Free Write 18

I've been talking with one of my friends lately about starting to play Dungeons and Dragons. We're both really into the idea, and doing a fair amount of research into how we would go about it - the problem is finding other people to play with us. We know a few people, but some of those people are why I haven't played up until now, so it would be ideal to find others. Unfortunately we're not exactly social people - as you may have guessed by us wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons.

In the meantime we've been listening to a podcast of people playing it, which is kind of why we want to do it so much. It's just a few friends being silly and having a good time doing it, and it's really enjoyable to listen to. I've tried a few other times to watch people play, and a lot of the time there's just too much shit going on or they're trying to hard to get into it all, and I just lose interest. The smaller group laughing and making an effort to include each other - and especially because so many of them are new to the game - makes it a lot easier to keep up with and enjoy. Which, in turn, makes it more appealing.

I've talked several times about the Dark Souls game series, and the games that are like them. Why I like them and why I don't. A new similar game came out today, called Nioh, and I would venture to say that it is one of the best instances of these types of games. It is very hard, but in a very fair manner. It gives you everything you need to succeed, in many different ways. There are tons of options, and the more you learn to use them, the easier the game becomes. And, unlike so many others in the genre, it actually has a story. And not just a story, but an interesting one. It takes place in the real world, and the more I see of what's going on, the more I want to learn. It doesn't give all the details right off the bat, and you still have to dig around for some of the details, but it pulls this off in a much more charming and rewarding matter. I'm not very far, but at this rate it could very well become my favorite.

It's been pretty hard to actually think of things I want to write lately. Hard to say if that's because of depression or because I've just written so many things already. I'll keep pushing - always pushing. So we'll see where we end up tomorrow.

Revival

He wasn't sure when the pain had ended and the endless darkness had overtaken him. There was nothing but the darkness. No sound, no sights, no smells, no feeling. No thoughts. No sense of the passage of time. The void was everlasting and ever powerful. If he had even been aware enough to recognize it, he wasn't sure if it would have been a blessing or a curse after the tremendous pain that his death had been. A knife directly into his heart, twisted and torn free from his body, which collapsed to the ground. There were only a few brief moments of consciousness between that and the life draining from his body. But those moments had been excruciating.

The air rushing back into his lungs was almost as painful. Almost, but not quite. His body had forgotten what exactly to do with the air, and he choked on it, sputtering, trying to force himself to properly use the air. As he breathed heavily and awkwardly, he forced his eyes to open, but the light and the colors were so intensely different from what the darkness had been he couldn't keep them open. He tried to cover his eyes with his hands, but his limbs were heavy and unresponsive, and he felt them slamming into his face like a hard slap. That certainly wasn't helping.

The sounds around him were deafening. Even his own breath was hard to hear, so incredibly loud where once it had been indistinguishable from the rest of the world around him. And then there was the shouting. It could have been a hundred, a thousand people standing around him for all he knew, yelling at one another to do this or to do that, that they needed to know something, that they needed something. He couldn't follow the voices. They were too loud, too frantic.

And then their hands were all over him. Moving his limbs, pushing him down, trying to attach some things and detach others. He had no idea what was going on. He tried multiple times to open his eyes and look at them to see what was happening, but he it was just too much for him. He couldn't comprehend it, and it was too painful.

Was this what hell was like? Was that what awaited him in the afterlife?

"We've done it!" The first clear words. "He's back!"

Random encounter

Stan walked down the dirt road connecting the villages, trying his best to ignore the base instinct in his gut to go off the trail and walk in the grass. He was well aware of the consequences of doing such, and while he was prepared to handle them, he knew that the chances of danger were considerably lower as long as he stayed on the man made road. And yet the grass continued to call to him.

He was merely a trader. He was being sent between the villages, trading precious resources that one had but not the other, and pocketing the profit that he made between them. He sold the resources for more than he bought them for in both towns, and while it wasn't a huge margin, it was more than enough to have a living from. And because the margin was reasonable, no one ever questioned him on his prices or attempted to bargain with him. They were more than willing to pay his prices - they would gladly pay more, in fact, but the lower prices he provided had earned him their trust.

It was, however, a somewhat dangerous life. Wild animals and bandits were frequent along the road, which was why he carried with him a spear at all times. He was well versed in its use, and while he was no martial artist flying through the air and destroying everything in his path, he was more than skilled enough to keep things away from him and down them before he could be injured. From time to time he was even able to slay something with valuable skin, and push a high profit. Those were the few things that he sold at a higher mark up, purely because he had put his life in danger in order to obtain it. On the outside it may have seemed like an easy profit, because there was no monetary price he put in to obtain the skin. But it took work to prepare, and he had more than once been injured in the process. After all, he wasn't a hunter. He was just protecting himself.

His eyes continued to be drawn irresistibly to the grass. He knew he shouldn't. But his feet deviated from the path, and then he was looking down at green beneath his toes.

It wasn't long before the world seemed to melt before his eyes. It lasted only a moment before reality rushed back into his sight, and the massive panther was standing before him, its hair raised and teeth barred. His spear was swinging into his hands before he even fully registered what was happening. A practiced motion as his instincts were taking over.

It looked like this would be another profitable trip.

Siege

The van pulled up to the museum in a hurry, and as soon as it came to a halt the rear doors were bursting open as fully armed police forces piled out, moving around the museum's doors and windows. There was a moment of silence as the forces were listening through the walls, attempting to pinpoint where the invaded terrorists were holing themselves up. Barricaded doors and windows at every turn, though it was nothing that they had not faced before.

A singular shout, and then shotgun blasts at short range blowing through the barricades before bodies were barreling into the building. Quick, calculated movements on all sides pushed inward, peeking around corners and eliminating terrorists with quick shots between the eyes or bursts to the chests. They were unconcerned with leaving behind bullet holes, bodies, and blood. The only thing that they were concerned with was eliminating the bad guys and saving the lives of the good guys.

As the insertion team made their way through the building, a defense team rappelled up the building on the outside, breaking through the upper barricades and quickly firing on any in sight down the hallways. They were thinning the upper floors for the insertion team, and creating escape routes if anything were to happen. Plus, if any terrorists were to attempt to escape the building, they would have the tactical advantage to eliminate them before they could get away.

It was inevitable that some of the police would be taken out as they advanced through the building. They didn't expect any different when they signed up for the job, and they certainly didn't expect any different when they entered the building. Those who were still alive continued to push forward, moving past the bodies of their fallen comrades. When things were over, and there was no longer any fear of attack, then they would move through the building once more and gather up the bodies. Until then, they were merely another obstacle to pass over.

The museum was massive, and though they had a good team working through the building, it took them well over an hour to establish that the parameters were now safe. Bodies were strewn all over the place from both sides. The terrorists had been completely annihilated, while half of the police force had died as well. It took them several more hours to remove all of the bodies, and it would take weeks to process them all.

But the people were safe. And that was what mattered.

Free Write 17

I've been really into building things lately. That knife I was working on, now another, and a couple instruments. Going to take a blacksmithing class, finally, after entirely too long. I've never really considered my writing to be an artistic expression for me, because there's nothing visual about it, which I know is inaccurate but that's just how I think of it. It feels like building these things is my form of doing art, though. Which works out well, because it incorporates my constant desire to be doing something physical and doing things with my hands. I wish I had continued building instruments years ago - perhaps it is one of those things that is greater because I held off. Hard to say.

I miss playing Monster Hunter, especially with my friends. That game is just straight fun once you get into the mechanics of it and really start to understand it. It's probably one of the only things where I've actually experienced the feeling of improving upon every failure. Plus, even though every player fights the same monsters, the amount of variety between playstyles and how each weapon works means that it is incredibly rare for two players to have the same experience. I feel like there are very few games where that is true - even in a game like Dark Souls, which is theoretically built in the same way, everyone is going to spam the one good attack on their preferred weapon, and everyone is going to die repeatedly on their first playthrough. That isn't necessarily true in Monster Hunter.

Of course, I probably still won't pick it up again any time soon. Not because I don't want to play it or because it's bad, but just because there are so many other good games coming out that I want to play. Continuously playing Overwatch, and recently having started Dragon Quest 8 now that it's on 3DS. I played it originally years ago, back when it first came out on PS2. It was my first exposure to the Dragon Quest series - I just saw the word dragon, a sword, I was in. Good thing, too - I love that game. But I never beat it. Now, years later, after having lost my copy of it a very long time ago, I finally get to play it again. And it's a much better version of it, too, with added content and quality of life improvements. Moving slow, but I am loving this game all over again.

I'm also making an effort to try and actually decorate my room, which is something I've never really done before. I dunno, I guess I just never really felt like I needed to? I don't really know how to explain it. It's just not something that I've done. But I'm going to, and we'll see if that changes how I feel about anything. I kinda doubt it, but it's worth a shot. Who knows.

Stuck

Phil woke up to the familiar sound of music as the borrowed alarm clock went off, the morning radio show having just started. He pushed the sheets of his bed aside and got up in a practiced, fluid motion that he had practiced more times than he cared to recall. The words to the song had been so repeated that they had all but lost their meaning god only knew how long ago. Always the same song. Always the same verse. Always the same DJs.

He already knew that the water in the pipes would be freezing cold, both in the sink and in the shower. It had been that way for a very long time. No matter how many times he had tried, he had just never been able to get used to the cold water first thing in the morning. He'd given it up... months ago, if not longer. It wasn't like it made a difference anyway. He always smelled the same. His hair was always the same level of messiness. And his clothes were never any more wrinkled than they were the day before. Which was especially good, because he never had any more than just the couple pairs of shirts and pants.

He still checked out the window every now and then. Just to make sure. To see if the fresh snow had yet fallen, or if the crowds heading out to the central park had finally yielded. They hadn't, of course. It always looked exactly the same as he looked out the window. And he knew that that meant he had to get to work. Or, at least, he was supposed to. He'd spent a while skipping out on it. It didn't make a difference whether or not he was going to be there, but in recent times he had found that singular consistency to be a blessing. It kept him grounded in a way, in a long passed dream that had once seemed like reality.

He passed through he sea of faces like he was in a trance. He knew them all. Each and every face, the name that went with them, the life story that had brought them to where they were today. How long had it been since he'd memorized them? How many times had he spoken with each of them individually in order to learn it all? How many times had he saved some of their lives? How many times had he ended them?

And that was to say nothing of his own life, which he had taken in every way imaginable.

How many lifetimes ago had it been when he stopped the passage of time? When one day had ceased to pass into the next. One day continuously repeating over and over for the rest of eternity. And why had it started? When would it end?

He knew every answer. Except for those.

Night sky

Megan pulled her car up to the gate and put it in park as the sun was setting behind the horizon. It had been a long, backwoods road with virtually no people on it, so she wasn't too worried about anyone coming up behind her looking to go through the gate - especially at this time of day. And it wasn't like this was the first time she had done this, anyway. No, this was something that she did on a regular basis. It helped her to have a feeling of peace and placement.

She got out of the car and could immediately feel the wind on her skin, just cool enough to start the series of goosebumps running along her chest and arms. That was a feeling she never got tired of - it made her feel alive. She took in the smell of the fresh air, carrying the scents of the trees and flowers into her nose. It was a wholly different experience from being home in her house, where everything was controllable and safe. She had no power over this - and it was invigorating.

It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but she made her way up onto the roof of her car, carefully stepping to distribute her weight and ensure that she didn't damage anything. The area she was in was just shy of the hills, which made the horizon much more interesting and exciting. The car gave her that extra little bit of height to see everything over as well, allowing her to see the very top of the sun behind the hills.

She watched the sky as it dimmed, and the colors shifted through their reds and oranges until they returned to a much darker blue than had been present earlier in the day. In the process, the stars began to fade into existence, forming their constellations and giving light and beauty to the sky even as it grew darker and darker into the night. The stars were unchanging and everlasting - they were one of the few constants in a world of ever changing variables.

Being out here like this was something that she had never shared with anyone else. She wasn't sure if she ever would. To be alone with her thoughts in the silence was calming, and knowing that there was no one else whose schedule she had to adhere to was refreshing. If she ever was going to share this with someone, it would have to be someone exceedingly special. And even then, it was a toss up.