Death dying

Death had existed for thousands of years, watching over the earth and leading away its victims one after the other, giving them safe passage from this existence to the next. Willing or not, he took them by the hand and showed them the path to the afterlife, after which he never saw them again. Countless numbers of people, animals, and even plants and bacteria. If there was death, he was there.

In all his years of service, this was something he had never quite experienced.

Not everyone was prepared to die. Some died before their time, while others were destined to die but felt that they had not complete everything that they wanted to do. Many argued, pleaded, begged and cried, and there were a fair share who physically fought with death to stay in the mortal world. But it was their ties to mortality that prevented them from ever standing a chance, for mortality had abandoned them, and had never once touched him. They came at him with swords, arrows, and guns, but their blows passed through him without harm as he approached to take them by the hand.

But this man had something that he should not have had. Something that Death had never witnessed before, for he himself had never been past the gates to heaven and hell. He didn't even have the words to express its presence - he suspected that there were no mortal words that could. But it was evident where it had come from, and that in some way this mortal had learned to wield it, for he brandished in Death's direction as he approached. And what was Death to do? He had been created for the express purpose of guiding onward the dead and dying. How could he stop now? Death allowed no exceptions.

He tried to be reasonable. To explain the situation as he approached, that it wasn't personal, that he was only doing his job. The man clearly did not care. He had obtained a way to fight Death, and he intended to use it. Death knew not if this was a good or bad man - it was not his place to judge. Regardless of what benefits his life may have given, the man must move on.

But Death could not lay a finger on the man, before his weapon was thrust forward. It was burning fire in Death's chest, spreading. Was this pain? Was this what so many had complained of? He could understand why, now.

Tunnel

Moriah followed the boy as he led her to the outskirts of the city, over a fence to a gated area which she knew most people had never entered. The fact that he was taking her there gave her a better idea of what had happened - she was glad that she had a brought a flashlight and some mace with her. Perhaps that wouldn't be enough, but she was still just a teenager, and it was better than nothing. One of these days, if she was going to keep helping out these kinds of people, she was going to have to get something better to defend herself with. A gun, preferably, though even a decent knife would probably go a long way.

It was late at night, but the ephemeral glow surrounding the boy was enough for her to ensure that she wasn't going to trip on anything. For her, at least. If anyone else had been with them they probably wouldn't be able to see a thing, but her eyes were a little bit different than other people's. After all - she was following a dead kid to where his body had been left behind.

He stopped in front of the entrance to an underground tunnel, built by man but clearly abandoned. There was a large amount of graffiti both around and inside the entrance, though it was impossible to see much further. Moriah flicked on her flashlight and waved it down the tunnel, checking to see if there was anyone waiting for her just out of sight. She doubted the kid was trying to deceive her, but she also didn't know how long it had been since he died, and if it had been a person that did it, they could still be waiting nearby. It was better to be safe than sorry.

The kid looked back at her, the mixed look of fear and longing clear in his eyes. It was not the first time she had seen that look, and it was likely not going to be the last. She reached out a hand towards his and wrapped it around where it would have been, coiling into a tight fist as he phased through her. She knew he couldn't feel anything, but she could also see that he appreciated the gesture. He turned back to the tunnel and headed in without a word.

She really wished the dead could speak. To actually explain what had happened, to explain why they were afraid. She always wondered if it was just because they knew they would have to look at their lifeless bodies or if it was because of whatever had killed them. But as it was, there was only one way to find out. So she followed.

Hike

There's something downright magical about spending your time out in nature, just putting one foot in front of the other, following dirt trails and climbing mountains far away from the structure of civilization. Feeling fresh air on your skin, hearing the wind in the air and animals all around, or water flowing nearby. It has the unique ability to clear your mind and look inwards, to examine the things that have been happening in your life with a level head and make decisions that can lead you in new and better directions.

The weird thing, too, is that even when you know that, it's hard to make yourself go do it. When you're not actively out there, all you remember is the sweat and the strain in your legs as you constantly push yourself up steep dirt hills and over rocky faces. You remember getting back to the car feeling exhausted and just wanting to get home so you can sit down and rest, eat some real food, maybe take a shower to rid yourself of all the sweat and dirt.

But part of what makes it so great is the fact that it makes those tasks, that are completely mundane and every day activities, incredible. When you are that tired, that hungry, that sore, everything in your daily life that you normally take for granted suddenly becomes the best thing that you've ever experienced. To sit in a soft chair, to eat real food, to drink something other than stale water. Small things that many of us never even have to think about. And suddenly they're more than we could ever hope for.

It's amazing how such a small thing can have such an impact, and how quickly that impact can be forgotten. If I go on a hike for a few hours, it takes less than an hour after I get home to forget about the things I thought about while I was out there, and how much better everything at home feels after a hard day on the trail.

But it's still there, in the back of my head. I still remember the sights I saw out there. The way it felt. The things that I've done, and the accomplishments I have made. The literal mountains that I have climbed. And I know how much work I put in to do those things. How hard what I did was, and knowing that I could do it again. Knowing that I should.

It's a feeling I wish more people could experience.

Bad luck

Harold kept himself an outcast for the most part, staying on the edges of society and trying his best to keep his human interaction to a minimum. He had learned from a young age that it didn't take much from him to have major impacts on people's lives, and that it was best he was extremely careful with whose life he touched. It didn't take much for him to make a permanent difference.

But he had to go into town from time to time in order to get food and other supplies, and it was about time for that journey. He did his best to keep a low profile as he did so, wearing very bland clothes and keeping his head forward and his eyes down, a hat pulled low to shade them. He went to the big discount stores with mass supplies - he was buying for months at a time. They were often crowded, and he did his best to keep to the edges and not run into anybody, but it was inevitable at times. Especially with the other kind of people who took that kind of a route.

It didn't take long for him to find a small crowd of teens in a corner, thinking they were hot shit as they kicked a boy folded up in the fetal position on the floor. Harold didn't want to get involved, he knew he shouldn't get involved, but when he saw things like that he couldn't help himself. He stomped his feet on the ground as he approached, making sure to draw their attention and hopefully give the boy a chance to escape. Though he knew the kid wouldn't - it wasn't the first time he'd seen a situation like this.

Before any of them could speak out at him, he lifted the hat off of his head, revealing the deeply scarred and pupil-less left eye. The look of disgust and terror spread over their faces like wildfire, as he knew it would, and with another step forward they were bolting. They thought they were big and tough, but they didn't want anything to do with someone who had been through something like he had been. Typical.

He crouched next to the kid, who was shaking and holding his stomach, eyes closed tight. "Get up, kid," Harold muttered. "They're gone. They can't hurt you now."

The kid slowly opened his eyes to look up at him, the fear in his eyes only amplified when he saw Harold's. But he couldn't say no to the outstretched hand that pulled him up to his feet. It was clear he wasn't sure what to say, but he left without a word as Harold ushered.

Harold looked down at his hand, feeling the energy rush through him as it had so many times before. That kid had been real unlucky. Harold wondered how much worse he was gonna get.

Leadership

As a leader in boy scouts, knowing that I was in charge of a massive group of boys with a wife range of ages, I knew that I was in for a hard time. I was constantly on edge, always looking over my shoulder to see if anything was going wrong, and I was extremely aware of which boys were the problem children and who they were most likely to picks fights with. This was especially true when I was leading summer camp, because even though it was a smaller group, they were in much more contact with one another, and they were spread around a much larger, more obstructive area.

There was one boy I remember especially well. He was a smaller kid, still pretty new to the troop, and it was apparent that his parents had signed him up with us in the hopes that he would learn to control his temper. Quick note - don't do that. Boy scouts is not the place to learn to control your temper. That is marital arts.

I was speaking with my adult leaders about how the week was going, what was coming up, what kind of things we needed to focus on, when I had this shiver go down my spine. Something was going on - I instinctually knew this. And I was not mistaken. I looked over my shoulder to see this small boy lifting a shovel above his head, face pointed very distinctly at one other boy who I knew he had been growing irritated with. This kid was about to slam a shovel into someone's head.

I muttered a quick "I'll be right back," as I was already throwing myself onto my feet, sprinting as hard as I could at the boy. Fortunately I was not the only one who had seen him, because I was not going to make it to him in time - another boy came up behind him and quickly pulled the shovel from the boys hands. It took him a brief moment to realize what had happened and turn around to try and fight for it, and by then I had made it in time to grab him in a bear hug. The adults were on their way behind me - an issue like this was beyond my ability to take care of.

As the kid changed hands and was lead away, head hanged in shame, I thanked the other boy for acting as he had and asked him if he knew what had happened. Evidently, the kid was very upset that this other scout had been poking holes in the ground. He had been trying to cover the holes, but he was slower at covering them than the other was at making them.

Kids.

Stalking

It was almost impossible to see with how much snow was falling down, even with the windshield wipers going at full power. There was only so much they could push out of the way before the next wave of ice fell from the sky to obstruct the view. It didn't take long for Michael to pull over and stop, grumbling to himself for not taking his father's advice and leaving the party earlier. The blizzard had come in late into the night - if he had stayed at his friend's house, he would be stuck come morning. But at this point, he would be stuck in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night. And his engine would die before morning, and he would freeze.

As he tried to think of what to do, the shadow of the clouds grew over him quicker than he expected. It was a subtle change, as the only light in the sky was the moon that late at night, and so it took him longer than it might have to notice. When he finally did notice, he was surprised to look out through the small cracks in the snow on his windshield and see the clouds beginning to break. If they weren't what was blocking out the moon...

His heart skipped a beat as he swiveled in his seat to see a massive black figure looming just behind his car. The windows were slanted enough that the snow hadn't piled up yet, but he could barely see what it was that was standing behind his car. It was much bigger than he could make out through the windows, and its was entirely black, without any details to go off of. If anything, it appeared to be standing on four legs as it slowly approached the car.

The closer it grew, the darker his car became, as the monster's shadow grew heavier around him. He couldn't do anything - if he tried to make a run for it, he would be running straight into it, to say nothing of the thick snow that had fallen around him. He could try and drive away, but it would take a few moments for the tires to gain any traction, and the action would easily be notice by the monster. If it thought he was stuck and dead, it might leave him alone. But if it saw him try to escape...

Suddenly the snow was being wiped away from his windshield by a black furred appendage. He froze. And then there were bright, glowing yellow eyes staring through at him.

Candle

Moriah could feel the burning in her hand as she navigated the dark and narrow side streets, knowing that she didn't have much time before the flame went out. Wax was dripping down her arm and nearly coated her hand as she held the burning candle - its melted wax had dried around the base some time ago, which had sealed it to the palm of her hand. She was glad she had an affinity for the flame - the delivery was important, and this set up kept the candle safe in her possession, with little likelihood of her accidentally losing it.

If her master was so desperate to retrieve this candle, whatever the reason was, she was going to follow through and deliver it. The problem was that he had not informed her before she had departed that it was already burning, and would in fact not stop burning, no matter how hard she had tried to put it out. Water, dirt, pinching between her fingers - nothing would put out the flame. Whatever was keeping it burning, she was sure, was what her master was looking for. She only hoped that, even with so little of the base candle remaining, it would have what he needed by the time she returned with it.

She was not the only one searching for it, of course, but she felt fairly confident that she was the only one who could hold it as she was. It made it a lot easier to transport, especially as it was melting down - it had gotten to the point where she could actually close her hand around it. The flame tickled at her fingers, but she had long since become immune to the pain of fire. It was necessary when you were working as an alchemist - the frequency with which one burned their hands handling red hot flasks was immense. She enjoyed it though - and she looked forward to working with her master to learn how this candle was made.

She slipped into the workshop, glad to have been undetected. She knew the streets well, so she wasn't surprised that no one had been able to follow her. It was late at night, and she had been able to cover the light of the candle, so she was moving under cover of darkness. She was pleased that her master liked what he saw - she had arrived with more of the candle in tact than even he had anticipated, thanks to it melting and sealing around her hand. It took some effort to remove it, and she lost a fair bit of the subtle hair that was on her arm, but it was well worth it.

Now they just had to learn its secrets.

Free Write 16

I don't feel right. I'm not exactly sure how to explain it - I feel like I've been carved out like the inside of a pumpkin, but I got set aside without being given a jack-o-lantern's face. I don't feel like I'm me anymore. And I mean, I wasn't that big a fan of me in the first place, but there's a difference between changing one's self and losing one's self. I feel like I've lost me instead of changing me, and it's a bizarre feeling. It certainly doesn't feel good.

Part of it is sleep. I sleep bad in general, but it's been particularly bad of late. Frequently waking up, nightmares. Throughout the day I find myself drifting off and nearly falling asleep - it's only a matter of time before I actually do pass out in the middle of the day. In theory you could argue that that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, because clearly I do need it. But I would much rather just get the quality sleep at night when I'm actually trying to sleep. Sleep quality is the thing that really kills me, not quantity.

Dragon Quest 8 came out the other day on 3DS, which I've been eagerly looking forward to for quite a while. It was a game on PS2 way back in the day that I loved, but was never able to finish before losing my copy, which I have searched for for years and never been able to find. The nice thing is that it is certainly as good as I remember it being. The gameplay is solid, the story is solid, the characters are fun, and the voice acting is spot on and hilarious. I just wish I could put more energy into playing it.

Or into most things. That's the hardest part lately - having energy to do just about anything. I was doing alright for a while, just trying to make myself do things whether I felt like it or not. But it's getting increasingly harder to make myself move. Just to get out of bed and get anything done - literally anything.

This free write was a lot more negative than I wanted it to be, but I unfortunately don't have a lot else on my mind at the moment. I struggled endlessly with trying to find a prompt to write, because this was exactly what I didn't want to write. But I suppose sometimes you just have to put down the words that are in your head.

Bus lady

Michelle sat down at the bus stop to wait, right next to the older lady she always saw. For two years Michelle had been taking the bus to school, and for two years this woman was sitting there waiting, having arrived long before Michelle had, but never seeming to get on a bus. She was always there waiting when Michelle arrived, when she got on her bus, and when she returned at the end of the day. As the days went by, she became more and more curious about the woman and why she was there, but never once had she mustered the courage to ask.

At least, not the woman herself. She had asked many of her fellow bus riders, both drivers and passengers. Most of them had noticed her, too, and noticed just how frequently she was sitting there, and how she never seemed to get on any bus. Drivers had frequently asked her which bus she was waiting for, if she needed a ride anywhere, but she would smile at them and shake her head, saying that it wouldn't be long now, and nothing more.

Looking at the lady out of the corner of her eye, Michelle could see that she was old and thin. More so than she had previously realized. It looked as though she barely ate or drank, like she had been sitting in the shade at all times and hadn't been touched by the sun in years. Her breathing was slow and shallow, only ever so slightly lifting her chest with each intake of air. Her clothing was faded and thin - and looking at it, Michelle realized that it was the same clothing that the woman had been wearing every time she had seen her.

How long had she been sitting there, waiting? Had she ever moved once in the last two years?

"Excuse me?" Michelle asked quietly, no longer able to hold back the questions in her mind. "Are you ok, ma'am?"

The lady turned to her and smiled, her skin wrinkling heavily at the corners of her lips. "I'm fine, dear," she said calmly, though her voice was weak. "Why do you ask?"

"I just... I always see you sitting here. But I've never seen you get on a bus."

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere, dear. You see, my husband left to go to the store and pick up a few things. I'm just waiting for him to return."

"But... You've been here for so long..."

"He'll come back soon enough..."

And that's when Michelle realized the state of the old woman's mind.

Running the gauntlet

William flicked his blade out to the side, scattering the excess blood dripping off of its steel to the side before kneeling down to wipe it clean on the grass. He knew it wouldn't do much good, and that he only had a short amount of time to do so, but the actions were mechanical and relaxing for him. Even now, surrounded by the discarded corpses of his enemies who had come at him one after another, the action helped him to catch his breath and calm his wearied muscles. He had been at this for hours, and he was unsure of just how much longer it would go. But it was not the first time he had cleaned his blade, and it would certainly not be the last.

The problem going forward would not be his own endurance, power, or skill. He had more than proven them all already. The problem would the sharpness of his blade, as it slowly blunted itself against the skin and bones of his foes as he sliced them to pieces. He had made sure to sharpen it before he had set out to hold back these forces, but he had already cut down more than a hundred of the demons that were being summoned to attack his village.

It had been his own fault that they were coming. It was a small thing - his wife was sick, and his mind had been distracted for days as he had worked around the clock to care for her. In his mindlessness, he had scorned a passing wizard who had slowed him from picking up a necessary medical delivery. The wizard had taken it personally, and believing that he had received no kindness in his time there, had sworn to destroy the village.

His wife had died a few days later. William was full of grief as he watched the wizard preparing armies of demons and undead, and somewhere in him shortly before the attack had begun something clicked. He was going to be the one to stop the wizard. And if he died protecting the village that his wife had so dearly loved, than that simply meant that he would get to see her again sooner.

He stood as he saw the next wave appearing over the horizon, bodies still ever so slightly glowing from the summoning as they approached. William readied his blade, eyeing each as they came at him. His knees were shaking the tiniest amount - he was getting tired. But it wasn't going to be his knees that stopped him.

Tired

I am very, very tired. And when I say that, while true, I'm not talking about physical tiredness or being sleepy. This is very much going to be a post that's more for me than anyone else, and while it would be nice if people read what I said and found some kind of inspiration in my words, I hardly expect that to be a thing that happens. Rather, what I want to say is very much me wanting to put the words down and make them more real for me, so that I have something to look back at and reaffirm myself on.

I am very tired of hatred. I am tired of fighting. I am tired of bitterness and arguing and anger. As an American I am dissatisfied with this election, not because of who won, not because I disliked both candidates, not even because of the perpetuated lies on both sides, but because of the constant and irrational hatred. Of the Trump supporters, of the Hillary supporters, of the non-participants, of whites, of blacks, of men, of women. Of people pointing out the hatred. Nothing but hatred on every side pointed in every direction. I am so very, very tired of it.

I'm not going to pretend like I haven't participated on some level. I'm no saint. Far from it. I'm not going to pretend like everyone should just get along and put their differences behind them. We have brains capable of forming our own unique opinions for a reason. There is always room for debate and question, and those are healthy parts of human culture.

But we take that to levels too far, especially as of late. And maybe it's always been this bad, and we are just increasingly aware of it. I don't know. I'm not that smart. All I know is that hatred never helped anyone or anything. Hatred of any person is poisonous - hatred of any group of people is toxic. It's one thing to hate injustice - another entirely to hate someone committing injustices.

I'm tired of hating. I'm tired of being hated - though there's not much that can be done about that. I don't want to hate anymore. But I can do something about hating. Or I can at least try. Try to listen to people before making a decision. Try to understand, even if in the end I still disagree. Just try to be kind in general.

And I know I'm gonna be bad at it. That I will constantly have to think and focus on it. But I will try.

Blind king

King Henry sat on his throne and listened to the arguing women before him, each trying to convince them that they had the right of the situation, and that they should be the one compensated for the other's wrongful actions. It wasn't the first time he had heard an argument like this one, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. More often than not, both were just frustrated with perceived slights from one another, and were looking to take the final straw. It made it difficult to make a decision about what should be done with them, simply because truly neither of them was deserving of anything - but to say so would only bring them back later, trying harder to prove that they had been wronged. Harder and louder.

It was difficult to say which one of them was older. He assumed that, with arguments like this, they were roughly the same age, but he had been wrong on that before. Remarkably wrong, in fact. Which deeply made him question what the elders of his kingdom were teaching the children, and perpetuating into the families. If there was anything that he could possibly do to stop the pointless bickering and making people simply do the jobs that they had to do...

But it was difficult enough just to hold on to their respect, much less try and change the way that they acted. Any mistake that he made as a king was attributed to his blindness. And he granted that it was certainly a challenge, but the amount of whispering he hear behind his back of the need to find a decent king to replace him. It was like they thought because he couldn't see them he couldn't hear him. But his ears were the main thing that he had. They were what let him do the things he needed to do, both as a man, and as a king.

He cut the ladies off when he had heard enough. It was evident to him that neither had truly done anything worth punishing, and were making mountains out of molehills. The woman on his left, however, he recognized the voice of. This was not the first time she had been before him, and the things that were being said about her sounded familiar. That much suggested that she was a problem, and so she sentenced her to a month's worth of public service.

As the women were taken away, he rubbed his forehead, just over his eyes. The sound of their voices had been piercing, and he was already getting a headache. And they had been the first of the day.

Lovely death

"How long are you going to hang around?" she asked quietly, her voice weak. "I thought you would have gone already. Don't you have other things to do?"

She was an old woman. She had celebrated her one hundred and third birthday just a few weeks earlier, and the party was long over, yet he had not left her side in that time. He had been with her for some many years now, hovering over her shoulder, merely keeping her company and observing her actions. He did not speak to advise or discourage, but was simply a presence in her life. At first it had been uncomfortable for her, but with time she had grown to welcome it. But she was growing old and tired, and she knew that she was a weight on the shoulders of her family.

"How many things have you missed because you have spent your time with me? And why? I have a hard time believing that we would never see each other again if you were to leave. That is what you do after all, isn't it?"

He had missed many things in the years that he had been with her. But when he had arrived, despite her age, there had been a spark in her still that he had not seen in others he had visited in some time. It made him curious - curious to know what it was that gave her that life that she still held onto. And in the time that he had spent watching her, trying to learn where that spark came from, he had found himself oddly fond of her. And so he had stuck around and continued to watch. And he had grown closer to her. But this was not the first time she had spoken to him like this.

"I don't know why you're still here. You never speak to me. You can't even hold a pen to write anything. Maybe you're incapable of talking? I don't know, but it makes this difficult, you realize. But look at me. I am a hundred and three years old. I am well past my prime. Is that not why you came here in the first place? Is that not your purpose? It is time. Well past time."

Without a word, finally, he nodded. He was well aware. More so than she was. Holding out his hand, the scythe slithered into existence, and he gripped it solemnly. This was his purpose. This was his job. Even if he had come to love her.

Inside jokes

When you spend enough time with a group of friends, or in a community, or as a part of a fandom, eventually you start to form some inside jokes and references. Which is cool, it helps to form a sense of companionship and continuity, carrying things from the past forward with you as you continue to grow. But it is also weirdly amazing just how much this can happen, regardless of what kind of community it is that you're a part of.

This is a thing that's more or less always existed, but in recent years a new word has come about for it: "meta." On the internet, things are described as being meta so often that the word has virtually lost meaning. And I think it does have a meaning, and it does have a place, but people have started to push past that. There are some really cool communities out there that you can find, with absolutely fascinating origins and purposes, that have been ruined by being filled with nothing but meta inside jokes.

And some place have figured out how to balance that. This conversation in my head got started because I was looking around where I normally get prompts from, and I found a surprising number of meta prompts, relating back to the community that made the prompts in the first place. Those meta prompts were some of the highest rated, but when looking at the newer and more current ones, they actually weren't that common. Which is good - it's nice to join together from time to time like that, and have a good time based around where you are.

Meanwhile, I've found a community before that's based around making high quality gifs, and some of the early examples are incredible. But looking at the newer stuff, people are actively criticized and rated lower if the gif the submit isn't just a joke about how their community only makes gifs about themselves. I could understand putting in small hints or jabs at themselves in the background, but every single submission? You're basically just telling people that if they're new and don't get the jokes, they're not allowed to be there.

And that's not the point of a community. The point is to have a space around which people can come together and talk about the things they like, and is always willing to include new people if they are interested in the same thing. Inside jokes aren't bad, especially if you help the newer members to understand and appreciate them. But if the joke is that there's a joke about jokes based on jokes, just... What the hell are you even talking about anymore?

Learning

"Cador, have you ever been in love?"

Cador looked over his shoulder at Sarah, who was looking at him from her spot at the table as he was cooking dinner. He had seen the look in her eyes recently. That sort of distracted, far off stare into the distance as her mind was filled with thoughts of another. It had been years since he had rescued her from the streets and given her a place to live, years since he had taught her about who he was and what kinds of things he had experienced. He had wondered how long it would be before she experienced this.

"I have been," he answered simply, returning to his work. There were many more things he could say than that, but he wished to let her lead the conversation. Ultimately, this would be about her, and the love she was beginning to feel, and what she was going to do about it. If during that process she wanted to know more about his own love affairs, she would ask.

"How many times?"

"That's a difficult question to answer," he explained without looking back at her. "There are varying kinds of love, varying degrees. I can say that I have loved several. But to have been in love with them is perhaps a much smaller number." There was a long pause after that, and Cador knew that Sarah was partially taking in what he had said, but also waiting for a real answer. She had a way of keeping quiet until she heard what she wanted to hear. "In over a thousand years, three times. And nothing compared to the first."

"Only three times?"

"It was very painful to lose the first. Even now, I have never forgotten her, or what it felt like to be with her. I remember our children, and our grandchildren, and how I had to fade out of their lives because of my immortality. It was several hundred years before I could begin to move on. And as I said, even then, nothing compared."

There was a long moment of silence. Now he could tell that she was truly thinking about what he had said. "How did you know?"

Cador picked up a dish and served out dinner, placing it in front of Sarah as he sat across from her. "You can't know for sure until you are already there," he said. "So there is no point in being afraid of taking a wrong step. Just be aware of the steps you are taking, listen to your instincts, and always push forward as long as the path is steady."

Commander

Irene leaned back in her chair, resting her head against a half closed fist, feeling - as usual - stiff and uncomfortable in her formal clothing. Her advisors were - as usual - arguing over what was the best step to take moving forward, as their submarine traveled ever closer to its destination. They were on their way to make a political visit to one of the neighboring kingdoms, which was currently in the middle of a civil war. They were to act as a median between the two sides, hoping to help them see eye to eye so that Irene's home kingdom would be able to keep trade lines open with them - they were an essential source of medical resources, which were beginning to run dry because of the war. Frankly, Irene couldn't care less which side one, as long as the trade routes continued to flow - there was no downside to either side as long as this continued.

Her advisors, on the other hand, were very divided. Roughly half of them wished to primarily aid the established lordship, who had already repeatedly sworn to uphold the trade lines and all other agreements that their two kingdoms had already made in the past. The other half wished to aid the rebellion, under whose control new alliances, trades, and agreements could be made. They were less experienced in the running of a kingdom, and it was therefore possible that under rebellion rule, they as outsiders might be able to have increased influence, increasing their own kingdoms benefits and gains.

Doing so, however, was a gamble - but so was siding with the losing team. One way or another, despite how good of a median they acted as, one side was going to be in control at the end of the civil war. And being on the good side of the victor was the truest way for Irene and her kingdom to benefit. If they appeared in anyway as a threat to the side that won, they were likely to be cut off in a number of ways, and while the trade routes may not be closed off entirely, they were likely to be siphoned and choked to the point of near worthlessness.

"Enough," Irene finally stated, firmly and with fire in her voice. The word cut through the fighting of her advisors and their voices died off in an instant, all eyes turning toward her. "There's no point in bickering about who we support when we know little about them," she said flatly. "I advise that rather than make assumptions about people you have never met and what they think and how they feel about us, you observe them once we arrive. See with your own two eyes what kind of people they are. Do not decide which side to support until we have already been there for some time."

"And what if one side decides to attack us the moment we land?" one of the men asked, who was a clear proponent to fight against the rebellion, and the implication clear in his voice of which side he was speaking about.

"Then you will be glad for the weapons that we have brought with us."

Between realities

There was a period of time in which my girlfriend of the time and I would actually fall asleep on my couch, because we didn't feel comfortable moving to my bedroom, but we just felt so comfortable laying down together. I don't sleep well in general, so it was hard to fight off the feeling of drowsiness that came with the comfort. We'd usually sleep like that for maybe an hour or two before she'd have to go home, because again, we didn't feel comfortable moving to my bedroom, so we certainly didn't feel comfortable with her spending the night - not that we didn't want to, we were just concerned about what our parents would think.

I drop in and out of dreams incredibly quickly - I've had full dreams while asleep for a half an hour, and if I'm not awake between dreams for particularly long, I can actually return to and continue a dream that I was just a part of. Occasionally, this makes it difficult to discern when the dream ended and reality began, at least between parts. Some of my dreams have even been realistic enough - if completely ridiculous - that I will forget if a conversation I had was in a dream or in the real world.

One night, as we were cuddling and sleeping on the couch, I happened to have a nightmare. I have absolutely no recollection of what this nightmare was about - even at the time the moment I woke up the nightmare had disappeared - and I might have never even known that I was having a nightmare at the time at all. However, during that same period of time, my dog had a habit of going to the front door and barking at absolutely nothing, right around 8:30-9:30. Which just so happened to be around when we had fallen asleep that night.

The sound of his barking woke me up, but I was also accustomed to his bullshit, so it didn't fully pull me back to reality. But I was scared. I had been in the middle of a nightmare, and the sound of my dog frantically and crazily barking was certainly not the best wake up call. There was a tightness in my body in that was the only thing I was really aware of in that inbetween state.

The thing that really pulled me out of the dream wasn't the barking, but the frantic whispers of my girlfriend telling me that it was alright. I had no idea what she was talking about - but as I came to, I realized how hard my fingers were dug into her side as I gripped her. That was the tightness I was feeling. And my grip had woken her up more than the dog's barking. Even as I realized it, it still took me a second to actually register and let go of her. Even then, that feeling of fear from the nightmare wouldn't go away. I knew I was awake, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, but it still clutched at my heart. And it wouldn't let go of her, either.

Strangely, I didn't have any nightmares when I actually went to bed that night. Fortunately, that was what helped me feel better by morning.

Lithography

It was dark and dank down there, making it difficult to read the already hard to decipher symbols that covered the walls. The ruins had remained underground for generations - while they hadn't been unknown of, it was difficult just to get down to them, and the few who had made the push to explore them hadn't found much other than the cryptic runes that were so prevalent. It was assumed that they were some kind of ancient forgotten language, but it was almost impossible to translate, due to the lack of any consistency in the lettering or frame of reference to how the language was formed.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Jared asked, trying to slink his way through the rock faces to enter the main cavern. His little brother, Ramsey, had found a book that he had been seemingly obsessed with for a few weeks. Ramsey was a different kind of kid - he spent most of his time reading textbooks and dictionaries, rather than fiction or playing games. He loved to learn. And there was nothing wrong with that, but he was ten years old and knew more than Jared did at eighteen. It was just strange.

"Yeah," Ramsey responded. "The directions are pretty clear."

"What directions are you talking about?"

Ramsey looked back up at his brother, who was a few dozen feet behind him. He was a lot smaller than Jared, which made it a lot easier to squeeze through the tight spaces of the caves. "These ones, on the walls," he said, pointing up at the incoherent words that spanned the walls. "They tell you which way to go."

"How can you even read those?" Jared asked, disbelief evident in his voice. "No one even knows what language they are."

"It's in the book."

"Are you crazy? If there was a book about it, people would know."

Ramsey waited for his brother to catch up before handing him the book. "I've already got most of it figured out. Just look at it."

Jared took the book and looked at it, unsure of what to think. He knew that Ramsey was smarter than he was, and that he didn't have any place questioning his brother, but what the kid was saying was crazy. He opened the book slowly, to find blank pages with a faint blue tint to them. He flipped through the pages, confused and concerned. What was going on? Had Ramsey lost his mind?

But when he looked up, things were clear. The darkness was gone, cast aside by shimmering blue lights along the walls, clear words and sentences written glowing where before he had seen only runes.

"There's still a few words missing," Ramsey explained. "That's why we have to go deeper."

Dragonslayer

Marcus was resting on his porch in the afternoon heat, quietly watching the sky with seemingly not a care in the world. He had spent his afternoons this way for some weeks at that point, having completed his farm work early in the morning to beat the sun, and leaving the rest to do as the sun fell and it became cool once more. He found it peaceful and relaxing, having a day in and day out pattern to follow, not fearing the unknown or that someone could take his lifestyle from him. At one point in his life he had feared these things greatly. But as of lately, that fear had left him, and he had found new peace the likes of which he had never known.

"Hey, Dragonslayer," he heard one of the local boys call out. "What are you doing lazing around? What ever happened to being the hero this town deserved?"

Marcus turned his eyes to the boy, who was standing only a few short yards away from him. The boy was the son of the baker - still just a child, unsatisfied with his lot and life and wanting more. Marcus knew that feeling well. It was only in recent times that he had learned how to overcome that. "There'll be no dragons slain by these hands, boy," he called back. "If you think this town deserves a hero, than you be he. It is not my place."

"You've changed since you went up there, old man." For some reason, those words struck him. Was change so bad a thing? It was change that had given him this peace. "You never slayed that dragon. Don't pretend like you can hide that fact. So why are you so content to mull around and look happy? The rest of us live in fear of its attack, and yet you pretend to have fought it and won the day."

The frown on his face grew in an instant, overtaking him like a parasite. He could feel his body shaking with anger. "I never claimed to have fought that dragon, boy," he warned with cold words, "and you'd be best to remember that. I was once a fool who thought himself capable of killing gods. I suggest if you value your life you not go down that path."

His words visibly shook the boy to his core. "What did you see up there?" he asked quietly.

"That the fears of this village are but folly and bring nothing for us here."

Seeing gods

Micaiah sat down on a log in the middle of the forest that she had been exploring for the last few weeks. She had just recently moved out of her parents house and made quite a travel to a new town - which, rather than moving into and associating herself with her new neighbors, she had moved just outside of, and spent most of her time associating herself with the nearby forest. She wasn't much of a people person - her parents had been hunters, and she had been trained in that profession. She was used to spending her time amongst the greenery and its wildlife, making do on her own. She didn't much need other people, though being able to see them from time to time was not unwelcome.

When the ground under her feet began to shake, however, she wasn't sure what to think. It was a very consistent, but not constant motion. It didn't feel like any earthquake that she had experienced before. She pushed her feet flat against the ground to get a better sense of the shaking, and was surprised to find that she could feel the vibrations coming from a direction. Whatever was making it was heavy and powerful, but fast, sending ripples through the earth with each step it took as it ran along the ground. And with each passing moment, the vibrations were getting stronger.

That meant it was getting closer.

She moved to crouch behind the log she was sitting on, looking in the direction the vibrations were coming from. Whatever was coming, it was probably best that it didn't see her. She had no idea what kind of animal it would be - the animals she knew of that might be powerful enough to send those kinds of vibrations certainly could not be doing so as quickly as this was. And it wasn't likely to be more than one creature, or else the pattern they came in would not be so consistent.

It appeared seemingly from nowhere. A massive white horse, taller and longer than any building she had ever seen before, with a beast of a man on its back, dressed in armor polished as white as the hair of his horse. He carried a spear in one hand that was longer and thicker than the tallest tree she had ever seen, and on his back was a sword contrastingly black, as though it were a dozen anvils flattened and forged together. They were there for only a moment, tearing through the forest at breakneck speed, but the vision was burned into Micaiah's eyes.

It was the god of war.

And he was riding straight for her village.

Depression

This isn't really a blog post that I ever really wanted to write, or ever planned on writing, but with the way that things have been going lately, I feel like it's important for me to write. Not so much because I want people to be able to read about it, because I'd really rather they didn't, but because the words need to be said, and putting them out there where they can be seen gives me a sense of having actually said them.

I'm not an ok person. I have a lot of problems, and most of them I have avoided and ignored for far too long, because I didn't want to face the reality of them. I've been working on facing them, but have been forced into a position where I really don't have much of a choice but to face them anymore. And in facing those problems, I have to face myself, which is something that I really haven't done before. Which is really weird to say - how can you not face yourself? How can you look in a mirror and not know who you're looking at? I don't know - but that's what I do.

I always thought that I could get by anyway. Despite my problems, I'm a weirdly selfless person - I'm far more concerned with trying to help others get the most out of their lives than I am with getting the most out of mine. It makes me happy to be able to help others - genuinely happy. Working in retail, days when I feel like I was able to actually connect with people and help them do what they needed to do, and walk away a little better off, has made me happier than anything I ever did for myself in school.

So somehow I have to learn how to turn that want to help inwards. And part of how I plan to do that is through use of the other thing that consistently makes me happy - making things. There's something satisfying about crafting something with your own two hands - part of why I enjoy making my knife so much. And I've made many things throughout my life, many of which I've given away as gifts, because it makes others happy, which makes me happy.

So I want to make things for myself. Things that I would have made for others, perhaps. I want to make things that have meaning and stories behind them, even if they only mean anything to me. I want to find ways to feel purpose and meaning, and I want to create things that I can carry with me to remind me of those things. I suppose other people use tattoos for that kind of thing - I'm not big on tattoos. I'd rather have something I can physically hold that I myself made. And maybe it'll take me a while to figure out what those things are, and even longer to actually make them. But I'm gonna work on it. Or else I'm going to fucking lose it.

End of the world

My dad is a huge fan of apocalypse stories - I'm not so much, but I grew up on them, so I have a bit of a soft spot for them from time to time. I don't really understand what his fascination is with the world ending, and why he wants to see it so badly, but it's just what he's always wanting to see. We say 2012 when it came out for pete's sake - god, that movie was horrible. But we sat through the whole thing, even though it didn't take long to realize how bad it was, because it was the end of the world and Dad had to see it.

Personally, I'm more interested in what happens after the end of the world. The way that society breaks down, man made structures are destroyed and overtaken by nature as the years go by and there's no one left to do anything about it. A few people, of course, who were fortunate enough to avoid the tides of war and famine and natural disaster would be around, but they certainly wouldn't have the power to be able to have any impact on the world. They would just be trying to get by. Becoming hunter gatherers once again as the world seemingly becomes anew.

I find that to be the fascinating. What kind of person would you have to be in order to survive in that kind of world? Would you have to force the world to change around you, or would you be the one to bend first? Would the kind of people who aren't set to be in that kind of world with that kind of mindset be killed off, or would they be forced to adapt? How much does it depend on the person, and how much is it just a question of what one will do to survive?

I can see an argument for the enjoyment of apocalypse stories being that they test the boundaries and limits of the human mind and body, but I believe that everything that happens after that would test those boundaries and limits far more. It is one thing to see the world collapsing and failing around you. It is another thing entirely to have already witnessed it and lived to tell the tale. Especially when there is no saying how many people that you know and care about made it through with you.

Games like The Last of Us have incredible worlds like this and explore these well, even if I don't like them as a whole. I want more games that do this well. The whole zombie thing really hurts the concept.

Shadow fight

Freya stood in the alleyway, watching the men approach her, makeshift clubs and blades in their hands, herself unarmed and with little to protect herself. They had made it apparent what they wanted from her - her money and her body, in no particular order. And if they had to take her life as well in order to garner access to those, well, so be it. They weren't above a little old thing like murder.

It was late in the afternoon, and most people were on their way home from work, clogging the streets but leaving the sidewalks and backroads empty. Freya had backed herself into a corner, with nowhere to go and no one to call to for help. Under cover of darkness she might have been able to make an escape, but her shadow was long and easy to spot well after the rest of her had disappeared around a corner. Damned thing had gotten her caught yet again.

The intent in the men's eyes was clear as they drew ever closer. She could see her own shadow begin to crawl up one of their legs they were so close. The thing had gotten her into this mess - it was about time it got her out of it.

The man dropped with a shout of surprise, the wound in his leg obvious, though its origin was unclear. The pain that shot through him caught him off guard and had sent him tumbling to the ground, which had caught the others off guard as well, making them pull their attention away from Freya. With quick strikes, her shadow lashed out at them from their friends body, staggering them and pulling them to its level so it could claw at their eyes and throats. The black figure was incorporeal, yet as it dragged across their bodies it tore and shredded their skin, mortally wounding them, blinding them, all without a trace of what had hurt them.

Freya bolted over their crumpled bodies, vaulting over them so as not to leave a mark of her own on them. When they were found by the police, likely in only a few short hours, they would likely be already dead. Even if they weren't, no one would believe that a person's shadow had assaulted them and done what it had. And no amount of scientific and medical testing would corroborate with their stories, or given any evidence that Freya had even been there at all.

Escapee

It quickly became apparent that it wasn't exactly going to be much of a stealth mission for Regan to make his escape. As if it hadn't made enough noise as he broke the chains binding him from the walls, even after attempting to wrap them around his limbs to keep them from dragging along the ground, they continued to shift on his body, jangling and clinking together and making quite the ruckus. Either way they dragged on his limbs, making them heavy and awkward, and making his footsteps into loud thuds that resounded through the hallways, constantly calling the attention of the guards.

The guards came in waves as he drew further and further away from his cell, and as they arrived he would have to uncoil the chains from around his wrists so that he could use the heavy steel as whips to fight them off with. It was only thanks to his quick reflexes and trained hearing that he stood a chance against them. His massive strength would mean nothing to him if he couldn't catch the guards unaware, seeing as they came running at him equipped with varying types of guns. His chains whipped around the corners to clothesline the guards, crushing their heads and throats to incapacitate them. He had crushed the remaining cement at the end of his chains early on - he required a bit more precision now, but at least the chains weren't quite as heavy.

He passed by a variety of other prisoners as well, who watched him pass them by in silence. He knew what they were thinking. "Why should he be allowed to leave while I remain? He should free me, or I should call the guards." But most said nothing. They could see the chains attached to him. Some watched him destroy the oncoming guards. There was no question that he was not one to be messed with, and that his mind was already made up. If he was going to free any of the others, he would do it of his own volition.

It took Regan hours to make it to the exit of the prison facility. He hadn't been able to tell which of the keys and cards the guards carried on them were the ones for the right door, and many of them had been crushed and distorted by his blows anyway, because of the way they wrapped around people or flailed wildly on contact. Instead he smashed the electronic lock in the chain, which forced the door open as a safety precaution. It had been many years since he had seen the outside. And it was too late for anyone to stop him.

Years

Michael stood at his front door, staring at the old wood of its frame, contemplating whether or not he truly wanted to push it open today. It had been more than fifteen years since he had last stepped outside of his house, ever since the fall. The world had gone to shit that day, and Michael had locked his doors and sworn never to leave his house unless he was being dragged kicking and screaming to his death. His windows were barricaded, furniture was pressed up against every entry way, and he had even found a way to create his own kind of cement in order to seal the back door.

But fifteen years was a long time. It was hard to say just how much of the world had changed in that time. He didn't just keep his windows closed, they were completely covered over, and he was never going to uncover them. That would be risking being found and targeted. If he wanted to stand any chance of surviving, it was best that no one knew he was still alive. But after all this time, what had happened to the world? Was it still in chaos? Would he still be in danger if he left?

He was finally beginning to run low on supplies, though. He had spent yeas surviving off of a small garden he had built in a spare room, the floorboards torn away to reveal dirt below, which he had tilled and planted with a few seeds that he was able to make from some of the food that he had with him. Potatoes, strawberries, apples. Mainly those kinds of things. It had taken him a few tries to get it right, and he had nearly starved, but he'd finally found a way to reliably grow them. But the soil was getting old and worn, and it couldn't support him for much longer. He had maybe one harvest left out of it, if he was lucky.

He couldn't rely on that. Even if the last harvest did grow, it would be meager, and maybe not even fully grown. It could poison and kill him if he was unlucky. Hell, probably not even unlucky. Those odds were better than the ones that he would survive with it. If he wanted to live much longer, he needed to brave the outside world again.

Slowly, unsurely, he unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was late in the afternoon - something he couldn't easily tell inside - and the wind was blowing gently. There was nothing outside. No one roaming the streets. Ruins and rubble of the buildings which had once been plentiful. Grass and weeds had started to grow and overcome what remained. There was little else left of the world. His home had been one of the few that remained standing.

He was luckier than he thought he was.

Free Write 15

I really don't want to write right now, in all honesty. I haven't felt that way in a very long time, but for reasons that I've talked with people enough for one day, I honestly just do not want to write today. But I know that if I don't I'll regret it, so at the very least I can do a free write and just get some words down.

I've been doing pretty good with my fiction to real talk ratio. I'm ahead on fiction, even with this real talk now, which is good and not something I manage to pull off very often. It's usually a tipping back and forth game, so the fact that I'm ahead right now makes me feel a little bit better. It takes a lot more effort than I originally anticipated to be able to make that kind of ratio work, though the fact that I've been finding new ways to get prompts and actually been running out of real world things I wanted to talk about helps as well.

Though it's been incredibly slow, I've been enjoying making my knife. I like creating something with my hands, and being able to actually see the progress that I'm making is incredible. I'm thinking that once I finish this I'll have to work on some similar stuff as well. Maybe make some more knives, or get back to making some instruments. I'm not sure at the moment, but it's definitely something I'm going to have to look into and consider.

I've been bouncing around between video games a lot the last month or so, struggling to find something that I really want to stick with. As excited as I am for the games that are going to come out in the next month or two, I feel like that's going to continue to be a problem because of just how many games I want to play. By the second week of February, there are going to be about six games out that I want to play, and many of them are going to be long and demand excessive amounts of my time. I thoroughly want to play them all, but I have a feeling that's going to be problematic. Especially because I want to try and push myself into working on other things. I'm not sure how many games I'm going to be playing at all in the coming months.

Security

Marcus woke up with a pounding headache, not entirely sure where he was. As he opened his eyes, all he could see was blinding white. White walls, white ceilings, white lights, white everything. It took him a moment to adjust, and as he did he started to see the silhouettes of people, all dressed in white clothing. Everything was so... sterile. Was he in a hospital? And if so, why?

Someone saw him sitting up, and a murmur shot through the people around him as they scurried away from his bed, eyeing him cautiously over their shoulders, as if he were some kind of dangerous outcast. He had no idea who any of the people even were, much less why they seemed to be afraid of him. They all seemed to be big and burly men, too, with tattoos poking out from under their purely white sleeves. If anyone should have been afraid of anyone, it was him of them. He had no idea where he was or why he was surrounded by these kinds of people, but it was quickly making him uncomfortable.

He tried to get up and ask someone where he was or what was happening, but his ankle was latched to the bed and he was unable to move. Even if he could, as he tried to move, the people closest to him took a step back, the fear now apparent in their eyes. Why were they so afraid of him? What had he done? What could he have done?

It wasn't long before another man came, dressed in white as all the others, though he had a much more professional look about him, what with his clipboard and glasses. He eyed Marcus studiously, who was sitting on his bed and looking back at the man, unsure of what to say.

"You seem confused, Marcus," the man finally said, not looking up from his clipboard. "Do you not recall last night? I know that we knocked you up with quite the dose, but I didn't think it would give you that much of a hangover."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're in prison, Marcus. The highest level security prison on the planet. It took us a while to get you in here. But the world can only stand so much of the origami killer."

Edge

At the edge of the universe, far away from the milky way and its sun, where barely more than darkness was visible, sat a campfire, resting on the solidity that only the edge of the void can create, eternally burning though it had no fuel. Beside it sat a man who had long since forgotten his own name, or where he had come from, or how he had ever managed to roam so far away from home. He tended to the campfire, making sure that no far passing black holes or supernovas tugged at or pushed out the flames. He protected them, and they gave him warmth and light where there was so close to being none.

If he had once had a sense of time, it possessed him no longer. In the back of his mind he recalled a word called sleep, though he wasn't entirely sure what it meant or if it applied to him in any sense. Far on the horizon of space he could see the universe, ever so slowly turning and shifting. He could tell it was expanding, but as it expanded it pushed him and his campfire further away as well, so he was well aware that he would never get to be a part of it. He had accepted this long ago.

He prodded at the flames every now and again. Not necessarily to give them more life or anything, but merely to change the way that they curled and rose, so that he had something new to look at. He wasn't quite sure how often he did it, but it was certainly less often than he saw a black hole pass by. The distortions those brought as they passed, pulling in at the space around them, made them easy to spot from where he sat. He saw everything that the universe had to offer.

But he didn't see the approach of the other until she had already sat down beside him. The two looked at each other, dazed by the sight of another person, not entirely sure what to make of it. He could never remember seeing anyone who looked like him before, and from the look on her face, he guessed that she was experiencing a similar train of thought. But as they stared at each other, neither one of them said a word. Perhaps because they had long since forgotten how.

Noiselessly he handed her the prod with which he saw to the fire, and she took it and prodded the flames without needing to be taught how. The flames sparked and curled, shifting in shape before settling form and flickering on as it always did. And the two sat side by side and watched it burn.

Anointment

Carla knelt down before the winged figure, bowing her head and laying her blade on the ground before her. The figure had called out to her, flown down from the heavens, and chosen her. She had been blessed by the gods. She was to be not a champion of man, but of angels. She had also felt that her purpose was greater than that of the earth, but she had never had any reason to truly believe that, and had merely resigned herself to fighting for the causes of king and country. But this was something more. This was something greater.

She closed her eyes as she saw the angel lift her blade off of the ground. She was prepared. Whatever this process would be like, however she was to be judged, she was prepared. She would do anything that she was asked to do to become the champion that she had always dreamed that she would be. She could hear the angel muttering words in a language she couldn't understand, felt warmth envelop her as light on the other side of her eyelids shone brightly. Her skin felt like it was on fire, but she endured the feeling, ready for hat would be on the other side of it.

Her own sword pushed down against her shoulders, feeling as though it was slicing into her shoulders, causing her blood to fall down her front. Still she waited, patient, ready to take from it what she had waited so long for. The pain was ever growing as the burning sensation seeped into the spaces where her sword had pierced her own shoulders. She used all of the willpower she had to keep her eyes closed.

The angel murmured words again before speaking aloud in English. "Rise," it called out, its voice unlike anything Carla had ever heard, "and receive your final judgement." Carla stood slowly, only opening her eyes once she was fully risen. She was completely surrounded in flames, dancing against her skin, and she could see her blood spilled on the ground in front of her.

"You have been judged," spoke the angel, "and found lacking."

"Wait, but I-"

And the sword was flying through the air, aimed directly at her neck.

Window

Andrew dashed down the hallway toward the window, knowing that he was only going to have the one chance and that window of time for it was abysmally small. He snapped open the harness on his hip and pulled his pistol forward, a practiced motion that made it possible for him to do while he was running.

"Are you insane?" The voice was coming from the headset shoved into his ear. He knew it was the voice of his commander, and he knew that she was about to tell him that what he was going to try and do was not only idiotic, but impossible. He was going to die attempting it. But he was going to die regardless in the coming moments, and he'd rather go out trying something impossible that might save the lives of others than playing it safe to buy himself a little more time. "I know what you're going to do! Do you seriously think that you even have a chance of succeeding?"

"Maybe I don't," he said aloud, knowing that the microphone pushed against his cheek would pick up the sound, "but I can't just stand around and not try. I need to do something. And we both know that that ship is carrying enough weapons to change the course of this war, and if it lands in enemy hands we're all going to die."

"You have a pistol, and you're on the sixth floor of a building! If you break through that window, even assuming that that ship doesn't have bulletproof glass in the windows, the precision required to hit the pilot with a square shot to the face while falling is far beyond human capacity. You won't have the time to aim, even if you could aim that precisely. There are a hundred things working against you right now. It's a one in ten billion shot, if not staggeringly higher!"

"And that's a chance that I'm going to take."

He fired two rounds into the window as he approached it, weakening it just enough that when he slammed his weight against it, the glass shattered and didn't slow him down as he passed into the open air. A dozen feet below him he could see the plane hovering in place, waiting for permission to land. He only had a few seconds before he would be below it. He swung his pistol forward and pulled the trigger as many times as he could, firing round after round into the cockpit. He dropped past it an instant.

The last thing he saw before his face was crushed inward by the rising ground was the slight waver in the plane's positioning.

Party

Mathias stood amongst the crowd, sipping on wine, a decorative rapier hanging comfortably from his hip as he watched the rich men wander to and fro, gladly putting their wealth on display for the world to see. They were all perfectly aware of why they had been invited - because they had the wealth not to question the hundred dollar fee on their way in, or that they had to pay for their cocktails. Even aside from that, they carried on them great jewelry, mass wealths of cash, and numerous other things with which to display their power through money.

Mathias, on the other hand, was there because his face looked remarkably similar to one of the patrons whom he had recently robbed, which was fortunate for a thief. He had entered unquestioned, and while he had had to pay the fee on his way in and buy a few drinks to fit in, it had been easy to pilfer far more than he had paid in the first place as he made his way around. The profits far outweighed the cost - more than he could say for any of the idiots around him, even if he hadn't stolen from them. The only thing they were there to do was to get their names and faces out there amongst their peers.

But Mathis had not come in alone. He had brought a date - a sexy little vixen, dressed in a tight black dress with long cuts down the front and up the leg. She looked good - good enough that no one could stop staring at her, even as she slipped her hands in their pockets and lifted their wallets. It was easy to get lost in her curves. Fortunately, Mathias had practice.

They met behind one of the pillars in the hall about halfway through the night, planting a kiss hard on one another's lips the moment they came together. "How have you been doing, my prince?" Drana asked, pulling a golden crown out of her bag and placing it on Mathias' head. "Are we full of riches now? Can we get the hell out of here so that the only one looking at my cleavage is you?"

Mathias chuckled and adjusted the crown on his head. "Now why would I look at your cleavage when I can just strip you entirely?"

"God that sounds so much better than this dull party. Let's get the hell out of here."