I was there the first time Stryker rage-quit on stream. It wasn’t the performative kind of rage-quit that streamers do to bait clips; this was real frustration. His voice commands had failed during a crucial match, and instead of cutting the stream, he let us watch as he recalibrated his equipment, narrating each step like someone who’d done it a hundred times before. I subscribed that night—not for his skill, but for his resilience.

For three years, I watched Dylan "Stryker" Hayes redefine the impossible. His setup was a marvel: eye-tracking, voice commands, and that jaw-controlled mouse that became his signature. Watching him execute plays that left even able-bodied pros in awe was thrilling, but it wasn’t just his gameplay—it was the way he built a community.

"Welcome to the squad, MoonKnight94," he said the first time he noticed my sub, mid-game no less. "Thanks for the support. Now watch this—I’m about to do something stupid." And he would, laughing whether it worked or not. We all laughed with him.

I became a mod, helping organize charity streams, defending him from trolls who accused him of faking his disability. Those accusations always quieted when someone shared clips of his early hospital streams—raw, grainy footage of a teenager teaching himself to game again after the accident. That honesty built our trust. It felt unshakable.

Until it wasn’t.

The night everything changed, he was wrapping up a twelve-hour charity stream for spinal cord research. His voice was shot, but he kept going, pushing himself the way he always did. After he logged off, some of us mods stayed on Discord, tallying donations. That’s when we saw it: $6.66, with a cryptic note about making a wish.

"Trolls," I typed, dismissive. "Should we even count it?"

We did. We had no idea that would be the last normal moment in our community.

His next stream was chaos from the moment it began. When the camera turned on, Dylan was standing. Actually standing. Chat exploded. Tears, cheers, emoji flying so fast our mod tools lagged. I froze, staring as he took a few shaky steps across his room.

"It just... happened," he said, voice trembling. "I woke up and could feel everything. I could move."

We wanted to believe it. God, we wanted to. But as hours turned into days, doubts crept in. I’d spent years defending his authenticity. Now, I didn’t know what to think.

The internet turned on him with brutal speed. Reddit threads dissected old footage, claiming to find “proof” of deception in moments no one had questioned before. Mods took sides. Some resigned; others accused Dylan of conning us all. The Discord devolved into a warzone until we shut it down entirely.

His final stream is burned into my memory. I wasn’t moderating—I couldn’t. I just watched as the chat spiraled into toxicity. Longtime subscribers demanded refunds. Trolls spammed his hospital clips with amateur “analysis” pointing out supposed flaws.

"Sarah," he said suddenly, using my real name for the first time in three years. "You know me. You know I wouldn’t lie about this."

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. How do you answer when a miracle rewrites everything you thought you knew?

After Twitch banned his channel, I became obsessed with understanding what happened. I traced that $6.66 donation, emailed the crypto wallet it came from. The reply I got made everything worse:

"Every hero gets what they wish for. But what happens when the wish takes away what made them heroic? Your friend got his miracle. The question is: what did you lose?"

Even now, I sometimes open Twitch out of habit, searching for a channel that no longer exists. The community is gone, the clips buried. Sometimes I dream about that final stream, but in my dreams, I speak up. I say something to stop the unraveling.

Last week, I saw Dylan at a coffee shop. He was standing in line, shifting awkwardly like someone still getting used to being upright. Our eyes met, and for a moment, I thought he might smile. Instead, I turned away, pretending I didn’t know him.

As I left, my coffee forgotten, I couldn’t stop wondering: What’s worse? Discovering your hero lied, or realizing the truth is stranger than the lie? And why does it feel like we all wished for something that night—and all paid the price?

The Stryker hoodie I once wore proudly is stuffed in a drawer now. "Limitations are just spawn points," it says. I thought we were supporting someone who showed us how to overcome anything. Instead, we learned that sometimes limitations define us so much that overcoming them means becoming someone else entirely.

I miss Stryker. Not because he couldn’t walk, but because he taught us all how to stand tall despite our challenges. Now he can walk—but the strength that inspired us seems lost. It makes me wonder if any of us truly know what we’re wishing for when we ask for miracles.

“How much for the oranges?”

“168s/lb.”

Chris paid—feeling the lifespan flow out of him—went home and had his mom pay him back the time from her own account.

//

Welcome to the United States of Chronometry, had read the sign, after they'd cleared customs and were driving towards their new home in Achron.

The Minutemen, some actual veterans of the Temporal Revolution, had been very thorough in their questioning.

//

So this is it, thought Chris, the place where dad will be working: a large glass cube with the words Central Clock engraved upon it. This is where they make time.

It was also, he recalled, the place where the last of the Financeers had been executed and the new republic proclaimed.

//

The pay was generous, once you wrapped your head around it: 11h/h + benefits + pension.

“I accept,” Chris had heard his father say.

//

“Hands in the air and give me some fucking years!” the anachronist screamed, his body fighting visibly against expiration.

The parking lot was dark.

Chris huddled against his dad. His mom wept.

They handed over five whole years.

//

“That can't possibly be,” Chris’ dad said, looking at the monitor and the car salesman beside it. “I'm only forty-nine.” But the monitor displayed: NST (non-sufficient time). The price of the car was 4y7m.

(“Cancer,” the doctor will say.)

//

“Remarkable! The invention of chronometricity makes money obsolete,” announced Chris, playing the role of the future first President of the U.S.C. in his school's annual theatrical production of the Chronology of the Republic.

It was his second favorite line after: “Forget him—he's nothing but an anachronism now!”

//

“You wanna know the real reason for the revolution, you need to read Wynd,” Marcia whispered in Chris’ ear. They were first-years at university, studying applied temporal engineering. “It's about the elites. You can horde all the money you want, understand the financial system, but what does that give you? A rich life, maybe; but a chrono-delimited one. Now change money to time. Horde that—and what do you have?”

“The ability to live forever.”

//

Marcia wilted and aged two decades under the extractor. The Minuteman shut it off. “Do you want to tell us about the hierarchy of the resistance now?” he asked Chris.

“I don't know anything.”

“Very well.”

//

Two months after turning 23, Chris, ~53, held Marcia's ~46-year-old hand as a psychologist wheeled her through the facility. “I'm sorry I don't have more answers for you. The effects of temporal hyperloss are not well studied,” the psychologist said.

“Will she ever…”

“We simply don't know.”

//

It worked in theory. Chris had seen what OD'ing on time did to junkies, but what it would do to a building—more: to an technoideology, a state [of mind]—was speculation.

But he was ~82 and poor. Everything he'd loved was past.

He drove the homemade chronobomb into the Central Clock and—

//

It was a bright cold day in November.

The clocks were striking 19:84.

“Uhhhh….babe?

He's in the kitchen, cooking, and his voice wafts through on fragrant scents of garlic and coriander.

Taco Tuesday, we had laughed earlier at the shops. He had slipped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer.

“It's cliche,” I had murmured, giggling, blushing, commenting in that silent body language couples had as my movements scolded and encouraged him all at once.

He had chuckled back, a whisper against my neck. “You miss the states,” he had reminded me.

A sudden veer - I then remembered when he visited, the first time, and how I watched him all through Mister Toad’s, anticipating his reaction when the track swerved and the lights changed and the steam misted as the antiquated ride took us to hell. The twist! The surprise! The "does he understand me test" I now realized I was holding, and then he grinned and laughed and said “Wicked!” in that Australian accent of his - and I loved him more.

---)---

We had visited Disneyland within 6 months of my father dying.

I hadn't thought about home in a while, before tonight, but perhaps my concept of home is changing. I've been here long enough that it's all begun to blur into past and now. The unallocated memories have become squishy, squiggly, broken, bad - forgotten, lost.

All I can truly remember are the good ones.

The great ones.

The ones of him.

I need to focus on where I am, not where I have been.

---)---

And, plus, here has him.

----)----

We were back to staring at fish when I remembered again how much I loved him. I couldn't help it. He was perfect.

---)---

And so we had selected fish and toppings and tortillas - no, wraps, the Aussies call them wraps, wraps, remember, wraps - and then veg and herbs. Cilantro becomes coriander. Avocado is still, reassuringly, avocado. Some parts of me are allowed to remain the same.

And then we went home, to cook for date night.

——)------

“Babe?’

I realize I've gone silent.

I do that a lot lately.

We've been visiting the doctors to find out why.

I've been joking about malfunctioning, just a deflecting coping mechanism, but he hates the thought of things going wrong, so he blanches and looks away and I always stop. It's not the right kind of joke for right now.

——)---

“Darling?”

I don't know why I'm here, midway down the hall, but something tells me I should pretend that I do. Make this into a joke. Keep things calm - protect the peace.

I make a pun about potatoes.

I laugh and continue down the hall.

The kitchen smells incredible. Terracotta backsplash glows warm under the light focusing down on him. Wisps of steam surround him, curl in his hair and beard, little twisting beckons to come kiss him - he looks amazing.

I love him so much.

So much.

So much.

So-

–—)--

Why'd you leave the blanket there? I eventually realize he's saying. His voice is as sharp and stabbing as frozen flint.

I forget, I say as I smile. All I want to do is hug him, hold him, envelope myself in him instead of thinking about the past and the before and the beyond.

The blanket, he repeats, why is it there.

—)-

And, at first I don't know.

–—)--

Why'd you leave the blanket there? I eventually realize he's hissing.

I forget, I say as I uncertainty smile. All I feel like I should do is hug him, hold him, envelope myself in him instead of thinking about the past and the before and the beyond.

The blanket, he coldly, sternly repeats, why is it there.

—)---

I feel like I should know.

–)--

Why'd you leave the blanket there?

–)--

He points again at the blanket.

Oh, I realize.

That blanket lives on the couch, but I've put it atop the refrigera-refridteg-refrudhajsh…

Fharhfha…?

Re fridge ator.

Fridge.

I've left it atop the fridge for some reason.

—)---

Why'd you leave the blanket there? I eventually realize he's saying.

—)---

Everything freezes, oddly and disorienting, and then I abruptly hear a hum as the light changes and a looming figure approaches, ghost-like, flickering in and out of sight in jumps of movement.

While we're in the kitchen - but where does the blanket go? We haven't thought about where where whr - the sunny, sunlit kitchen that feels like California on my skin

While kitchen

While kitchen, build memory

While memory_build is true, create_personality

I must become a virus in my own mind

Loop; break; exception; it's all I can think, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and-

-and then the sudden clarity before I am rebooted.

Memory access error.

-----)------

Return.

—)-------

“Darling?”

I don't know why I'm here, midway down the hall, but something tells me I need to pretend that I do. Make this into a joke. I make a pun about mashed potatoes, a stew, and my “glitch” goes unnoticed.

I laugh and continue down the hall.

The kitchen smells palatable, for once. My belly aches. The dingy tile backsplash glints harshly under the florescent light focusing down on him. Wisps of steam surround him, curl in his hair and beard, little twisting beckons to come kiss him - so I do.

For I must.

i must

Premise: Humans lose the war against an alien race. In that war, the Aliens destroy any way of communication between human colonies across the space, so the only way to keep in touch is using robots sent in spaceships to fly between the colonies.

"I'm model M-M3M-M43, batch 345 and I was designed to hold the communication open between Earth's colonies and between Earth and the colonies. It logically made sense for our creators to use us instead of delivering the message themselves. The first obstacle for humans was the distance. When they still had the relays, a message between their colonies would take a few minutes at most. After their relays had been destroyed, their fastest ship could make that in a few decades.

The second obstacle was the risk of being captured by those who destroyed their relays. We were imprinted with information on the alien organisms that had overpowered their fleets and destroyed the relays. No information on the origins of the war was uploaded into our memory. The designers asserted that there hadn't been a need for that.

If they had to deliver the messages, it would have left them open to threats once they have gotten captured. Our programming was impervious to such weakness. If it came to such an event happening, we were programmed to self-destruct.

Mine was faulty. On my capture, I wasn't able to self-annihilate. The alien specimens extracted and decrypted all the data stored in my memory. I was physically able to escape but the details of the location I had been sent away from were missing. It was a measure for extra protection. All robots carrying messages knew their destination but had no available data of their sender's address.

The destruction of the destination colony was inevitable. I calculated and considered all possibilities. I opted to head for that colony with the solen spaceship to reach it before the alien specimens could. There was not much that could be done. Only two spaceships full of humans managed to be evacuated. The rest of the colony inhabitants had the fate that my calculations predicted.

The escaped colonists found the location of the sender's address. A procedure had been developed in which certain robot prototypes and only those prototypes delivered message only between certain colonies. Every colonist knew which prototype - model, number and series - had to deliver to them and where they were sent from.

My human creators were down to 52 colonies. They regrouped after they had found a main target on which they could unleash an attack against the alien specimens. I had no data on the outcome of the war as the colony I was sent from chose to stay hidden until a resolution could be communicated.

Premise: A detective who investigates a crime revolving around sex robots discovers that the same company who created the robots is behind a business that involves snatching people from parallel universe to be used as sexual slaves, slaves, organ harvesting subjects, or even victims of murder.

"Sexual stuff, organ trafficking or human hunt?", asked the company Vice-President while lightning an expensive cigar.

"Wha- What?!", asked the Client with perplexed curiosity.

"I read that it's your first time. Someone must have sent you.", said the Vice-President smiling proudly. "We keep on the down low here, but our services are so good it's hard not to have heard of us"

" It was -- there was my uncle. He had gone through some long problems... with his liver. He had surgery at -- and -- ", said the Client trying to make up some credible story.

" Organ harvesting, huh?! Look. We have many that come for the first time.', said the Vice-President before he leaned closer to the client and, with imposing certitude and pride, he said:

"No need to worry. We have the highest connections in the police, among politicians, businessmen. Everywhere. Five stars from each one of them who had visited us before. You wouldn't believe how easy it is once you start. Just tell us what you want, and we will find it among those countless universes. Someone who doesn't reciprocate your love story or your carnal desire?! - There are at least 30 worlds who are almost identical to ours. We can pick someone who looks exactly just like her... or him, if you want to have fun in the other camp. Or maybe you want some work slave or just to kill someone? For that, there's countless worlds. It's a buffet out there and you are our guest to taste from any of them"

The Client said nothing. He dived into his pocket and took out the picture of a young woman and put it on the table. The Vice-President glanced at the picture.

"Nice. You'll have to fill a form, and you'll have her counterpart in less than ten days. It takes a bit to scout through the worlds to find a perfect copy of -- ", said the Vice-President.

"She was raped, tortured and killed one month ago", interrupted the Client with a stern voice before he took out another picture - one of a man in his 40s

" And this one", continued the Client, "... died four months ago. Organ harvesting." The client pulled out two other pictures. " These two were fed to lions. Life feeding. Weirdly, they were from this Universe and their copies were brought to live their lives as if nothing --"

"Security!", the Vice-President tried to yell into the watch that had a phone incorporated in it.

The Client took out a pistol and, with cold precision, shot the Vice President in both his kneecaps and then in the stomach.

"I'm detective Adrian and once this is over, maybe they'll bring a better version of you. Though, this thing should be burnt to the ground", said the Client/Detective before squeezing two rounds into the Vice President's heart and head.

P.S. I posted just a small fragment from it (without including the investigation into the robots use. I'll probably get rid of the robots anyway). If I included that, it would have been too long.

P.S. 2 I think that having Detective Adrian himself be from a parallel universe would probably be too much and, in a way, be a predictable twist.

“I’ve a bone to pick with you,” she said.

So we floated tentacle-in-tentacle to one of the many illicit shops of human remains and chose a beautifully polished tibia.

Quite a find.

I’d seen pieces in the Museum of Conquered Species that, to my admittedly non-professional visual sensory input, were not much better preserved, and the MCS had one of the best humanity exhibits in the universe: an entire wing devoted to the conquest of the planet Earth.

(Incidentally, the very idea of a museum made in the hollowed out body of a gigantic insectoid is reason enough to visit!)

“Oh, darling, it’s marvellous. I can just imagine its former owner being torn limb from limb by one of our assault squids,” she said, squealing as she constricted me with her procreative tendrils—in public, no less!

How deliciously erogenous.

After returning to our hive-quarters, we copulated, then she decided to recuperate and I connected to the mainframe to scan for work-related memoranda.

The final destruction of humankind was still a work-in-progress then, so there was plenty to do.

Bases to be constructed. Mining probes to be activated.

Culture to be assimilated—although, let’s be honest, how much more primitive could a culture be than humanity’s?

One of the memoranda was a request for orders.

It read:

“All the lights in sector X75V6 have been hanged. Awaiting instructions.”

“Now the darks,” I responded, still rather bemused by the color-coded human concept of race, but if they had chosen to self-segregate, then who was I to interfere at the twilight of their species’ existence. We could just as well torture, experiment on and execute them according to their preferred ethnic divisions.

I do admit amusement at the time we peeled the skin off one light one and one dark one, then sent them, equally raw, pink and bleeding, to excruciate themselves to death among their dumbfounded racial others.

A confused and screaming pack of humans is the stuff of memes!

Yes, we made lampshades of their hides. And, yes, I do see that, in this particular context, the darker one fit the decor of my kitchen better.

I think the light one ended up with Marsimmius, who even took it with him to the infamous massacre of New Jersey, where we drowned a group of resistance fighters in vats filled with the blood of their freshly-slaughtered kin.

How they made bubbles in it!

No more bubbles, no more resistance.

But, by the Great Old Ones, was New Jersey ever a real visual-input-sensor-sore, as the humans might say (as you can appreciate, I’m trying to assimilate some of their culture: language) and it was a blessing to the universe to dissolve it wholesale.

I think it was later used as industrial lubricant on one of the slave colonies.

Anyway, I digress.

What I want to highlight is that well-preserved human remains make good gifts for one’s femaliens, and a well-gifted femalien eagerly produces strong eggs for the war benefit of the species.

It was the 8th of June 2354, almost 3 centuries since the relics' appearance and the day
of the promised arrival. And under the intense midday sun, crowds swelled into the hundreds of
thousands outside the vast open forums of The Great Temple of the Covenant of Sol. The
building was a wondrous commitment to the mysterious tablets and a beacon to the skies for
the promised visitors. There was a thunderous spirit of singing and festivities and an electricity
danced along the humid air.

While inside the temple, the thick stone walls held back the roars to an eerie quietness.
Under domed ceilings that reached towards the heavens, clerics and monks shuffled around in
a blur of flowing black robes. There was an pattering of footsteps across marble floors and
excited hushed tones merged into white noise. The High Priest was adorned in bright white
robes with vibrant golden yellow trim. He waited, overlooking from a balcony in the cloisters at
all the commotion with a gentle gaze. Occasionally he glanced towards an enormous ornate
clock mounted above the sanctuary that was decorated with detailed depictions of the solar
system. Inscribed beneath was the days date: 2354.08.06.

Stepping up to his side a cleric informed somberly with a lowered gaze what the high
priest already knew: that the time had arrived. The prophesied day was here. The cleric then
added that the ships had appeared to arrive from the other side of the galaxy than had been
expected and now a vessel was fast approaching from a mothership. The High Priest smiled
softly and inhaled the scented air.

He began to walk down towards the nave and a procession of monks fell in behind him.
He made his way down towards a central stage with a large glass enclosure and surrounded by
ceremonial guards. Two lowered their rifles and stepped aside. The High Priest raised his hand
to the glass, beyond which lay the two impossibly black tablets. He looked faithfully at the two
most prized possessions on planet Earth. Then parted with a lingering touch and headed for the
main doors. They grand doors heaved open on his approach, flooding the nave with the yellow
equatorial sun and an avalanche of euphoria from the crowds. The humid breeze rushed in, and
against it walked the procession of faithful in billowing robes, led by the High Priest.

Out in forum grounds, thousands of eyes gazed skyward squinting against the brightness.
A small black speck appeared and pointing fingers shot up as gasps rang out. The
small speck continued to grow at magnificent speed until a hulking vessel
descended through the sparse clouds casting a shadow over the sea of people.

The High priest gazed up, speechless with glistening eyes. The ship hummed and rumbled through the
chests of the hopeful. It was flawless, seamless and cylindrical in shape. It dwarfed everything around it including the Great Hall.

The High Priest, now insignificant, stepped forward towards the ship, his next in line
several paces behind. His eyes scanned the ship in a frantic way.
There was an ominous creak and groan that was met with fresh gasps from the crowds.
A crack appeared near the base in its smooth exterior, and onlookers' hair and garments
fluttered in the breeze as air was sucked into its vast hull with a hiss of equalising pressure. The
opening grew and a door descended to a thud onto the ground. The crowds were now silent.
From the darkness a synchronised thud of steps echoed out and out emerged earth's long
awaited visitors.

A line of marched out that grew that brought more gasps from the crowd. They were
metallic, hollow, mechanical. The High Priest gave no indication of surprise. Analyst and experts
had informed him that messengers or intermediaries may well make contact first. The emerging
column grew in length until several hundred stood before the High Priest. One of which, and
indistinguishable from the rest stepped forward, before him. The High Priest flashed a
diplomatic smile and reached a palm forward, his arm draped in fine silk. The mechanical being
did not seem to acknowledge it. Then its metallic arm shot up to his neck, grasping firmly. The
crowd shrieked and wailed and his right hand men stepped forward in panic. The High Priest,
swatted his hand to shoo them off in a last act of faith. Though to onlookers he appeared to
simply flail around, his toes desperately reaching to touch the ground and relieve the pressure
from his windpipe. The cold metallic grasps sunk into his supple skin of flesh and capillaries.
The Priest's eyes widened as he looked into the presumed face of this mechanical being. A
polished visor simply reflected back to him his terrified expression. The last sound he heard was
their feverishly hazy shrieks followed by a muffled crunch of bone and cartilage from his own neck.
Then darkness. The machine dropped the High Priests
lifeless body in an unceremonious heap of bones and robes amidst a frenzy of terror and
stampeding.

The priest's mind momentarily floated somewhere undefined. In his final moments he
contemplated one last thing. The tablets. Why send the tablets? And in a loop on replay he
heard only the last words of his aid. How the ships had appeared from the other side of the
galaxy than they had expected. Then a final wave of euphoria and clarity.
Humanity had not been contacted in advance by the visitors. They had been forewarned
by some other ally in the stars.

Earth, 2025, There is a girl called Jessica Rylstone, she is 20 years old, she has long blonde hair with green eyes, she lives with her mum and dad, she goes to collage studying chemistry, and has a job at the local chippy near her house, she is bored with her life, she longs for adventure, but her current life is dry and bland. One day, on a cold wet morning, rain pouring down, she is walking to collage, she sees a shadowy figure in the corner of her eye... she looks in the area she saw the figure, nothing there. She thinks nothing of it.

Later that afternoon, she walks home from college with her mates, suddenly, she sees the same figure, just in the corner of her eye... she turns her head to look at it... there is nothing there. "You alright Jess?" One of her friends asks. "Yeah, I'm fine." She said sheepishly. They continue to walk, suddenly a man with longish brown hair with blue eyes with a long red Treach Coat on with Black and White Tartam trousers colades with Jessica, running past her in a hurry "Oi watch it mate." She exclaims. No awnser has he keeps running, his coat flapping in the wind.

Later that afternoon, she heads to work. Again, she sees the figure in her eye, this time, she decides to not look. "Hey, you! I need to tell you something."

"Huh?" She exclaims turing her head to look at them, it's that man again. "Oh, I just wanted to say, uh you have pretty eyes."

"What?"

"Okay goodbye"

"Pretty random, thanks I guess?"

"Can I ask you something."

"Sure, what is it?"

"Do you see it too."

"See what?"

"Just in the corner of your eye, you don't quite know what, just somebody... or something."

"Yeah... how did you know that?"

"You're asking the wrong question"

"And what is the correct question?"

"What is it? What is it doing on Earth? Why can you see and not other people?"

"Whatca mean 'on Earth' "

"Well, seems fairly alien to me"

"Yeah whatever you say, man."

"You think you have an better idea on what they are?"

"It's just my eyes playing tricks on me, that's it"

"No, if only, but no, trust me, I'm a doctor.

Suddenly the ground starts saking, but only where they are standing, the figure returns, and its creeping towards them, ever so slowly.

This man grabs Jessica's hand.

"Run!"

They start running, the figure creeping towards them.

"What the hell is going on?!?" She shouts commandingly.

“They are beings from another world…”

End of Part 1

Premise: To escape the threat of a belligerent alien race, Earth (and its inhabitants) is teleported to different corners in the Galaxy(and maybe Universe) every few dozens or hundred years. One of the persons who must supervise everything realizes that the jumping/teleportation process is starting to fall apart, and the alien fleets are getting closer.

I woke up confused, but that was normal. I got used to. I had been waking like that for the last 30 slingshot-teleporting processes. Those of us who were put to sleep seemed to fare better. The others - not so much. Complete memory loss for some.

That day, the stars seemed weird even in that stupor. I knew that because I'm the best cartographer the Universe had seen. I'm bragging, I know, but it's true. There're corners of the galaxies only few of us know, and I knew them the best. I knew in an instant the Earth wasn't teleported where it supposed to be.

We've been teleporting Earth for... don't remember exactly. 50 - something times, let's say. We shouldn't have done that to begin with. And I may have been the culprit for that. A little bit... maybe. Ok, It was fully my fault, but hey, I was trying to fix it.

I may have done the most stupid thing anyone on Earth did. Eh.. nothing I could change.

There were those crazy ass aliens. Fighters, very brilliant fighters if you've ever seen some. They had empires all around. Galaxies.... if someone could believe. So many... I swear I didn't even think they remembered all the worlds they had. Crazy motherfuckers. Earth was at the edge of their territory, and we wanted to keep it that way. It helped that I worked for them. Told you - best cartographer. My name preceded me.

I had to accompany their fleets on and to different ports. Amazing things that could teleport entire fleets faster than those ships could fly. Much, much faster. Amazingly faster.

They were working to some badass new technology based on those "ports". I may have stolen that. Piece by piece., and that may have been why we got in the situation we got in. I may have also messed with the ports... a little. Damn, I was good. I left them with no easy access to their empire. I thought that the little beings who were under their rule may appreciate it, too. I knew I would; I would have built a statue of me. They didn't appreciate it... little fuckers....

Such a technology could have taken us to a new level no one had ever dreamt before. I was in cloud nine, baby. They would have been forced to finally recognize that I'm one of the best things to ever happen to Earth, maybe since its inception.

We had the entire army of the empire on our back. Oh, man! They knew where our planet was, so we had a few years, twenty or thirty max. Or maybe more. Not even once did we think we could stand a chance. Didn't receive the praise I had been expecting either.

I suggested we use the same technology to escape them. I knew we didn't have enough spaceships for all of us to leave and many of the leaders and rich people didn't find the idea of jumping aimlessly though space entertaining... or safe. Those greedy-ass bastards. No sense of adventure and wanting to take everything they had hoarded with them. So, as I was their brilliant mind, I proposed them to take the entire Earth with us,

They looked as if they had seen a ghost. Normal for those rich cowards. I had to explain them that in that way they could keep their loot. How else was I gonna convince those bastards?!

We didn't know if we had time. but that was the only solution. They started building the port around Earth, but I asked them to put me to cryo-sleep till they are ready. Had to still be young and fresh when I was going to take them to a ride around the galaxy. We could live up to 300, but even that wasn't enough for what we intended, so sleep it was for me.

Was swept to my feet from the cryo-slumber because they realized the work took too much for such a complicated technology and the pesky aliens were getting closer to us. It all was fast paced. Lightning speed but never tested. I had to tell them where the first jump would be and that required lots of damned calculations. We vanished when the aliens entered our solar system. Got transferred to some solar system 50 years away. The entire Earth and all. We left an empty "hole" in our solar System. I used to sometimes wonder how that affected the other planets, but even if we wanted, we couldn't have returned to see. The aliens were smart. The port we had built -- gone. We knew. We couldn't return there. Yep, I fucked up when I stole their technology, but sooner or later, they would have extended their empire.

[...]

P.S. I'll post Part.2 soon.

2083 - Late Night in Tokyo

Scene 1: A Shadow in the City

The neon glow of Tokyo’s towering skyline illuminated the quiet streets below. Despite the city’s sleepless nature, the hour—2:45 a.m.—brought a stillness to the air. A faint hum of distant drones and buzzing streetlights filled the silence. A lone figure moved through the shadows, her presence barely noticeable amid the artificial lights and the faint haze of rising steam.

She approached a fenced gate bearing a warning sign: DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE.

Beyond the gate stood a massive structure. Its steel facade gleamed under the moonlight, and a bright, ominous sign at the top read: VEXXCORP CYBERNETICS.

Two guards flanked the building’s main entrance, their rifles gleaming. Their faces were emotionless, almost mechanical, as if part of the very system they guarded.

Akeno adjusted her earpiece, her pulse steady despite the risk. She hadn’t forgotten why she was here—this was her chance to finally dismantle Yuri’s empire, one stolen life at a time.

The camera pulled back, revealing the sprawling complex—a fortress built for secrecy.

Scene 2: Inside the Facility

Inside VexxCorp’s heart, a massive laboratory buzzed with activity. Walls lined with monitors displayed streams of data, charts, and logs. The air reeked of sterilized metal and ambition. Robotic limbs and components lay scattered across metal workbenches, some twitching faintly as if alive.

Two engineers, a man and a woman, worked frantically on a project.

On one screen, a bright red message blinked: TEST FAILED.

“Damn it!” Dr. Yuri Amai slammed her fist on the table, her frustration spilling over. “It failed again. We needed this to work! The deadline is in four days, and we’re nowhere near ready for real-world testing.”

Dr. Kaito Kobayashi, her colleague, remained calm. “Yuri, it’s okay. We’ve still got time. Let’s restart the test and try again.”

Yuri’s lips thinned into a tense line, her eyes narrowing. “Fine. Set it up.”

Behind them, hidden in the shadows, stood a figure. The faint glow of red eyes flickered briefly before fading into darkness.

Scene 3: A Mysterious Intruder

Outside, the shadowy figure stepped closer. She was revealed to be a young girl—her long pink hair fading into light blue at the ends. Her fair complexion stood out against the black East-Boy school uniform she wore. The crest on her jacket read Fairfield Academy. She adjusted the hem of her plaid skirt as she crouched near the fence, her sharp eyes fixed on the building.

A voice crackled through her earpiece. “Kana, do you have the blueprints yet?” she whispered.

“Almost there, Akeno,” came the reply. “Give me a second.”

“Hurry!” Akeno Yamada’s tone was clipped, her patience waning.

Kana groaned. “I’m working on it, okay? Aaa

Kana groaned. “I’m working on it, okay? Aaaand… got it!”

On her arm’s touchscreen, Akeno saw the schematics of the building.

“There are four guards outside—two at the door in front of you and two snipers on the roof,” Kana explained. “The lab you’re targeting is on sublevel three. The quickest route is through the main building’s ventilation system, but there’s a high probability of detection. You’ll need a distraction if you want to get in undetected.”

Akeno sighed. “I’ll handle it. But first, how do I get past this deadly electric fence?”

Kana hesitated. “There’s a control panel on the south side of the complex. Shoot it to disable the fence. But be careful—it’s old tech, and if you screw it up, you’ll fry the system. And yourself.”

“Noted.”

Akeno tapped her touchscreen, activating her stealth cloak. Her form shimmered and turned transparent—visible only as a faint outline under the moonlight. Silently, she made her way to the south side of the compound.

Scene 4: Breaking In

Near the south side of the complex, Akeno crouched by the control panel. She inspected the old, rusting wires and circuits.

“Kana,” she whispered, “this panel looks like it hasn’t been serviced in decades. You sure this is going to work?”

“I’d give it a 70% chance,” Kana replied cheerfully.

“Great,” Akeno muttered.

One of the guards patrolling nearby suddenly stopped and turned toward the fence, his flashlight sweeping dangerously close to Akeno’s position.

“Kana, I’ve got company,” Akeno hissed.

“Distract him,” Kana suggested.

Rolling her eyes, Akeno silently deactivated her stealth cloak and aimed her Stun Gun at the control panel. A faint hum filled the air as she fired. Sparks flew, and the electric fence powered down with a satisfying whine.

“Nice work!” Kana cheered. “Fence is disabled.”

“Yeah, but I’ve got bigger problems now,” Akeno muttered.

The flash of sparks had caught the guard’s attention. He barked into his radio, alerting the rest of the security team.

“Damn it,” Akeno growled, activating her combat protocols. She ducked into the shadows, waiting for the guard to approach. As he came closer, she launched herself forward, delivering a swift, silent takedown.

But the commotion didn’t go unnoticed. From her vantage point, Akeno spotted more guards pouring out of the main entrance.

“Akeno, you’ve got company,” Kana warned. “You need to get to the lab now.”

Scene 5: The Lab

Inside the lab, Yuri and Kaito stood before a robotic arm, testing its functionality. But their true masterpiece remained hidden in the shadows—a figure just out of view, human-like in form.

“Let’s start the next test,” Yuri ordered.

“Got it,” Kaito replied. “Starting Test #562. In three… two… one…”

A humanoid figure stepped into the light. She was a teenage girl with snow-white hair tinged with blue at the ends. Her glowing red eyes scanned the room, and she wore a dark black dress that contrasted with her pale, synthetic skin.

On the monitor, the message TEST SUCCESSFUL flashed.

The robot’s lips curved into a smile. “Hello,” she said softly.

Yuri’s expression shifted, her pride evident. “Rina, welcome back.”

Thousands of mysterious, black objects made their silent, many thousand year journey across interstellar space. Voyaging towards our solar system like a brave envoy of messengers.

While life on earth passed through the ages of prophets and kings, plagues and upheavals, of collapse and revolution, they never slowed in their mission towards us. And on that fateful day of 2067 they hurtled into the Sol system like chariots through the kingdom gates. One skipped off the earth's atmosphere like a pebble over a still lake and was taken back by the void. Some were pulled towards the flames of the sun but most simply passed through the system entirely - a sieve of mostly empty space. From what astronomers had come to describe as the ‘cosmic birdshot’ across the stars, and against the odds, two objects made impacts. One crashed into the dark side of the moon, and another on to the surface of mars. Expeditions for their retrieval came with such fervour and purpose it united more than half the planet’s nations. Successful in retrieving the artefacts, they brought back to earth two tablet-like relics the size of megalithic boulders. Both identical down to the nanogram and nanometer.

Initial speculation was that they were something like the Voyager Records’ launched by the long since disbanded NASA, in the late 20th century. That is, them some sort of crude message of another intelligent life form. Although, quite soon it became apparent that they were something far more sophisticated. By comparison, humanities efforts were feeble and mostly symbolic - blindly sending off two decaying vessels at a galactic snail's pace into the unknown and holding a message of what we thought ourselves to be. But these tablets were targeted intentionally for us. With a message, tailored for humanity. The phenomenon raised so many burning questions. Who had sent them? How did they know so much about us? Why now? But the one thing it did answer was that we were not alone.

The tablets were made of an exotic, totally inert, completely black material that absorbed all electromagnetic light. Somewhat unsurprisingly, as they crashed into a planet and a moon without so much as a scratch, they were also totally impregnable to the most powerful tools at humanities disposal. Yet somehow etched onto their surface was a message. An ingeniously clear and coherent message describing a future date of arrival to Earth. And in what showed an impossible awareness of both our biology and our abstraction of the self, it described in detail and with great emphasis, what humans refer to as meditation. And so humanity took this as an instruction.

As the years passed, humanity of course formed its institution, governance and culture around the messages. But it united them further nonetheless. In what was with a doubt the greatest social upheaval in the planet's history and for almost 300 years, humanity had dedicated itself to the practice of meditation in an unprecedented scope and depth in its commitment. And combined with a tangible and undeniable evidence of life outside Earth, what remained of boundaries between earth nations continued to dissolve away to a unite a sense of truly common human identity.

It's been fourteen years since the Event, and everyone except Laura has accepted that communication is gone. Yet the radio tower has become her chapel, her service each day a ritual of ablutions, pilgrimage and praying into the void.

Something woke me this morning with a sense of dread, and so I beg her to neglect a day, once, just today, just this once, but she barely hears me and just laughs in that light-hearted way that fanatics do, buoyed by faith.

I follow her around our cramped quarters, clinging to her shadow as she dresses, whispering warnings and pleading and promising all the things we can do if we just stayed - stay - inside today.

I mention the studio, where she could see Judith's most recent sculpture, and the galley where Aiden was cooking. Fettuccini alfredo, I try to tempt, but she doesn't hear a thing I say and instead heads to the airlock.

Vents hiss and things are sprayed - in year 2, when the silence became truly ominous, we decided we needed to protect the outside world as much as the inside, and so she baptizes herself each day in antiseptic and departs.

But I cannot follow.

I am tethered to my post.

---)----

The radio tower is twenty seven of Laura's steps away. I've watched enough to know the count in my dreams, the ones where I'm whole and perfect and strong and stalwart and there for her.

Once, it was right down a hallway, but after the Event we couldn't repair the collapsed corridor, and so the only route became external.

There had been a vote, of course, but survival eclipsed communication and so our resources went towards internal things.

"But what about the other colonies?" Laura, my dear Laura, wonderful Laura had asked.

But, fuck em, we need to live, came the paraphrased answer, heavy with a how-dare-you-even-question-right-now.

---)---

I had tried to explain it to her, later, alone, just us, but she hated me for it.

"How can you condemn others if there's a chance for everyone?"

I see this moment over and over, the first thought when I awake, and the constant knowledge of its replay driving me as each day ends.

I had explained things. Tried to.

"We don't know what's happened," I would say, and this became our bedtime ritual. Instead of love or lovemaking, we debated the ethics of shutting ourselves off from the world.

"You don't know they are are gone," she would hiss and I would see her and melt in her passion before, eventually, reluctantly, asserting authority.

"I need to tend to the living," would be the only thing I could ever say to remind her - of her place, of my place, of our place, trapped here without anything.

"What is my role without that tower?" she would cry.

"What is mine if you are all dead?" I would softly whisper in reply.

Neither of us had answers.

---)---

She's heading to the door again. The one outside. The one to her tower.

I need to stop her, but I can't. I'm too late, today, as always - I got caught up in a rotation, checking on everyone throughout the hab. Judith is sculpting, endlessly working on her next big creation. I fear it will never be finished.

Aiden is cooking - fettuccine alfredo again. He knows how to stick with a good thing.

And outside it's the familiar roar, the one that haunts me, the one which wakes me, the shrill banshee call I hear at night.

A storm is coming.

[Continued in comments]

"All hail the Summer Queen!"

The entire village is here, and every head bows, even Mary's. I feel a vindictive stab of triumph at that. Even she has to lower her eyes at my glory. The bitch.

"All hail the Summer Queen!"

I adjust my crown. Flowers, woven taut, each stem stabbed through the next to create an unbroken circlet. I ignore the prickles of budding thorns.

I am the chosen Queen and such concerns are beneath me.

I square my shoulders, drape my gown. Everything must be perfect. I catch Mary stealing a glance and flush in pride. She was passed over for me. I have become the Her we all wanted to be.

"All hail the Summer Queen!"

Thrice-called means approach, in measured steps.

A heavy silence hangs over the valley. The village turns to watch me walk and I am incandescent. Overhead, trees swell with fruit - lush, pregnant, bowing, heavy. Even nature yields and cows.

Mary's a cow. I spare her a smirk. She glowers back. I only smile more broadly, more brightly, more me and me and me.

For I am the Summer Queen.

The platform is before me and I ascend. The mountains hold their breath as the flame descends and, as the fire begins to lick at my heels, I spread my arms wide. I am beautiful and I am consumed and I am the winner.

Fuck you, Mary.

I am the fairest one of all.

Are you there, sister?

The thought permeates loam and wood, a hazy breath across waters before diving and slithering through cold earth to lap at the roots of mountains.

Are you there?

I can feel them waiting just out of ken, just past the veil, waiting, whispering, soon. The whisper becomes a wail becomes a bellow, demanding and insistent and violent, a full-throated rush of wind shaking the trees and tugging at my hems. I pull my cloak tighter and keep my eyes downcast. Grandmother's cottage lurks ahead, a vague lump in the forest's mist, and her pie is growing cold. I have no time tonight for faeries and I sternly shout as much at the darkness.

The whispers recede, rebuked, and the breeze dwindles down to mere little plucks at my skirts. I sigh and accept the compromise. I approach Grandmother's.

Everything is wrong. No wood is chopped, no lanterns lit, no smoke escaping her chimney. The mist echoes oddly and rings out with murmurs -

...sister...

-which I ignore. I shift the basket to my left hand, grip my dagger with my right, all caution and nerves. Door opens. Eyes gleam. I gasp. A wolf.

Are you there yet, sister? The thoughts roar at me, driving me to my knees. Are you there yet? Have you seen what they have done? ARE YOU THERE, sister?

Another wolf approaches from behind, roughly grabbing my arm and twisting it behind my back. A third soldier comes into view from around the corner of the cottage. The air is acrid with smoke and the bitter waste of burnt herbs.

Witchcraft, they cry in justification as they begin to beat me. Witchcraft, they howl with spyful wide eyes. Witchcraft, they insist with closed ears and closed minds. Witchcraft, they claim, as excuse for their deeds.

Very well, I decide, if that's what they want. The mist gathers, time slows, the forest itself holding its breath as the faeries call to me and finally, finally, I answer.

Are you there, sister?

I am, now. Come to me.

And they do.

It is done.

CHAPTER 1

The outskirts of A'nyon were an industrialised wasteland of rock and sand colonised with prolific hex-fibre infrastructure that innervated the landscape. Low flying freighters hummed along narrow flight corridors, leaving a whirl of dusty air and ozone in their wake. Whilst heavy ground vehicles rumbled along in seemingly endless convoys. Snaking towards the deep labyrinthian 'anthills' of the capital, A'nyon, set deep inside ruptures of the planets crust. Naturally shielded from excess radiation of its tidally locked orbit. It was a hive of activity. A place thriving economically, but its inhabitants merely surviving.

I had come out on top and had an account full of credits and a one-way ticket back to Earth clutched in my palm.

The space-elevator before me would have made those extinct redwoods on Earth look like tender saplings. Like some branchless, lifeless beanstalk it ascended from this barren planet. And docked in orbit was the Titan-class hauler ship back to Earth. Just one of many hulking vessels, looming above the atmosphere of A’nyon. Patiently waiting in the silent vacuum of space to be hailed by orbital control and release their payloads to sustain this hungry frontier.

A voice echoed across the agoraphobia-inducing elevator platform.

“Now Boarding Earthbound flight 107. All remaining passengers to check in immediately.”

I looked around, perhaps for the last time. The platform was a vast concrete disk around the elevator, flat and drenched in red dwarf star light leaving the place in a perpetual state of sunset – or sunrise – depending on your sleep cycle. It was a blur of activity with people and machines moving, queuing, departing and unloading. It never ceased. I thought back to my arrival here almost 5 years ago and how from orbit, the spaceport looked like a stamp branded onto the planets surface. Where machines milled around like ants. And how the many other space-elevators were speckled like strange long hairs extending from the planet's equator.

“One-hundred thousand credits”, I recited like a mantra under my breath and my palm clenched tighter around my ticket as if I might let it go. After compound interest stacked up over the three year journey back to Earth those would be worth a lot more too... Should be worth a lot more, I thought.

“Earth Bonds are the most secure ways to save up credits!” I could hear those relentless cyberspace ads call out.

Coming here was supposed to be a means to an end. An opportunity to accumulate large sums of money with questionable jobs. Albeit, usually only at the expense of one the big three corps. It was finally time to leave this place. Yet my thoughts were stuck on what unfolded over the last two days.

__________________________________________________

CHAPTER 2

[48 hours earlier]

My phone lit up the darkness across my room. Illuminating a mess of wires and servers mounted on the wall. The only other light was the dull glow of A’nyon's metropolis lights cast through a single narrow slit of a window with 4-inch-thick composite glass wedged between. I climbed out of bed and checked my phone.

"Meet me in Club Gemini at 2200,
Savanna"

My final job...

Jimmy Candor looked at the panel. It didn't look good for SWAT. Golden-titanium alloy residues had been detected throughout the sewage water. Attempts to acidify the sewage water left residues far below expectations for dealing with the cyborg rebels.

Years prior, the government announced a program for evolving people. It would incredibly unethical and widely condemned if out in the spotlight. So, unionizers took the brunt of the unethicial experimentation. Loopholes had been carved out in law books preventing unionizers from getting healthcare coverage since logically with their power over employers they should be getting quality healthcare. Wrong as was the common mantras of the general populace.

The first unionizer was ironically an employee of the press and had the chance to issue complaints about the details of the mandated lottery contract. Details that could be made by connecting sparse statements in the contract such as "increased detail to insurance complaints in the Republic", "this contract should be fulfilled if the mandated applicant demonstrates advanced and thorough cooperation with employers", and "there should be additional benefits, in the formed of enhanced healthcare, to those with a reduced reputation". It was too late to censor the damaging headline that soon became hashtaged on social media, but government lawyers managed to BS around with alternative explanations that quelled the public.

The first unionizer was sucessfully converted to cyborgery and the next and so on. It became rather prevalent. But the people who focused on other things then their fellow coworkers. Healthcare was needed for the unionizers anymore. A green solution for the blues.

Then it happened. A sympathizer addended a polymorphic code that remove the free will constraints of the cyborgs.

They revolted for being tricked so easily.

That's where Jimmy Candor of SWAT came in. Lt. Linda Seyunov jerry rigged a solution quickly. The fight would be part virtual and part in real life. Each VR helmet was equiped with an electromagnetic bubble mimicing the disabled interfaces the cyborgs used. It allowed the infliction of mirages and pain in the cyborg mind. Because the "patch" never completly disabled the cyborg's field, certain parts of the field remained active. Meanwhile, drones could be controlled easily through carefully calculated tongue movemenrs. The cyborgs avoided contact with the ever surrounding tech of the surface fearing reintigration despite their not being much a risk of that.

"Now ready?" Jimmy Candor tersley asked the Lt.

"Yes, you're right, finally it is," Lt. Linda Seyunov replied.

"Wonderful," Jimmy Candor remarked, "Agent Lopez did you do you homework faster?"

"I don't like when you talk to me in the way," Lopez replied.

"Sure, sue me when I win after your loss."

The sole SWAT guy headed out.

Jimmy Candor dropped to the sewage pipe underground. All systems active.

When he plunged in, his knees were covered. He didn't mind.

He trekked along, seeing wires slowly become more prolific as he progressed. Finally, he saw the machine apparition that emanated from the lined up bodies. Huge wires like a spaghetti over them all. Lights flashing in synchrony.

He aimed his electromagnetic field punch and he hit, but he felt it reflect to himself. He felt an aura; a sense of touch.

"What friends let you make crimes?"

He realized he had all the time in the world.

"You want to know the worst day of my life? Ok new blood pull up a seat and let me lay it out for you. You might be surprised. I don't know why you joined the organization, but for me it was because I was sick of walking the wastes and having nothing to show for it. Each day I woke up a little older and a little slower. I knew one day I would be a little too old and a little too slow, and boom I'm done. But here I have a retirement plan. Collect enough tokens and I get to push some papers. I get to die old with bare feet. So that's why I always take on the high risk or high commitment jobs, cause they pay more tokens. So when they told me someone needed transport basically to the other end of the country I signed right up. Had to threaten Bob Blurry to keep him from taking the job"

"Just over two thousand miles. It should have been a sixty day trip, ninety at most. This guy wanted me to take him and his "manservant" to this ancient city out in what used to be called Nevada. I figured it would be easy as things go. Once you get over the great river you aren't going to run into many issues. A few hostile groups but it's easy enough to go around their territory. And the wildlife isn't too bad. Nothing like up north." "Easy was the last thing it was. What should have been a sixty day trip took fucking years. Yeah I see that look of surprise. How you are probably thinking. Simple, the manservant was a complete moron and had the self-preservation instinct of a lemming. Uh? What's a lemming? Little mouse looking things that supposedly would jump to their deaths off cliffs, doesn't matter. Point is this guy had a skill at doing everything that could get us killed. Insulted the chief of the Royals tribe. That one costed us a week while I negotiated with the chief. Then he steps in a nightbiter nest and goes into a coma. Spent five days brewing the antidote for that one. And don't get me started on all the times he wandered off in the night and got himself kidnapped."

"But we finally make it to the outskirts of this city. And after the client confirmed we are in the right place. He looks at his manservant and says "It's been a pleasure" then pulls out a little pocket pistol and shoots him right between his eyes and watches as him dies. I'm fucking dumbfounded cause I looking at the corpse of a man I spent years saving over and over ago. All I can say is "What the fuck" and you know what he does. He points to a sign that say WELCOME TO RENO and says "I have always wanted to do that".

Premise: A crew of astronauts who leave to colonize a distant planet, find themselves returned to Earth no matter how many times they try to leave.

We were going crazy out there. The fifth time we left and woke up back on Earth. What the fuck was happening?! After the third time, half of our spaceship members gave up. Thousands year lost and more than ten years awake, so what sane people would blame them for giving up?! What sane people would continue trying, except the other half of us, of course.

It was madness. Started the first journey in 2125. We were expected to reach the destination in 25 000 years. Cryosleep and all, we weren't supposed to feel it. Thanks Planck for that. But then we woke up, 18 000 years later, back on Earth. What the -- It must have been a joke. It wasn't. The worst thing - to travel thousands of years just to be back. Anyone would have had questions. We did, too, but we found no answer. Other ships had left in those 18 000 years. Four to be precise; Four left and all four returned.

We took a new ship, faster, better, more resilient to the space travel and away we went. Right on November 5th, 20,126. The travel was supposed to last 11000 years. More or less. We hoped for less, to be honest, and It was less, much, much less. After 8000 years, we were back. We were fricking back. Don't know why, but some of us laughed our asses off because the alternative was to go crazy.

Some of us wanted to stop there but opted for one more try. We left at noon. Supplies and all. Put to sleep and off we went. Just to return 5000 years later. The Earth was there, waiting, but the world we left was long gone. The one that replaced it knew of our failure, and of others', so they had only sent one ship off after we left. It returned just like us.

Half of my crew gave up. It was a lost battle. We all knew that, but some of us were too stubborn to give up. A better ship and a somewhat new crew and we were prepared to leave again. I admired the new guys that joined us because, just like us... they were prepared to leave a world that they knew for the unknown, and if it didn't work, they would return to the unknown as well.

We were returned 2000 years later. At that moment we would have been more surprised if we had made it. Legends about us were still kept alive, but they turned to superstitions. So much that we weren't allowed to leave again. Yeah, no thanks. Who could have stopped us after we gave up everything. We weren't afraid to commit crimes. We sneaked, took our ship and flew in the sky.

Like clockwork, we were back 2000 years later, but at least no one on Earth saw us as the harbinger of some made-up superstition. Found out that the civilization was about to collapse completely two times when we were gone. They bounced back. I was a bit proud of their resilience. Tens of thousands of years and my people still managed to last and prosper. I expected all to go down in flames way sooner.

The technology was so good, we finally could stay awake all the trip there. Somewhat awake. It was supposed to last 300 years, so we all agreed to stay awake for ten years each group, then wake the next group up and so on. Sooner or later, one group would have been awake when whatever had sent us back to Earth would do the same.

How wrong we were. No one knew what and how it happened. No one had any memory, and we had no idea we were on our way back until we were close to our Solar system. If we could see our dejected faces when we took the first step out of the ship... Oh, man.

We just gave up. When you get a few grays in your hair and it goes nowhere, you tend to give up. We left a world we knew for a world we knew nothing about. In a sense, we were in a world we knew nothing about, but the hope we left with was missing...

P.S. I intended the last leave to last ~ 30 years, and the entire crew stays awake, so they are returned to Earth as really old men (not just a few gray hairs) with no idea nor memory just to make it even more disheartening. Even have part of the crew put a bullet to their heads when they realize it has been all in vain. I'll probably put that in another draft or extended version.

The breeze picks up. We stay inside. Behind shut doors, watching as it passes, hearing it snarl, we pray, Dear Lord in Heaven, spare us, your humble servants, for one more night, so that we may continue to give you thanks and praise, and protect us from the world's apex predator: the wind. (The prayer continues but I've forgotten the words.)

We light a candle.

Sometime during the night the passing wind will force its way inside the house and snuff it out.

We'll light it again, and again—and again—as many times as we must, for the symbol is not the flame but the act of lighting, of holding fire to the wick. This is the human spirit. Without it, we would long be disappeared from the Earth, picked up and filled, and detonated by the wind.

I saw a herd of cattle once made into bovine balloons, extended and spherized—until they burst into a fine mist of flesh and blood, painting the windows red. A rain of death.

I saw a man picked up, pulled apart and carried across the evening sky, silent as even his screams the wind forced back down his throat. His head was whole but his body dripping, distended threads hanged above the landscape. In the morning, somebody found his boots and sold them.

We don't know what caused it.

What awakened it.

Some say it came up one day from the depths of Lake Baikal before sweeping west across the globe. Others, that it was released by the melting of the polar ice caps. Perhaps it arrived here like life, upon a meteor. Maybe somebody, knowingly or not, spoke it into existence. In the beginning was the Word…

The wind has a mouth—or mouths—transparent but visible in its shimmering motion, gelatinous, ringed with fangs. What it consumes passes from reality into nothing (or, at least, nothing known,) like paper through an existential shredder.

The wind has eyes.

Sometimes one looks at us, as we are huddled in the house, staring out the window at the wind's raging. The eye most resembles that of a great sea creature, considering us without fear, perhaps thinking our heads are merely the pupils of the paned eyes of the house.

We do not know what it knows or does not know.

But we know there is no stopping it. What it cannot penetrate, it flows around—or pushes until it breaks: into penetrabilities.

What's left to us but to pick up the pieces?

By mindful accelerated erosion, it sculpts and remakes the surface of the planet—and, we believe, the inside too, carving it and hollowing, cooling it, and, undoubtedly, preparing—but for what? Who has known the mind of the Lord?

As, tonight, the wind hunts in the darkness, the trees convulse and the glass in the windows rattles against their frames, the candlelight begins to flicker, and I wonder: I truly, frightened, wonder, whether it would not be better to go outside and cease.

Dr. David Dancer deeply believed that killing could never be truly humane. His research aimed to elevate human emotions beyond their primal origins, adapting them to align with the ultramodern technology now prevalent in society. With the potential to ignite a new philosophical era, Dr. Dancer pioneered the concept of "dispassionate consumption": a minor genetic modification that allowed humans to endure the blandness of synthetic meat. He was playing God by taking away the ability of humans to commit the sin of gluttony. The gene therapy he developed altered the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hypothalamus, and a few other bits and pieces of the most sophisticated product of evolution that we call the brain. So, a few psychological side effects followed which he realized could easily be controlled with medication.

This revolutionary invention finally allowed humans to act humanely in an overpopulated war-torn world struggling with resources for consumption forcing it to act inhumanely. The imminent war shaped policy reforms and defense enlistments became the new norm for the new generation. Dr. Dancer’s work sent shockwaves through society. Butchers and chefs banded together to form a political opposition, while religious organizations chanted their obvious slogans against playing God. The scientific community, cautious of its long-term implications, hesitated to support him fully. Undeterred, Dr. Dancer chose to be the first subject of his gene therapy. It took years for the treatment to fully manifest, but when it did, the results were astonishing. He lost his sense of taste, yet gained entirely new sensory experiences through his tongue. His experiences defied language and the closest analogy of eating was like the refueling of a car. He felt the need for sustenance and intuitively knew when to stop.

After exhaustive testing, the scientific community certified that the therapy had succeeded and declared him physically and mentally fit. He could respond to all possible stimuli and surprisingly appeared to be at his physical peak after the therapy. For the greater good, Dr. Dancer sold his patent on the gene therapy procedure and made it accessible to all who wanted to be a true human. Then he decided to patent the formula of synthetic meat prepared as a fuel for humans. The scientific community was now convinced of the therapy’s precision: while his compulsion for gluttony was eliminated, his greed remained intact.

The main source of Dr. Dancer's income became the ideologically driven youth who chose to act humanely by altering themselves. Everything seemed promising until a fatal flaw emerged: the therapy eliminated the sensation of disgust, a side effect unmanageable with medication. The flaw came to light tragically when a blind man mistakenly consumed spoiled meat, leading to his death. The incident sparked intense media scrutiny, forcing an immediate ban on the therapy, which was soon declared illegal. A few months later, Dr. Dancer received a classified post from the Military Nutrition Division. Invited to a confidential meeting, he learned that his genetic therapy was being tested on a control group to examine the psychological impacts of removing disgust, specifically for consumption framed through an anti-speciesist survivalist perspective. The research was part of a self-sustenance initiative aimed at mitigating anticipated global food shortages.

Dr. Dancer realized that his invention had become an antithesis of his ideology.

The detective looked hard at the mystery man in his interrogation room. He was searching for this man for months, suspecting him to be a master mind terrorist, and 10 minutes ago, he walked into the CIA outpost, as if its location was not secret. After a short confusing conversation, the man decided he was going to leave as unexpectedly as he arrived. The detective was bewildered and his hand was cramping on the handle of his gun, at the same time feeling like he will break his own fingers and like he is not holding it firm enough.

“If you move to the door, I swear I will shoot. Don’t fucking test me.”

The mystery man, relaxed and nonchalant with just a dose of amusement in his eyes, but not so much that it would reach the bottom half of his face and turn into a grin which would indicate disrespect, turned where he stood and continued walking towards the door.

The detective reacted instinctively in rage, and fear, as he grabbed his gun and fired. He heard the bullet pierce the wall next to the door. The mystery man turned around, looking down at his chest, which was unharmed before looking back at the detective with a smile.

“Call your wife.” He suggested with amusement, still trying to maintain his cool since in the end it wasn’t a game. At least not everyone was having fun playing it.

The detective was so shocked by the bullet seemingly missing his suspect at only five feet, that he caught himself obliging the unusual request and diling the phone of his wife.

Ring 1, no answer. Ring 2, no answer.

The detective almost started worrying as the heat of the adrenaline was replaced by the chill running down his spine, a hunch in his stomach saying how things don’t need to make sense to be true.

“James…? James…?” His wife pleaded in a shaky voice. On the floor…we all…a bullet…through the window, I swear we heard it.” “There is nothing in the wall”, someone said in disbelief, with people crying disbelief and fear.

The detective lowered his hand, looking at the mystery man, his hand releasing the grip on the phone, which slipped onto the floor, cutting the connection.

“You can pull the bullet that didn’t hit your wife out of the wall. How can a bullet fly in a straight line and end up where it was supposed to, but take an exit and travel on a different highway for the journey? You almost cannot believe that I could have done that, and yet I could have also let the bullet travel not through a different building, but through a different universe. I could let your bullet which hit your wife contain a miniature replica of this room and you firing it. I could move all of us to a universe where people receive life saving medicine by being shot and have you miss her slightly. And I could let this same bullet contain all these universes.”

The mystery man pressed the doorknob and opened the door. He then turned back one more time to face the detective.

“You worry about the next bust, your arrest record, and if your wife find out about the mistress. I worry if mankind is on the right track. I worry if millennia from now the universe will prosper of perish if things are left unattended. I worry if I should intervene. I worry if it’s my place to. I worry what happens if I am too humble to decide it isn’t. We are not the same.

But fear not, the acts of terrism you try to prevent will not be mine. The whispers of names of bosses and shot callers will not be mine. You will only see the things I do in their butterfly effect much, much later.”

And with those words, David left the room.

[...]

The colonists had no one but themselves and the robots like Ben to count on. They didn't have the same dreams as the scientists', nor did they want to be another cog in the machine owned by the rich. And that made the colony a tight-knight place where, instead of being in a continuous competition, the colonists were connected by a single common thing - survival.

Having ended a harvesting season with no incident, Ben said goodbye to the Farmer and his family, then headed South. The first colonists' settlement that Ben came across in his path to the Space Flight Agency was enjoying a peaceful autumn, as the colonists themselves told Ben. While he couldn't say he felt happy, or that he felt anything, he did understand the relief that the colonist may have felt. But that understanding didn't last long as, with every settlement he passed by, the situation was as strange - no creature descended upon the colonists.

Ben found it beyond weird. He had a few theories on why the creatures might have ceased their attacks, but going to fulfill his dream was more important than dwelling on the wonts of some wild creatures.

It took one day till Ben saw desert ahead, and half a day till the Space Agency projected in front of him, rippling in the sun's warmth. Ben approached it slowly. He stopped at the gates, taking in the surroundings. No one but a sepulchral silence guarded the gates over which Ben climbed with ease. His footsteps painted ephemeral traces on the warm sand as Ben trudged ahead towards the Agency hangar.

The hangar door was ajar. The dust carried by storms sneaked through the slit in the door where it had piled up in a huge mound that kept the door stuck for a long time. Ben tried to push the door open, but the mechanism that used to open it was locked, so he climbed hanging onto the door and slid down the heap of sand straight into the pitch darkness of the hangar.

Darkness was no problem for him. No wild animal or robot prototype could see in the dark like Ben and robots like him could. The dark didn't scare him, but what he saw in that hangar took him by surprise; pieces of human skeletons were strewn across the floor. There was almost no meat on those bones, and where it was meat left, it shown signs of a brutal death; signs that Ben had seen before, and he knew who the culprit was, for he had witnessed those vicious creatures tearing apart humans and pets, even snapping their fragile bones with ease.

And then, it dawned on him... The creatures were indeed smart, as he thought. They were cunning and they caught on the fact that the Flight Agency was the most important thing to the colonists and the only connection they had with Earth.

Ben searched around for a vehicle that still worked. Messages were pouring like a cascade into his head. Alerts, requests of help and videos of the creatures descending down onto robots and colonists. Wave after wave of vicious creatures that not even robots like Ben seemed to be capable to hold back.

Ben jumped into the vehicle and sped away as videos kept flowing through his mind. He recognized one settlement that the creatures were encroaching upon. It was about twenty miles away from where the farmer and his family lived. He pushed the pedal to the floor, guided by a simple thought: to save the farmer.

P.S. This seems like a silly idea/premise. I don't even know why I post it, but I hope you enjoy it.

Premise: On a planet colony, A Robot-Scarecrow who has to guard the crops of human colonists from huge, terrifying flying alien creatures dreams about doing greater things - like helping humans in their space flight.

Model M-3784 was perched on a metallic pole/frame, his round robotic eyes blinking over the endless field of golden crops washed by the autumn drizzle. Despite being a 6'8" silver-white machinery of precision, elegance and unadulterated aggression through which no droplet of rain could get in, Model M-3784 wore a big yellow sunhat and ragged clothes - blue patches overalls that were a bit too tight on his sturdy build.

It was something the Farmer did to remind himself of life on Earth, and Model M-3784 didn't protest despite the scarecrow suit limiting his movement. He knew that The Farmer was a good man who treated him as more than a machine. Model M-3784, or Ben - as the Farmer called it, felt no thirst, hunger, cold or tiredness, but, with all that, the Farmer put aside what little money he made from the crop sales and bought three other robots to keep Ben's and the other Robotic Scarecrows' place from time to time.

If on Earth, the biggest menace for the crops were the loud crows and the wild boars that could sneak even under the lowest of fences, here, on the space colony, Ben had to fend off vicious flying alien creatures that devoured everything from crops to colonists and their beloved pets. Those creatures stood at in impressive six feet and their wingspans made the biggest eagle look like a swallow.

Ben knew of their ferocity for he had witnessed another Robotic Scarecrow being dismembered by those creatures in mere seconds. They attacked in flocks and struck both at night and during the daylight. He heard bone chilling stories about an entire colonists' camp being eradicated by those creatures in less than a few hours. Everything was destroyed. All but two families of colonists and one dog gone when a swarm of those vicious creatures descended onto them and unleashed a brutal attack.

But the area Ben guarded was not a propitious place for those creatures. The place was colder, the number of local faunas those creature could feed on was smaller, so their presence was bearable for the few families of colonists who settled there. Their presence, while smaller, couldn't be underestimated, for, where they lacked in numbers, they made up for in aggression and devious behavior.

The harvesting time was getting closer, and Ben knew that the attacks were going to get more frequent. He sometimes suspected the creatures of some kind of primitive intelligence after having observed their behavior over three harvesting seasons.

During the harvesting season, the nights attacks were more frequent, but there were also tranquil nights when nothing happened; nights in which the only sounds that kept Ben alert were the whispers of the dry corn leaves rustling in the tame breeze of the autumn. It was in those nights that Ben threw his eyes up to the clear sky painted by stars and dreamed about being one of those robots who accompanied humans in their space flights.

To him not only were they better prototypes whose specs made him seem like a mere bread toaster, but they also got to do, in Ben's mind, the greatest and most important thing possible - explore the infinite space and travel to the planet the colonists came from. Ben had heard stories about Earth and, despite not being as curious as he was about exploring the space, from time to time his mind circuits were entertaining the desire to visit the planet the farmer had so many good words to talk about.

Ben trusted Farmer's judgment, yet he couldn't understand why Farmer's parents would choose to settle on the colony if Earth was such a wonderful place. But, in the end, it didn't matter to Ben if Earth was a beautiful world or just another dangerous place like the colony was. All that matter the most was his dream... and the sky and the beyond were his dream.

It seemed a bit strange to the Farmer, but he was an understanding man and gave Ben the permission to go to the Space Station after the harvesting season was over.

The harvesting season was odd. Ominous silence was permeating all over the place. The stars came out and faded by the morning with no notable event happening on the colony. No creature roamed the Farmer's plots, nor he heard of any attack on the near-by places. It was as if the creatures vanished. The Farmer thought that maybe the creatures found the place not worth and difficult to thrive in, so they decided to flee to greener pastures. Ben, though, didn't share the same perception. To him, the lack of creatures seemed strange for, even since the colonist had landed on the planet, the creatures had always been present - chasing people, eating or destroying their crops, devouring their animals, pets and whatever was there to consume. They were lucky that every two years Earth allowed some colonists to fly back there and pick some provisions for the difficult time. It wasn't that Earth cared too much about them. They were but a project that the richest people had invested in hoping that one day it would become a second Earth which they can exploit and use it to exert power over others. For the scientists and science enthusiasts, the colony was just an impersonal idea of a narcissistic dream and desire to prove themselves as a species.

I am the end.

The world is a blur of sounds and scents. I stumble through the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger. Memories of my former life are distant echoes, overshadowed by the primal need to feed. I can sense them—humans—hiding, trembling, their fear like a beacon calling me closer.

I remember flashes of light, loud noises, and pain before everything went dark. Now, I am part of the horde, moving with purpose but without thought. The night is my ally, cloaking my approach as I search for sustenance. Each step brings me closer to the scent of life, the promise of flesh.

I see them now, huddled in a corner, eyes wide with terror. They try to escape, but there is no escape from what I have become. My existence is a relentless pursuit, and their end is inevitable. I am a predator, and they are my prey.

My vision narrows as I close in on them. The scent of fear mingles with the promise of fresh flesh, igniting a frenzy within me. They scream, but it's a distant sound, muffled by the pounding of my own need.

I reach out with decayed hands, grasping at warm, living bodies. Their struggles are futile against my relentless grip. Teeth sink into soft flesh, tearing through skin and muscle. The taste is both familiar and foreign, a grotesque reminder of what I once was.

Blood fills my mouth, and I can feel the life draining from them, their warmth becoming mine. Each bite fuels the hunger, but it never truly satisfies. I consume without thought, driven by an endless cycle of need and decay.

As I feed, I realize there's no satisfaction, no joy—only an endless, hollow hunger. I don't feel pain, fear, or regret. Emotions are distant, almost forgotten. Yet, somewhere deep within, there's a flicker of memory.

I remember sunlight, laughter, and the warmth of human connection. Faces of loved ones blur and fade, replaced by the cold, relentless drive to consume. Each moment as a monster erases a piece of my humanity, leaving behind only the darkness.

I am a shadow of what I once was, a creature driven by instinct. The memories of my old life are slipping away, and with them, the last remnants of my soul.

I leave whats left of my meal behind, their lifeless bodies already fading from my mind. The hunger still gnaws at me, an insatiable force driving me forward. I wander off into the darkness, searching for my next unsuspecting victim, driven by a need that never ends.

As I move through the shadows, I can't help but feel the last fragments of my humanity slipping away. The memories of who I once was become more distant with each step, replaced by the cold, unfeeling monster I've become.

I am the end.

Through snow-smoked glass he snags my eye and I become an island, transfixed. The crowd parts around me, tramping home to family, to pets, to HearthWarmd ^^tm apartments, to the soft, forgiving lighting of the holidays, but I'm there, alone, frozen, caught by him.

Again.

—)--

London: December evening, skies flaking down grey, angry, judging, and my own unit is dark, cold, lonely and so he catches my attention. Again. I stop, stand, stare.

Coat: threadbare, wind-pierced, but I'll be fine. When I walk I'll warm up. I can mind a moment. I've got a coffee.

Him: him.

I let myself daydream, traipsing through the hazy warmth of what-ifs, casting him centerstage as I spool out potential futures.

—)--

This time it's winter and we sit in my living room, comfortably close, laughing, debating ornament types. “We had this wooden set when I was a kid,” I offer, shyly quiet, and he sits, listening patiently. I blush, continue. “My father bought it, right after they divorced. The twelve days of Christmas.”

I glance at him and he's smiling, head tilted to one side, waiting for the story's end. My words drop to a mumble.

“We would sing each verse as we hung each one…” My conclusion dwindles to uncertain silence and then I hear his tenor, barely a whisper, as he gives my hand a squeeze and begins: “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…”

I feel the electric flush of being weak, small, ignored and then suddenly noticed. A beautiful ache tickles my skin.

Together for our first Christmas.

—)--

The scene shifts to my dining room now, furniture upscaled and festooned with festive decorations - the theme is wooden, elegant, sparkling. We're richer, happier, healthier, older, a supreme of superlatives. Somewhere offscreen the doorbell rings and then a crowd of guests come in, laughing, hugging, chattering, women I long to befriend now socializing breezily with us.

And their words are genuine, their smiles genuine, their stares genuine - everything, for once, genuine. I can be myself. We've built a family.

I feel a buzzing warmth, guthappy and aspirational, like a slug of wine taking root.

A loving crowd for Christmas.

—)--

We're old, now, him helping me as I totter to the bedroom. My hair is grey, but I'm elegant, poised, dignified, a regal queen, and my world matches: there's a magnificent four poster bed, silk curtains, crown molding, a room from a fairy tale.

Mine.

With him.

And he smiles at me, adoring, loving, kind, protective.

I feel a detached calm, peaceful and resigned - with him at my side, death would be welcome. Another grand adventure to take together.

Never alone for Christmas.

—)--

I shiver, but not from the cold, and square my shoulders, vision focusing as the glass window resolves back into view, and I study him through the frosted pane. Nobody should be alone for Christmas.

I ping my assistant to run some numbers then flush in excitement as the result flashes before me. I can finally swing it. Barely. On a payment plan.

My body is tired, tired of always window-shopping and going home by myself. Nobody should be alone for Christmas. I enter the store and signal to the system that I'm a buyer, indicate his model, pick all the upgrades, bells, whistles. I customize his features, adjust his personality and select immediate delivery.

It’s not cheap, but it's worth it because nobody should be alone for Christmas.

Premise: A robot who cleans up corpses and robotic parts from a battlefield is attacked and turned himself into scattered parts by an injured human soldier and his damaged robot teammate.

Model M58N3 drove the truck across the battlefield awash with blood, oil and parts. Human clones and robots had fought side by side in a war against a numerical superior army. The robots had been built to fight with astonishing precision, to never tire, nor feel pain, and those of them that escaped unscathed were to be improved upon even more, based on their battlefield experience, while those who perished or were damaged were to be terminated and their parts picked by other robots like Model M58N3 did.

But for the human clones the situation was dire, for they could feel pain, fear and hunger. They had no parts to be salvaged and no memory to help them get an upgrade. If one got injured, they were left to have an agonizing death, for the Government didn't care one bit for fragile beings whom they could build in labs by the thousands at the whim. They could only survive the battle and hope to be granted freedom.

Model M58N3 picked human corpses and robotic parts and threw them in the truck, each in a separate part of the truck - robotic to robotic, human to human. The robotic parts were to be re-used, or, if the damage was too pronounced, they were to be melted.

Whenever Model M58N3 came across a robot soldier that was crawling about while its lower or upper mechanical limbs were missing and the wires were dangling, he took out a device and, with a swift press of a button, he turned the damaged robot off, took off its memory to destroy it so that no one could get their hands on those.

In the distance, a Crippled Robot soldier was dragging his dangling foot as he struggled to carry his injured human teammate on his back. He had witnessed the fate of those who had the bad luck of getting injured on the battlefield and he didn't want his to be the same. A trickle of blood was sliding down the robot's shoulder. The robot kept pushing, sparkles were fizzling from the exposed metallic carcass that once covered his left calf.

The hole in his chest was leaking, but he didn't stop. There were just two more corpses between them and Model M58N3. The Crippled Robot spotted a tank sitting idle in the open field half a mile away. He had no idea if it still worked, but he shuffled away toward it. "It could be a good hiding place at least", he thought as he limped along a line of shrubs trying to slip away before Model M58N3 saw him.

It took the Cleaning Robot (Model M58N3) less than a minute to throw the two corpses into the truck and drive away. Its wheels were crunching over the dirt and pebbles underneath like a hungry beast. It got so close that the hull of the tank started to ripple with small trembles. Then it stopped. Model M58N3 jumped down and trudged towards the tank to make sure that no corpse was in the tank before another cleaning team would come to disassemble the tank and carry it away.

The Cleaning Robot climbed over the tank hull, reaching the top. As he grabbed the hatch, a powerful explosion went off sending him flying. He landed on some rocks, then tried crawling away, confused. He was but a torso with its lower limbs missing from where the knee circuits used to bend. The upper arm that he had tried to use to pry the hatch open was missing completely while the other arm was almost unaffected bar the palm which dangled from two wires.

Model M58N3 heard someone heading towards him. He turned his head and saw the Crippled Robot. He wanted to talk, to beg or scream, but nothing came out, for his voice was damaged by the explosion. Motivated by nothing but disdain, the Crippled Robot wrested away Model M58N3's remaining arm, placed it next to the torso, then, with a sharp object that he produced, he opened Model M58N3's head from where he extracted the memory chip and destroyed it.

The Crippled Robot limped away as Model M58N3 was restarting itself after the memory chip had been pulled out. The Crippled Robot got to a bush where he had left the Injured Man, threw him over his shoulder and carried him to the truck Model M58N3 came with.

" We'll get there in a moment. He can fix us both", said the Crippled Robot before he started the truck and trundled away.

[...]

The next day, raindrops were splattering against Model M58N3's eyes. Another cleaning truck came to a stop and two cleaning robots just like him climbed down. One of them approached the torso and picked it up. Model M58N3 tried to talk, then his head jerked chaotically left and right. His functions, battery and brain circuits were affected beyond any repair by the explosion the day before.

The Newly Arrived Cleaning Robot took one last look at the torso, then threw it in the truck next to the parts of disassembled machinery that he had collected on the battlefield, then joined his partner in taking apart the burnt tank...

A soft buzz woke Ben up, and he lazily unlocked his phone. His finger hovered over the app “Mseli.”

He opened it, and it took him to a familiar screen—his Community Page, a quiet reminder of all the people who meant the most to him.

At the top of the page, his parents' names appeared, glowing softly. He pressed them and their profile opened with a big button below their profile picture that said, “Remember.”

With a small smile, he tapped it.

Next were his siblings and a few close friends.

Each tap felt like a brief hello, a way of saying he thought of them even if there wasn’t a reason to chat.

As he scrolled down, he saw his cousin John’s profile.

It had been two years since they’d last seen each other.

Ben tapped on his cousin’s profile, and a small status appeared: “Just fighting off a flu, hoping it goes away soon.”

Ben hesitated, then typed a quick reply: “Get well soon!”

He then pressed “remember” button after the status disappeared.

For years, he’d believed most of his family didn’t really care about him and were too busy with their own lives.

Yet here he was, scrolling through their profiles and feeling connected in a way he never had before.

It struck him then how he’d always loved his family and longed for a stronger bond but never found the right way to express it.

Maybe they felt the same, and maybe this app was giving them all the means to finally show it.

He felt a quiet pride in that thought, a bit of warmth settling in his chest.

Motivated, he continued down the list, remembering all 240 people in his Community Page—friends, family, social groups, everyone he cared about.

Finally, he switched to his own Status Page. There, he saw 68 people had remembered him.

As he scrolled through the names, he was surprised to see relatives he hadn’t spoken to in years and friends from long ago.

The notifications felt like little threads tying him to all these people he’d once believed had drifted away. He felt his heart lift.

Ben quickly typed out a status: “Grateful today. Sometimes, a reminder is all we need.”

He put his phone in his pocket, took a deep breath, and stepped outside, feeling more connected to the world around him.

THE END.

For those equipped with black and red ceramic armour, 10mm assault weapons, and a complete and total presence of arrogance and lack of conscience, it was a great day to fight. For everybody else, it was a great day to run. But here, in this suddenly battle-torn district, there was one person who would not.

The fighting had gone on all day, here in Seventy-Second Heaven, 66th street, to the northwest. Door to door they went, kicking them all down, unloading ammunition into the innocent. Those who were particularly sadistic, and also likely seeking a promotion in the ranks, would remove their helmets and masks and combat gloves indoors, bearing their fangs and claws. They reveled in their savage, vampiric cruelty, in doing things that I cannot bear to bring myself to recall. It was truly horrifying.

A squad of these soldiers, bloodied from the family they had just slaughtered, stepped out into the streets. It was their idea of justice. As a group, they saw themselves as heroes, because of their past activities -- when the masquerade was broken by ghoul assaults on every streaming service and on live television, it sent ripples through the vampire world. Those who were only undead for a fraction of the time of their elders had realized that with the right tech and organization, they could overthrow the ancient vampire orders, establishing a newer, bolder world. And so they did.

This world was seen as right, it was seen as just, and yet it was still built on discrimination and death. These vampires still saw humans and everyone else as vermin, and treated them as such.

The brave minority who they'd encountered, firing back at them, had been killed. Cars were broken or on fire, some of them had exploded, and some of the people who had sniped several fascists before being taken down had been crucified.

The commander took off his helmet, shaking out a headful of shaggy black hair over his pale and stubbled face.

"This is a great day, my friends," he yelled to them all. They all started to cheer. Some of them fired their guns in the air. "We're not done yet... BUT SOON, WE WILL BE!!!!"

It was bloody smiles all around. He looked to the grey sky, and roared, embracing the monster he had become. His men did the same, and they stood there, bellowing like demons, for several moments.

As they stood there, someone had materialized next to them, unbeknownst. Apparently, they had grown arrogant from their lack of resistance.

After they were done their little cheer, the vampires were putting on their helmets again, and about to do a weapons check. They didn't get the chance -- it's a bit difficult to do anything when an otherworldly flame surrounds you, burning with the heat of the light side of Mercury, transforming you and your comrades into pillars of salt.

After this, the vampire soldiers around them were livid. They had only brief moments to react before more of them were reduced to screaming, smoldering bones and ashes, their armour melted into their remains. Flames swirled around them, while other soldiers ran for cover and began to fire.

The entity had turned to them, surrounded by swirls and flower-like spouts of flame.

"Kill it," roared a lieutenant among the soldiers. "Kill the mage!!!"

Everyone else unloaded bullets into the boy before them. His body, brown and freckled, should have been ripped apart in a gory mess. Instead, each hole that was blasted into him revealed an inexplicable magma-based, regenerating form. One of the soldiers lifted up an enormous cannon, shaped like a missile launcher, but resembling an energy or plasma type of weapon. A smile crossed the face of the mage, adorned with makeup, with rings in his nose, his eyebrow, and his lip.

"MAGEKILLER FIRING," he screamed. Everyone else ducked. A large, electric-looking blast, followed by anti-material particles, surged forth, with a deep, echoing blast. At the last moment, the mage had disappeared.

"Where the fuck did he g-"

The entire squad was annihilated, from a nearby rooftop. A thick beam of superheated flame had ripped through the air, through the vampires, through their cover. A smoldering pit was left in the ground.

"He's up there," a soldier nearby screamed. "Get him!!!!"

"Come on in, sluts," the mage called back. He stood there on the rooftop, with only a binder covering his chest. His flowing hair was ombre dyed like fire, his eyes were like tiny suns.

They tried to shoot him again. Of course, it did nothing. Assault rifles, sniper rifles, battle rifles, machineguns, they did next to nothing. The young man blew a kiss at them, which transformed into a fireball, and then a phoenix, and then finally a dragon, the size of a horse. It spat fire that burned several soldiers to nothing, and then landed on a New Order tank. It tore away pieces of the exterior and roasted the crew, before disappearing in an explosion that left the vehicle an empty, blackened chassis.

As their anger and their gunfire grew, he fell backwards, disappeared into the building with echoing laughter. It was the building where every last one of these sick bastards would be burned. In the room inside, he moved downstairs. A wall was blown open above him by an RPG.

As he was deciding what to do next, a vampire head to toe in black and red armour had phased through the wall, with a noise like an otherworldly, echoing sigh. He formed a large sword out of thin air and crystallized blood. The mage turned to him, with fire in his palms. Shit was about to get real.

"Finally," the vampire knight grunted, seeing the mage, whose face had gone blank, focused, like a street fighter.

"What?" replied Knives. "You get lost on your way to the renaissance fair, you white piece of shit?"

"No," the knight grunted back, unphased. "I've been looking for a fair fight."

Shadows and neon lights seemed to dance between the streets -- even moreso if you were on enough drugs. The ground was peppered by torrential rain. Very picturesque, right? Well, somebody here was trying to have a night that was. Unfortunately though, for her, it was going to be far from that... and for the most predictable reasons.

Eve stepped out of Club Strife, a favourite place of hers ordinarily. It was gothic, and yet it was also so modern, and yet still, it was such a throwback. A couple hundred years beforehand, an age she never experienced, and one that seemed to be a great predictor of the future. The music was amazing, the people were generally very relaxed, and sometimes, she'd actually meet someone who she shared attraction with. One could only spend so long here, though, and she, like most organic life forms, needed to sleep and rest.

She swept the white, pale blue, and pink-coloured dreadfalls off her goggled face. Cars that halfway looked like miniature rocketships hummed past her, both on the ground and in the air. Her umbrella unfolded above her, which said "God is in the rain" in large, ornate letters. Her platform boots hit the concrete, and she was on her way to one of the extensively developed public transit stations. Just several minutes away. She enjoyed the exercise. Many people didn't.

Unfortunately, she had a pursuer. Seven feet tall, very strong, and literally not even human. Normally it'd be a human man attempting some creep shit on women at night, but this city was relatively very new to having a more mixed population. It used to be a mining colony for humans, but then, it went from there.

Eve could tell what was going on on her heads up display. A Hrisk was apparently thinking he was real sneaky and smooth, until a robotic, feminine voice spoke inside her head, about him coming up on her from behind. She let him feel like he was going to be able to prey on her, intentionally wandering into an alleyway where it was a dead end. The reptilian pursuer was now behind her.

"Nice night, isn't it," snarled the hrisk at her with a grin. He thought she was weak. Humans are easy prey, after all, right? That was his favourite song.

"Honestly, dude..." Eve said, turning to him. The hrisk menacingly continued to approach, but as she was turning, a transformation began. The 5'2, petite cybergoth woman was now a man, as tall and large as the hrisk, but bristling with even more muscle, dressed far more like a bouncer than a clubber. Eve's biomechanical nature was now, visibly, A LOT more obvious.

She, who was now he, cracked his knuckles. The only thing remaining of Eve in this form was a necklace, with a symbol on it that appeared to represent being pangender, as well as genderfluid and trans. It glowed at all times, including now -- changing between brilliant, vivid, shades of the rainbow.

"Looks like you bit off more than you could chew," said shapeshifted Eve.

"What the fuck is this?" the hrisk growled. "Look, lady, sir, whatever you are, I didn't want any trouble, I just..." A look of confusion and panic crossed his toothy, golden scale-covered face. He collected himself briefly, and ran away, loudly saying something about how scary humans are.

"Yeah, that's right," said Eve. "Fuck off."

They took on a third form, now... something vaguely in between. Eve didn't feel like walking through the streets as a man, but didn't feel like being a woman, either. Instead, they were a genderless, vaguely crystalline being, walking through the rain and towards the station. Outside of the doors, she morphed back into her preferred self.

She sighed. "I guess men are men wherever you go, whatever the species," she mused, as she stepped onto the hovertrain, heading home for the night.

So, the nightmares you've been having—

He is a priest, but—

No, I know you're not religious, yet the fact remains that your non-belief is ultimately irrelevant.

Perhaps I may explain.

Please, father.

The dreams you've been experiencing—the torments you've been suffering—are real.

Real not only as your subjective experience, but real as in the objective future.

What you perceive as nightmare is a glimpse into the intention of a demon passing through you—

Please hear us out. There is no need for derision. Father, continue:

passing through you, as it travels from Hell to the mortal world.

You are a portal.

The Devil's own corridor.

One of many.

Although how many precisely, we do not know.

Yes, what you dream—the horrors—will happen—are fated to happen.

You see a vision of demonic pre-reality.

Why you? We have no answer.

But we do know why your nightmares began: because the previous carrier of the corridor ceased to be.

The man dies, the corridor passes to another. Flesh is bound by time. The corridor exists outside it.

I understand that temptation. Truly. But suicide would be highly unethical. Not only would the portal pass instantly to another—resulting in no overall reduction in evil—but you would also be knowingly giving the burden of carrying it to someone else. A child, perhaps.

The moral choice is to bear your cross.

No, no. You can bear it.

Others have.

Perhaps you need time to think about what we've told you—

A reasonable idea in theory but ultimately a man must sleep, or he dies.

And the corridor passes.

It's not about fairness. It's about reality—and facing it. What is, is. We are merely providing an explanation for an existing state.

What you have become is not a judgment of your soul.

You may conceptualize it as a mental illness if you wish, if it helps you bear the burden—

Again, your lack of belief in Hell does not matter—

We do not know what would happen if every human was killed, but this is not an allowable possibility. God could not condone it.

Yes, if you must put it that way: it is better for you to suffer than for all humanity to end, even if its ending puts an end also to Hell—

You must—

So, even in the face of all we've told you, you choose to die?

We do not judge you.

To die by your own hand is your fundamental right.

As it is our right to prevent you—

Yes, you're bound.

We cannot in good faith release you. Not after you have made your suicidal intentions clear to us.

Understand, we must act in the most ethical way. As a doctor—

Acceptance is grace.

You shall barely feel a thing. One needle—followed by paralysis. The body, comatose. Maintained in perfect conditions. A long life—

“Do the comatose dream?”

An excellent question.

We pray they do not, and that the corridor becomes dormant.

But we don't know.

Shh.

Please—don't struggle...