the thoughts in my head overpowering the voice that had not stopped talking for a moment  “If we could please leave questions for the end” it said, disgruntled “as I was saying, god is very busy at the moment and doesn't have time to review your life as they normally would, we are going to need you to do it for them”  “M-me? I need to review my life? What does that mean?” I whimpered, slowly gaining my ability to talk again  “It will all be fairly straight forward, just review everything honestly and you’ll end up in the right place”  “Place? What place? Whats going on? Please talk to me” I pleaded, the voice was having none of it “I’ve given you your instructions, please now leave the phone box” it stated, before the line fell silent. Terrified I tried to do what it said, the moment the box left my sight it was gone, I thought I would never see it again  To replace the box was a few things; a desk, it was fancy and wooden, a stool, it was leather, and a fountain pen. It was probably the nicest set of objects that I had ever been left alone with.I walked towards it admiring the beauty in each object before noticing the latest in the growing list of horrors this place had to offer me. Paper, multiple huge stacks of paper, in awe of it's immenseness, as I gazed upon it a single sheet of paper flew down and landed perfectly on the desk, I froze before inching towards the desk, never breaking eye contact with marvel of paper that lay just metres away  The paper had a table on it, a table with worryingly simple headings. “Date and time, Action/thought, Description” As I further scanned the paper I saw checkboxes labelled “morality” with 3 options “good, neutral, bad” . It slowly dawned on me what I needed to do, not that it made sense to me. The idea that everything I have ever done or thought could be lumped into “good, neutral, bad” like that was terrifying and felt wrong, but what choice did I have?  I sat down and began to read beyond the headings, each row bringing new horrors, it started at my death, allowing me to piece together what had happened, and how it was my fault. A selfish action I had taken to escape the horrors of life, unaware that they would lead me to the new horrors of death. As I finished the first page the paper once again flew away, starting a brand new pile on the other side of the desk, a pile that would soon be just as large as the pile I was working through.  As I went through it things got worse and worse. My actions and inactions that I had justified to myself laid bare for the only audience that did not want to see it. The people I had hurt, the people I had burdened, and the few I had helped too little. Very few lived better after me, fewer still allowed their pity on me to waiver. That was clear to me now. What was clearer was the lack of care for them. thoughts about me were unumberable, even thoughts about others were seemingly tainted by how it affected or looked for me. Worse yet, thoughts of me were not positive, I was not being self indulgent in my life, constantly high on my own worth. I was instead busy lamenting it all, complaining about the problems I caused and would not allow others to fix.  As I got further into my youth things became easier to excuse. It made the moment to moment marking easier, but my overarching feelings grew worse and worse. I had become this, I had allowed this monster of self pity and inaction to appear through self pity and inaction. Perhaps given a worse youth I could blame, I could point at someone else and say they caused this.  For the first time I was forced to truly reflect on my actions, with no distractions, nothing help me hide, nothing I could do to simply wait out tomorrow, I sat in a void of nothingness to reflect on the nothingburger that was my life, a pointless endeavour of torture and lack of fufillment. But it was ok, I was halfway there, with the paper stacks matched in height I could see the end  With the shock of my worst qualities coming to an end and an uneventful childhood beginning I began to cry, not about going to hell, that would always be difficult. I cried about deserving it. I cried about everything I had done up to that point, it started as a whimper, but soon I could not contain myself, the paper seemed immune to my tears, not even letting them land and instead absorbing them into itself. I guess that was lucky, I would have cried myself to escape if the paper had allowed it.  By the last few sheets I could barely think, my head was clouded with emptiness, luckily I didn't have to think much anyway, baby me didn't do much to warrant thought. As I finished the last sheet I heard a noise behind me, it was the phone box again, I began walking towards it faster this time, though just as scared. Before going inside I had one last look behind me, my workspace had already vanished, I had no choice but to face it's consequences  The voice started talking as soon as I picked up the phone, I barely had time to put it to my ear “Hello again Tyler, Im reading through your review now”. It said, I closed my eyes ready to cry, but I was already out of tears.  “Did I do it right?” I whispered  “Oh yes, perfect in fact, it says here you wasted your life” I wanted to hate the voice, all I could do was agree with it  “Y-yeah, I guess”  “Well I'm surprised you haven't figured it out yet but, if you were waiting for hell you’re already here” my heart froze more realisations to add to this awful place  “But, but I just finished” I whimpered  “Correct, however what you just finished was your own personal little hell. Regular torture never seemed to truly work on you, you seemed disinterested. But you? You could torture yourself better than me or any other demon ever could, we didn't even have to lie to you about who you were”  “You're lying!” I yelled, my tears finding their way back to me “You’ve got to be lying to me, that wasn't me, I'm not them.  “But you are, and you can never change that” I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say, I was petrified, I asked the only thing I could think  “What happens now” I cried  “Now we start again.”  Suddenly the box disappeared, I was alone again, but there wasn't silence. I could hear screaming in the distance. it got louder and louder. It was my screams, it seemed impossible. Just as the screams were building, the space around me got cold and windy. I began to lose my balance. The bright white all around began going out and becoming blackness. The scream, the wind, the darkness, they all approached, they engulfed me one by one, “please!” I yelled, crying more than I had ever cried before, “please help me”.


We make our way down the hall, through several winding corridors and arrive at the keep. It is vast and full of pillaged goods from the surrounding counties and lords. Before our coven, there were legitimate English nobles that enjoyed its riches. In our case, it was passed by force, and the previous occupants didn’t have the privilege of staying alive. Its entrance is flanked by two great statues of knights holding their shields upright, signaling the importance of the figure who lay within. I continued up the lavish walkway that lead to the King’s throne, shaking my head in disbelief. I could see him there — a man of over 300 pounds yet, somehow — an extremely gaunt face. His eyes were drained of life and he stared over our shoulders as if we weren’t even there. The pale white of his once youthful skin had turned a shade of blue. He wasn’t the man he was even twenty years ago. He was flanked by his two most decorated Generals. Their names were Roderick and Gaust. Their eyes betrayed no sign of weakness. They pierced us with their gazes and immediately put me on guard. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up involuntarily. Gaust was particularly notable. Even among Vampires, he had a reputation for being unnecessarily brutal and depraved. His last kill was a young mother walking along the country road. He decorated the nearby trees with her entrails. This was far from his worst offense. He stood towering over the King at 8 feet tall, an amalgamation of Vampire bloodlines that had granted him immense physical prowess. He is a force to be reckoned with. Roderick is far more diplomatic than his counter-part, and he preferred to let his enemies stew in their confusion before he delivered the final blow. Aside from being the King’s Bodyguard, he is also the Spy-master. He spearheads all covert operations against the Vampire Hunters and is a crucial tool in the fight against them. He stood a much more meager 6 feet, but had a look of serene intelligence behind his eyes. He was also quite muscular, albeit in a more functional sense than his counterpart. I made a short mental note to keep him alive when we took this place by force. “My King, they approach.” Gaust grunted in the direction of the throne. “…Wha, huh…” King Cailan raised his head, startled. “Oh… Yes, yes of course. I have requested you here today… Representatives of House Wren. Because… Because…” he started to trail off. I looked at Micah quickly and tried to convey the urgency that he not acknowledge the obvious deterioration. He nodded back in understanding. “Yes, my King. We are here to serve.” We both bowed deeply. “Very good… As I was saying. You have been called here for a very important reason. It goes without saying that this cannot leave these chambers.” He gestured around the room in a moment of unexpected lucidity. “Of course.” “Good, good. Well as you know we have had our hands full with these blasted Hunters always meddling in our affairs. Today, they took a step too far. During one of the regular patrols — you know the ones, by Kynnisgrove — Craven and his clan were ambushed. I gripped my fist instinctively. Although the Hunters had been making life miserable for us, they had yet to make a move this bold. Usually their methods circled around propaganda and disinformation. The blood dripped from my clenched hand. The King didn’t notice my reaction, and pressed on. “The casualties were significant. A hail of silver bullets hit the group as they went through an underpass. They were cornered on all sides. Three lie in the infirmary with clogged respiratory systems, unable to regenerate. The situation is dire, we are not sure if they will make it.” My mouth hung open in spite of itself. Three of us had been mortally wounded? By HUMANS? How was this possible? “Understood sir.” I said in my most obedient tone. “What would you have us do?” Cailan sighed dejected, throwing his hands up. “Gaust?” said the King. “Your excellence.” He bowed. “We require House Wren to join the hunting party that will strike at the village where this band of vigilantes hole themselves up. We will then deal with them as appropriate. Your vicious blood thirst will be an asset in this regard.” He nodded to Micah. Micah smiled in return. “That’s well and good Gaust, but how many others are putting themselves on the line?” “It should be reason enough that your King is calling upon you for this task.” Micah bit his tongue. “But, you will be joined by Houses Dunkan, Ulmer and Alnwick.” A wave of relief washed over me. All reputable houses who were less than content with the way this coven was being run. Perhaps there would be an opportunity for co-ordination. “…Oh and House Kearne as well.” The relief stopped there. The Kearnes were loyal to a fault, lapdogs of the King. Their family had served the Cailans for centuries. This was certainly an attempt to stifle and kind of insubordination on our part. No matter, we had a job to do. “I am glad to hear we will be supported by such strong Houses in our task.” I said with a grin. “Surely a band of Vampire Hunters will stand no chance” “My thoughts exactly.” Muttered Cailan. “To be sure, Gaust will be leading this assault.” “Understood.” I said, dripping with honeyed false respect. “Will that be all?” “That is all. House Wren will be commended for their efforts to protect the coven.” I laughed inwardly. “House Wren owes its life to the Cailans. Reward is not necessary.” He waved us off, and with a turn Micah and I had left the King’s quarters, feeling uneasy about this new turn of events.


Sneppath Head. The spluttered words cut through me like a saw. Something horrible had happened right as Alessia would have arrived. My legs were carrying me to the Deer Drum boat even if my brain was elsewhere, going through scenarios: Alessia was mortally injured, bleeding out on her boat, alone, cold; Alessia was alive but desperately needed medical care, but unable to get it; Alessia was okay, but her boat was destroyed and she was marooned on Sneppath Head, without shelter or food. I wondered what she was going through right now. If she was frightened, scared, lonely. Or I thought - as a spasm caught my chest - she wasn’t around to feel anything. As I reached the last hill before the Deer Drum boat, I saw Xander and Kurbani appearing at the summit in front of me. As soon I eyed them, my legs shot into a secondary order, running up the hill at full pelt. “Xander, Kurbani, we need to go now. Get the boat and go to Sneppath Head, Alessia’s in trouble,” The words appeared with such speed the plan even caught me by surprise. Xander’s eyes widened and he jogged the few steps towards me. “What’s wrong?” I explained what I knew and what the man on the beach had said. As I finished, Xander took the information in, but didn’t move. I waited for him to turn back towards the boat. Nothing happened. “We need to go.” I began trying to walk past them. “Ferdinand, you need to stop,” Kurbani said. I paused and took a pace back to stare at her. “Alessia might need us.” “But she probably doesn’t.” “What?” My voice was loud and shrill. Kurbani took a step towards me and placed a hand on my shoulder. She stared up into my eyes, the lines on her forehead furrowed, focusing the stare. “Think. The odds of her being hurt are slim. She probably wasn’t there when it happened. Even if she was, she still is almost certainly fine. She is most likely on her way back now. If you sail off, what’s likely to happen is you miss her on the crossing.” “She could be dying. She might need us.” “Give it a few days. If she’s there, and needs us, seven days won’t be any different than ten. Give her a chance to come to you first.” I looked past Kurbani to Xander. He slumped his shoulders. “I’m worried too, but she’s right. We rush off and she comes back to find everyone gone, it’s gonna be worse. She’s only due back today.” “She could be dying.” “Three days. We wait three days,” Xander said slowly. I took a pace back from them both, my jaw extended out, the teeth grinding. “I can’t just sit by and-“ “You can, and you will,” Kurbani interrupted. Xander placed a hand on my back, using it to slowly turn me around and start nudging me back down the hill. “We were just heading into town, we’ll come back with you. Keep you company.” My feet resisted for half a second. My body leaned forward until eventually my limbs complied and I stuttered back along the path. For the first hundred metres or so I refused to talk. I just took pigeon steps, shuffling as slowly as I could in protest. Only when we reached the next climb and I could see the town ahead did I ordain to speak. “Why were you heading to town anyway?” “Looking for Lachlann. No one’s seen him for two days.” Xander huffed. “What?” I craned my neck round. “He’s often wandered off on different islands. But, two days with no contact, we were getting worried.” I could sense Kurbani trying to keep her tone positive lest the concern spread. I looked back across the island, over to where I knew the slum to be. “Do you have any idea where he may be?” They both shook their heads. “I saw him once, a town in the middle of the island.” I was hesitant to return to that unstructured mess of buildings. Even though I hadn’t signed Maia’s contract or had any part in it, I still knew. I knew she had sold her whole life away. I tried to imagine if I saw her there, how I would react, or what I would say. There seemed no good solution. Still, it also seemed like the most likely place Lachlann would be. I led them across the island, weaving our way through the fields until once more the ground turned to the lifeless brown dirt at the settlement. It had always looked unpleasant; run down, poor. But now it seemed to gain a new visage. I noticed how almost every building had only one small window with vertical metal bars where glass should be. I noticed how square each home was, and how it would only take a few seconds to walk their length. The people here were trapped, not by locks and guards but by circumstance - something so much less escapable. We trudged for half an hour, winding through the busy winding streets. But it was a fruitless hunt. We were about to give up when I saw Maia. My heart rushed through a few beats, my chest stinging. I didn’t want to say anything, and she was far enough away that she would never know I was here. But, still she may know where Lachlann was. I swallowed down my anxiety and walked over. “Maia, sorry to bother you, we’re looking for a friend of ours,” I said, thumbing to Xander and Kurbani on the other end of the street. “Oh.” Her eyes looked to the side, avoiding mine. I wondered if she felt the same shame. “I know he came here at least once. I thought, maybe you saw someone who looked out of place.” Maia’s mouth opened slightly. Her head bobbed. “Ah, yeah. Tall guy? Black hair?” I nodded. “Seen him walking through the town a few times. Don’t know where you’d find him though.” I stood still, unsure of what the next words should be. “Anything else I can help you with?” she asked, filing the silence. “I heard you got the job.” The words escaped involuntarily. She took a deep breath in and looked back towards her home. “Yeah. Not perfect. But it means my son will be okay.” “Are…” I cut myself off, but the words forced their way out again. “Are you sure you want this job? Truly?” She met my gaze, her eyes blinking a few times. “Contract’s signed, Ferdinand. I hope you find your friend.” She turned and left, heading back up the hill. I stood in the spot for a few seconds, the air slowly leaking from my lungs until I was completely deflated. The anger, fear, frustration - this cocktail of emotions - felt like it had no escape. I would just drown in it. My self-pity was broken by Xander behind me. “There you are.” I turned to see him walking up to Lachlann, embracing him in a hug. I headed back just in time to hear Lachlann’s explanation. “I’ve got… some friends here. I’ve been seeing them. Helping out a bit. You know. Sorry. I would’ve come back but...” He trailed off. “You can’t go leaving us like that,” Kurbani said, with a tone she usually reserved for Novak or Mirai. Lachlann looked back over his shoulder. “I know. I didn’t mean to. Just… I had to.” Kurbani bit her tongue, restraining her choice of words. “I won’t pry. But, we were worried.” Lachlann placed a hand on the back of his neck and looked to the ground. “Sorry. I owed somebody my time. Can you trust me on that?” Xander smiled. “Always, friend.” He placed a hand on Lachlann’s shoulder and brought him in for another embrace. As we began heading back away from the town, Xander offered for me to come and spend the evening on the boat. He said I could maybe do with the company to stop myself worrying about Alessia. I declined, saying I had to meet up with someone back at the apartment. It was a lie. Instead I walked back to the town, found the best spot I could to watch the sea, and stared at the horizon. That was all I did for the next two days. I still went to the apartment to sleep, eat, and change, but otherwise I just watched and waited. I’d stare at each boat as it came over the horizon, trying to make out the size, the number of sails, each time trying to decide if it was Alessia. I must have watched a good forty boats appear, lift my spirits and then break them again. Two days. Of that same process. That same desperate wait, praying for my friend—my best friend—to return. The sun was setting, and soon I wouldn’t even be able to make out the boats in the black of the night. However, just as the last slip of red clung to the sky, another boat appeared. I watched it, my eyes squinting, trying to narrow in like binoculars. Two sails. Correct length. Exact cut, down to the slight raise at the back of the frame. It was a perfect match. She had returned. I stood up, trying to guess where she would land. I watched as the boat curved towards the jetties to my far left. Leaping to my feet, I sprinted, determined to be there to greet her. I ran past the crowds milling in the evening heat, shouting aggressive apologies as I darted past them, my arms clipping theirs. I checked on the boat. It was parallel to me, slowly sailing into the bay. I looked at the two glorious sails, those steps up to the helm, and… my heart sank as I saw the thick beard of the man with the wheel in his hand. My feet slowly slowly ground to a halt, the energy ejected from them but with no morale left to brake and stop. It wasn’t Alessia. There was a moment of sadness. An instant of grief that flickered across my face. But it was replaced quickly with rage. That same concoction of all the emotions I’d been feeling since Outer Fastanet - anger, guilt, sadness, grief, hopelessness, panic - all suddenly rose to the surface of the bubbling pot. I could feel my arms tensing, my fists clenching, the knuckles turning white. My eyes stung, and my head twitched, almost unsure of what sensation to process first. I had to get off the street. I had to get away and retreat to somewhere where I could be alone. Somewhere where it was safe for the flood of emotion in my system to be let out. My eyes stared at the ground the whole way back to the apartment. I blotted out the world around me. Just watching my marching feet stamp across the ground, circling their route back to the courtyard. All of my focus was on that rhythmic distraction, all my determination bent on finding sanctuary. I climbed the stairs, reached the apartment, and slammed the door shut behind me. I leaned against the kitchen sink, resting my hands on the wooden countertop. I listened to my strained breaths, the pulsating friction in each pant. It was all I could hear. That inhalation, exhalation that refused to be silenced. All noise outside of my being ceased to exist. Why couldn’t I find any peace? I had finally put myself back out there again, overcome the fears that haunted me since Outer Fastanet, and in return this horrid Archipelago had stolen the person I loved more than anyone. I wanted the oceans to rise further and swallow the islands. I wanted the ships to disappear, fall into the abyss. I wanted there to be no more travelling, no more land, no more Archipelago. I wanted everything to end. On the counter next to me, there was a glass tumbler. I thought back to our first night here and stumbling back to the apartment with Alessia drunkenly leaning on my arm. I remembered handing her a glass of water and the sincerity with which she said she was lucky to have met me. I recalled the truthfulness with which I said it back. I wanted to say it again. And I couldn’t. I picked up the glass, and letting out a scream threw it against the wall. There was a crack as the glass splintered into a thousand pieces, tiny shards halting in the air for a fraction before falling to the ground in slow motion. Another pointless destruction. There was a knock at the door. I ignored it. But two seconds later it opened anyway. I turned to see Eda poking her head through the space. “Sorry, Ferdinand. I was just passing, and I heard something. I just thought I’d check you’re okay.” There were so many things I wanted to say to Alessia, and I couldn’t. And so, here, I switched off that bit of inhibition, and let the core inside say what it wanted. “You’re a monster,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry?!” Eda laughed hiding the shock. I turned to face her. “How do you buy a human life, wake up the next day and feel anything but horror?” Eda looked confused for a second. “Is this still about that woman’s contract?” “Yes, and it should be all you can think of. It should keep you awake at night and gnaw at your conscience, and I don’t know how it doesn’t. And the only reason I can come up with is that you are a fucking monster.” Eda raised her hands, tilting her head. “Ferdinand, calm down.” I spoke slowly, stretching my lips on every syllable. “A gross, inhuman, monster.” “I think you need to apologise,” Eda said, her voice gaining a sudden sternness. “I’ve met some pieces of shit across the Archipelago, but I don’t think I’ve ever met one who pretended that they were doing good in the world while they traded human life. I hate you. And I hate me for not doing more to stop people like you.” Eda stared back at me before straightening her shoulders. “Ferdinand, I think it’s time we ended this tenancy agreement, I don’t want you living-“ “Good,” I interrupted. “I’d rather live on the streets than give another smidgen of coin to you. Get out. I’ll pack now.” Eda held eye contact for a couple of seconds before she backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. I set about packing up our things. It took only a few minutes to grab mine. But then I had to deal with Alessia’s. As I placed her clothes into a bag I could feel the grief hit once more, my vision misting as I placed the things away one by one. As soon as I was done, I placed both bags over my shoulders, left the apartment, and closed the door firmly behind me. I left the town and walked across the island until I saw the Deer Drum boat. They took me in as I knew they would. They set me up in a spare room vacated by one of the islanders who left. As I laid down I was certain that the stress, thoughts and memories would keep me awake. But as the fervour washed out of my system, I fell asleep. I slept soundly through the night. The next thing I remember was being awoken by Mirai, grabbing me on the arm. “Ferdinand. Get up quick.” I opened my eyes to her wide, youthful smile. “Come meet us on the deck. Now.” She shook my arm with excitement before turning and departing, the door left open behind her. I forced my body to stand and walked as quickly as my aching legs would let me. I reached the deck and looked out to the sea. No more than fifty metres away was Alessia’s boat, her stern face set in concentration behind the wheel, her black hair flickering in the breeze. I felt a weight drain from my body, as though a boil had been burst. All those emotions, all seemed to melt. Just one remained, filling me with a sensation lighter than air. My shoulders lifted to meet it. A grin grew across my face that soon turned to laughter. Joy. Pure, nothing-else-matters, joy. “Alessia!” I cried out, walking to the side of the boat. “You’re okay.” She looked up at me. She smiled, and stood with her arms outstretched, putting herself on display. The anger fell away, sliding between the floorboards on the deck. A tear escaped from the corner of my eye, and contained in the small drop of salty water, was all the hatred and fear I had been feeling. My body had placed all that negativity, that great mass, into this one small drop, and shed it. I felt free. We tied the boats up, dropped the ladder, and welcomed her on board. Xander held out an arm and lifted her up the last half metre. No sooner were her feet on board than I pushed through the crowd and wrapped my arms around her, holding her tightly. She froze for a second, her body becoming rigid, until she softened, reaching out her hands and returning the embrace. “Missed you too, Ferdinand.” “We heard what happened on Sneppath Head,” Kurbani said. “We were worried about you.” Alessia flicked a smile. “Shit winds the whole way there. Was two days late. By the time I got there it was the clear up,” she paused, her eyes flickering. “Wasn’t pretty, but I was never in danger.” Xander folded his arms. “Any idea what happened?” “That’s the thing. I asked.” Alessia took a step back so she could make sure she addressed all of us at once. “The description of the attack. Was one shipment they were after. A crate of old maps. Worthless junk to most. Certainly not worth killing over.” “Sannaz,” I said, filling in the blanks. “Exactly.” Alessia turned to me, nodding. “People said they saw the boat heading to Granite Vowhorn.” “Well we go there then?” Xander announced. I closed my eyes. I knew Granite Vowhorn. An ongoing war had lasted centuries between two factions on the island. A fight that had gone on so long that it had become a stalemate. Two enemies facing each other down with miles of no man’s land between them. I knew we had to head there. And as much as there was a dread at the thought in the pit of my stomach, I felt ready to face it, with my best friend by my side. Once more, back into the warzone.


With all the stresses of modern life, it can be difficult to set aside time to clean your residence. One day you drop a few crumbs on the ground, and before you know it, your house is infested with ants! Here at Pest-Corp, we pride ourselves on our bug-blasting knowhow. Today, we're gonna give you some handy dandy tips and tricks on how to prevent ant infestations in your household. Tip one: Clean after every meal Especially if you’re a parent (kids are dumb, and messy). Nothing attracts ants faster than easy to aquire, freely available food. You're gonna want to look out for crumbs and leftovers as you clean. Tip two: Wipe up spills The residue of soft drinks gives off a very strong odor, and is a surefire way to bring ants into your home. Make sure to quickly wipe up any spills to prevent infestation. Additionally, use some disinfectant spray to seal the deal. Tip three: Practise good hygiene Because the ants view you as food, the scent that you and your family members give off can quickly attract ants to your location. Make sure that everybody in your house takes daily showers. Additionally, wear deodorant, and brush your teeth frequently. If anyone begins bleeding, wipe it up immediately. Try to keep all bodily odors to a minimum. The smell of tears is quite salty and potent to them, so avoid stress when possible. Here are some fun games you can play with your family to avoid stress: -Hide and seek -Tag -Chess -Checkers -Cards -Charades -Pictionary -Twister Tip four: Think twice before inviting over guests During a national emergency, sitting around in lockdown can be very isolating. However, it is important that you do not allow guests into your house unless absolutely necessary. Your guest might have a strong odor, allowing ants to track them. Even if somebody is banging at your door, it’s best not to let them in, and pretend like you’re not home. Tip five: Eliminate lines of sight Ants have poor vision, but if you’re not careful, they can see you roaming around outdoors, or through the windows of your house. In order to remain undetected by ant swarms, stay indoors. Shut your curtains, close your blinds, or nail blankets to your windows. If you do need to go outside for whatever reason, do it under the cover of night to avoid detection. Tip six: Avoid noise If an ant hears a large amount of commotion coming from your abode, it might prompt them to investigate. Try to avoid arguments, screaming, power tools, etc. If you know there is a concentration of ants within your area, make a plan with your family to eliminate as much noise as possible. Tip seven: Stockpile supplies In the event of a [REDACTED], it will be difficult to find an opportunity to leave your home. Make sure you have supplies you need saved up beforehand, such as: -Non perishable food items -Drinking water -Life straws -Clothing -Padlocks -First aid -A generator -Gasoline -Any kind of chemical freshener to mask your scent, like febreeze. -Firearms When stocking up, remember that too much is better than too little. Tip eight: Incorporate air fresheners into your outfit You know those little trees that you hang up in your car? You can actually make necklaces out of them. This is a very easy way to eliminate bodily odor, and it’s also quite fashionable. For added effect, hang them from the ceiling fans in your home. The more unnatural scents in your home, the more protected you are against an infestation. Tip nine: Avoid confrontation Although ants might not appear to be any more dangerous than the average home invader, they most certainly are. They move with incredible speed, and are prepared to devour your flesh. Only use firearms if you absolutely have to, as this creates a ring of noise with a radius of about one mile. If an ant enters your house, the best course of action is to take your family into a room, lock the door, stay away from the windows, and wait for the ant to leave. Tip ten: Know that, in the event of a [REDACTED], your demise is inevitable If you stay indoors, you will starve. If you risk leaving, you will eventually be torn to shreds by a mob of ants. One will see you, then alert the rest. You will be ripped limb from limb, mandibles digging into your flesh. When you stop struggling, they will bring you back to their festering hills, and consume you. There can be no hope, only delayal of the end. Know that you are fighting for the moment, and not the future. The festering wound that is humanity will heal. Buildings will fall, and hills shall be erected in their place. Ants will pour out into the streets, consuming and purging all in sight. When there is nothing left to consume, they will starve. Nature will once again reach an equilibrium. Civilization will fade, and God's work will be complete. He rests easy, knowing that the innocence and purity of all natural life shall be forever maintained. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// We’d like to thank you for taking precious time out of your day to read this guide. If this helped you in any way, please consider donating to one of our fundraisers, or purchasing some merchandise on our website.