Short Entry 30 : Signed Contract

 Amanda Pauline Moors died that day. That she already knew she would wasn't really something that made it better. When the day reached the end, she was as dead as she knew she would be in the morning when, for the last time, she woke up. As always, she kissed her still sleeping boyfriend before moving to the bathroom to make her self presentable. Not that she actually needed the make up and bath and all those things. One of the reasons she had been chosen was her beauty, and now, five years after, on the day of her death, she was as beautiful, or more, than then. If her boyfriend felt that she had kissed him with more passion than she normally did, returning from the bathroom, a robe on her body and nothing else, he never said. He barely woke up to say goodbye when she left for work. He would, in fact, only really wake up hours later at the tireless ringing of his alarm.
 Amanda had decided, long ago, that this day should be different only because she would die and nothing else. So she took the same bus to work, she ate at the same place, talked shit with the same colleagues and even managed to advance a fair bit of her work before the time to leave for home. Bravely she managed to not think about what was surely coming, but deep in her mind there was a faint hope, as the hours passed and she lived still, that for some reason she would not die in that day. She, as it is with most of us, had no idea how she would die, where it would happen or even the time of the day. Only the day had been agreed upon five years before. On her way home she broke her contract. Somehow, the fact that the day lingered on and she still lived started to weight on her, so as she sat on the bus, she took out a small notebook that was always on her purse and began writing down:
 "My name is Amanda Pauline Moors and five years ago I won the lottery. Not really, but it how my sudden improvement in life was explained to IRS and all that. In fact I signed a contract saying that I agreed to die five years after, or today if you are so inclined, in exchange for a pretty decent sum of money that would allow me to climb up a couple of steps on the social scale and improve the life of my family. So we moved out of the illegal tin houses where we lived an into " at this point she stopped, ripping the page out of the notebook, crunching it into a tiny ball and dropping it into the purse of the woman who was next to her, because the bus was stopped in the middle of the street by armed thugs. Everyone was screaming as one of them entered the bus, assault riffle in hand, screaming for some foreign god. He scanned the crowd for an appropriate sacrifice and seeing Amanda went to her, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the front of the bus while the rest of the terrorists held the remainder of the passengers under their sights. The man holding Amanda took a manifest from his pocket, turned to the crowd and demanded them to film, broadcast it live to the world, and then read the paper out loud. Amanda's mind was racing through the fear of death and acceptance so she didn't even register what it was that the man was saying. It didn't really matter anyway. He probably believed those words as much as Amanda believed in Harry Potter. He was doing this, not for the money, the reason Amanda had accepted to die in this day, but for his virgins or some other silly thing that some priest promised him if he'd just sacrifice his life for "the cause". For a few seconds she tried to make sense of the fact that she'd knew she'd die in that day and that this men here was going to kill her and how those two things connected. It made no sense. Could it be that she would die anyway but not as was intended by the men whom she had signed her contract that long ago? Not that it mattered. And the man had picked her out of all the people in the bus. The little girl standing next to the rear window would have been a more shocking sacrifice. Or the old woman who had sat besides her. Old people and children are always better targets for terrorists, better yet if they are women. In her mind, the fact that the terrorist had picked her was a sign that yes, this was to be her appointed death.
 He was silent now as were the passengers. She wondered what it was that he had said. It wouldn't matter, why would it matter? Taking a deep breath she saw the gun muzzle being pointed to her and decided to go with a smile. So she smiled, wide and winking to the little girl who had her eyes fixed on her, she was shot dead. Instant death, as had been contracted.
 She wasn't there to see the aftermath, the sniper shots that killed the terrorists seconds after, the relief, pain and sadness in the face of the survivors, nothing. She didn't see, in the days after, how her death was used to fuel a new rising hate for immigrants and eventually the rise of a fascist party to power. How it was that her death effectively began the war, the last war.
   Later that day, the old woman found a piece of crumbled paper in her purse and threw it into the garbage, never to be seen again. On the same day, her building was caught in a industrial fire and burned to the ground. If the other copy of her contract still existed, all this years after, it must have been destroyed on that day as well. Two, probably unrelated, murders happened that day as well. A old man that used to work for a campaign management company and the boyfriend of the women killed in the bus by the terrorists, mugged and knifed to death on a main street.

The Witch

 She came into my life just like a typhoon, grabbing me by the hair and throwing it all into the air, spinning and swirling and bumping me into the walls. And then I hit the center and floating among the chaos we were happy. Chairs, cars, houses flew by, a occasional corpse still screaming and flaying. I was too transfixed by her smile in my lips to notice the devastation as I should have. If I had I might have prepared myself for the fall that was about to come.

I shrugged off all the signs, the long black dresses, the long black hair, the black cat, the black cauldron. Sure, she was eccentric but then again, wasn’t I as well? Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself.

It must have been mid-November, I think. I remember waking up in the middle of the night at her place and she wasn’t in bed with me. So I got up and went searching but couldn’t find her and went back to bed, assuming she had gone to the bathroom or something. A bit after I heard the window open, steps, the window closing. I was completely certain that no door opened and when I took a peek I saw a shadow of a woman holding a broom. I dismissed it as a dream and went to sleep. Next morning she was there, next to me, so I asked where had she gone during the night but she shook her head and said something like “only to the bathroom”. I forgot that for a while and only after... There I am, moving ahead before time. December came and with it, the cold finally came too.

It was mid-month and we had agreed to meet at her place, and I had a chance to leave earlier from work so I decided to surprise her by arriving before. As I was getting there I saw someone leave her building, a shadowy figure that was carrying in his hands a potion bottle, like the ones in computer games. I shrugged it off, again, and went inside. As I reached her floor I knocked on the door and she came to the door. Seeing me she smiled half-sideways, and said, “oh, wait just a second, I’m gonna get dressed because I have to go shopping.” and closed the door on me. I heard the sound of something big being dragged, something like pans and pots being hurriedly stuck inside a closet and a bit later she met me outside. I was going to ask something but gave up on it, I’d be going to her place after so I’d see with my own eyes.

I never got to go back to her place. She dumped me on the checkout line, with some lame excuse about “not feeling ready” but I knew right then that something else was wrong. So I started stalking her, just a tiny bit, I mean, I’m not one of those crazy persons. I would just sit nearby and kept looking at her window. Once, midnight and full moon, I was nearly falling asleep there, considering calling it a day, when I saw it : her window opening and a woman-shaped shadow flying away in a broom. 

So yeah, I’m pretty sure she was a witch. That would explain so much.

Telepaths

-”What do you mean ‘it’s obvious’?”

-”I never said that!”

-”No, but you did think it.”

-”How?! Oh, so..”

-”Yes, it is true. So what do you mean?”

-”Well, if they go that way, they’ll meet the enemy faster and.. No, sorry, just read it in my mind and tell me instead...”

-”Actually, since ever. But I only trained it enough to be able of doing this past month.”

-”Oh, that symposium?”

-”Yeah. It wasn’t a symposium on the sexual repression of small mammals. Sorry to have lied to you?”

-”I.. Don’t think that was the worse lie you told me...”

-”WHAT?! No, that much was true, I do love you.”

-”Then.. How, why..”

-”I had to. I only got permission to talk about it with you today because of the attack.”

-”The attack! I was forgetting that.”

-”Don’t worry, I currently coordinating the defenses. We have at least another half an hour until they can get this close.”

-”Oh. Wait, you can send thoughts too?”

-”Only to someone whit the same... Abilities.”

-”There are others. Of course, else you wouldn’t have been trained.”

-”Obviously.”

-”Government?”

-”Not quite. Private company with DARPA funds.”

-”Hum. Should you be telling me all of this?”

-”I have been authorized to do so, yes.”

-”So... Are there other... Abilities?”

-”...”

-”What’s that look?”

-”I got a.. Strange reply. Yes, there are different abilities.”

-”And you are part of a team of misfit teenagers with powers fighting for the sake of mankind?”

-”No. We are not the x-men. Or the avengers or whatever other group you might be thinking off.”

-”Then... What are you a part off?”

-”I told you just now, a non-gov DARPA sponsored program. That is currently in the middle of it’s first ever operation.”

-”And this operation... Who are we being attacked by?”

-”Aliens.”

-”You do know that, even without mind reading, I can very well tell when you are lying right?”

-”I do, sorry. Wanted to lighten up the air since what I am about to say is not a lie and not good either. They have broken through our defenses.”

-”Oh fuck. What do we do?”

-”Grab a gun. Follow my lead.”

-”Ok.”

-”Quick, let’s meet them on hall 5"

-”Let’s go.”

-”WHAT?!”

-”What what?”

-”Just got a stupid order. ‘sec.”

-”Okay.. You look scary doing that face.”

-”Hum.”

-”So?...”

-”FUCK. Let’s go.”

-”Wait, hall 5 is the other way.”

-”I KNOW, LET’S GO.”

-”I follow.”

-”And be quiet now. Don’t think of anything.”

-”How do I do that?”

-”NOT LIKE THAT!”

-”Sorry.. I’ll.. Try?”

-”Never mind. Think of running down to hall 5!”

-”But we aren’t”

-”Just do it!”

-”Ok ok”

-”Better.”

-”So now what?”

-”Turn left he...Oh fuck, run back!”

-”What?”

-”RUN BACK!”

-”Oh come on! What’s going on?”

-”NO! DON’T SHOOT HIM!”

-”AAAAAAAH!”

-”NO! My love, no no no no”

-”I.. Don’t... Think.. I’l..”

-”Shh, don’t speak, let me look at it.”

-”hum. What..”

-”Don’t worry it’s not so bad, you’ll live through this!”

-”You.. Still. Can’t. Lie. To. Me.”

-”I’m sorry... They... There is no enemy.”

-”W..What?”

-”It was a trap to kill you. They can’t allow anyone to know.”

-”Bu...But...”

-”Yes, but they knew I’d tell you. They can see what comes after.”

-”Hun... “

-”There, don’t speak my love. Just... Let me hold you one more time and kiss you one last time.”

-”Bu..”

-”Don’t care about the blood.”

-”Lov... Y..”

-”And I loved you too...”

Short Entry 29: Necromancer

The necromancer smiled as the waves of skeletons and other undead swarmed the castle.
His victory was sure now, nothing could stop his hordes, no matter how strong their heroes or how advanced their technology. The machine gun was a scary instrument of death, spitting lethal projectiles at an astonishing rate and would mow down a army of living human beings in minutes. But his army wasn't alive in the first place. Sure, some of the skeletons and zombies might get destroyed by the projectiles but most wouldn't even flinch after getting hit. And the ghosts were, well, intangible. Bullets will just pass through them. Of course, intangible soldiers might seem like a stupid idea, not being able to use weapons or even punch enemies. But ghosts could do one thing: scare people to death. And that they did.
 The war elephants seemed like a problem at first. Blindfolded tons of fury running into the field and stomping and crushing his hordes. Soon however, the necromancer realized there were only a few of those, and he had sent a few of his most intelligent minions to deal with them. If you knew what you were doing it wasn't hard to stop an elephant: slice his legs until he topples and then, either kill it or leave it there, incapacitated and wreaking havoc.
 ‎Now, the walls of the city were about to fall, most of the machine guns had already been dealt with, by overwhelming superior numbers alone. And each enemy that fell was a new soldier on his army. All was going great and he allowed himself a moment of near relaxation, lowering his guard for a few seconds so he could taste the screams of his victims. Not that he was a particularly sadistic person, but those screams of pain and defeat tasted, on his mouth, like victory. And what he packed in sadism he more than compensated on ambition. He concentrated once more, blocking all sound from outside.
 ‎In those brief seconds one of his companies had been overrun and was now nearly defeated. Zombies required constant guidance else they were too stupid even against the stupidest human alive. He guided the surviving zombies into a tight square, surrounded by enemies on all sides and then, with the humans busy hacking their enemies, he sent another battalion of skeletons to attack then from behind. Skeletons, being animated piles of bones, would never stop to relentlessly follow his orders and his orders were simple: kill, maim, destroy.
 ‎Having taken care of that, he focused his minions on the city walls once again. They wouldn't last much longer, as the ghosts were already inside, driving the men to madness. At least a few dozen had already jumped to their deaths from the city wall and soon one would, in an act of desperation, open the city gates. If not, he'd have to interfeer more directly.
 ‎ Outside the gates, most humans were already dead and the very few that weren't had started to run towards the forest. They wouldn't go far, since skeletons don't let go of their prey unless told to and the necromancer wasn't about to do that, lest some did manage to run and tell the other cities how theirs had fallen.
 ‎He kept his watch on the entire battlefield inside his mind, a feat that would have driven mad most people, seeing from a million eyes at the same time, but for him that wasn't all that hard. And, he chuckled thinking, he was already mad. The c city was surrounded and with no escape possible from it. Soon the gates would open and his undead minions would enter it, ravaging all inside. Once that happened, he'd leave his comfortable throne and enter the city at well. Until then he allowed himself to think back to the day he had first gotten his powers...

 It had been a rainy summer like no other he remembered in his still short life of twenty years, and he had gone out for mead and wenches, as it was the expected from someone at him: a third son of a noble house. He didn't much care for mead and cared nothing for wenches but his father had beaten him into it ever since he had been 14 and that incident with the stable boy had happened. The boy had been imediatly killed, of course, but he had only been beaten to near death and then locked in his room for almost a year.
 When he was allowed back outside, his brother was assigned as his chaperone up until he regained his father's trust. Stubborn as he was, it still took a few years of beatings until he actually began doing something other than talking to the wenches, who would then talk to others and it would reach his father's ears, leading to yey another beating.
 It had been the summer and now fall was arriving. Having just left a woman, some farmer's daughter, in her own bed, he was returning home through the forest when he saw the old temple. He had known about it, everyone knew, but he had never seen it. People used to say the temple wasn't really even there, that it was from a time long gone and only showed up on very rare occasions. Intrigued and not wishing to go home and have to tell his father exactly what had happened, he walked into it, through the giant mouth shaped door. Inside it wasn't as dark as he had expected, despite the darkness outside. His lantern went out but somehow he could still see and so he moved on, walking down a long, straight corridor. After a while he reached a room, oval in shape, with an altar on the center of it, and he finally saw the source of the light that had guided him there, a huge fire that burnt behind the altar. As he approached it faint voices started to ring in his ears, too soft and far away for him to understand them, but with each step they became louder until he realized it was a chant, ominous in sound but made of words he didn't recognize. As he stood by the altar, somehow not quivering with fear, he had glimpses of hundreds of dark robed people standing around the chamber but at soon as he turned his head to them, they vanished. Placing a hand on the altar a voice thundered over the chants: "FINALLY!" it said "I HAVE WAITED MILLENNIA FOR SOMEONE FOOL ENOUGH TO ENTER" and then, for the first time, he was scared but his legs wouldn't obey him so he stood there, as the voice, now less thunderous, began talking anew "You shall inherit my powers and my curse. And I will be free!".
 From the flames, a skeletal shape walked over to him and a hand stretched out to touch him in the shoulder. He felt it imediatly, the power surging through his body, and, with it, pain. Unbearable pain, countless eons of it, running inside his mind, as if he had been burning alive for ages and ages. And then, another pain. The pain of death, of all the deaths that power had caused. When the pain ended, all that was left of the skeletal shape was a small pile of ashes. The fire it self extinguished and the chanting stopped, with what sounded like relief. And then, he fainted.
 When he woke up, he remembered. Not just his life but the life of the Necromancer, a dark wizard from a time far far in the past, before magic had faded from the world, who after nearly conquering the world was stopped at the last minute by a conclave of wizards and kept locked inside the temple, until someone showed up and the Necromancer a could pass his powers and die. And so, he gained powers behind his wildest dreams, the power to raise and control the dead. As he exited the temple he saw that the first was covered in snow, despite it still being early fall as he had stepped inside. Only when he got home did he realized how long it had been: almost three years since he had "disappeared I'm the forest", leaving behind a worried family. In the meanwhile his father had died and his brother inherited the land and the title, becoming lord of the city.
 ‎
 As he was lost in thought, the city gates had fallen and his army of undead marched inside, killing all they found. He rose from his throne and wished himself inside the city, by the castle gates. When the doors opened, to allow the soldiers to run from the ghosts into the sword of the skeletal guard the necromancer had, he waited for the way to be clear and then walked over to his brother who sat, clearly filled with terror, on his throne. Right before the necromancer killed his brother he yelled : "and now you won't ever tell Dad that I like to suck stable boys again!".

Short Entry 28: Telepaths?!

-”What do you mean ‘it’s obvious’?”

-”I never said that!”

-”No, but you did think it.”

-”How?! Oh, so..”

-”Yes, it is true. So what do you mean?”

-”Well, if they go that way, they’ll meet the enemy faster and.. No, sorry, just read it in my mind and tell me instead...”



-”Actually, since ever. But I only trained it enough to be able of doing this past month.”

-”Oh, that symposium?”

-”Yeah. It wasn’t a symposium on the sexual repression of small mammals. Sorry to have lied to you?”


-”I.. Don’t think that was the worse lie you told me...”

-”WHAT?! No, that much was true, I do love you.”

-”Then.. How, why..”

-”I had to. I only got permission to talk about it with you today because of the attack.”


-”The attack! I was forgetting that.”

-”Don’t worry, I currently coordinating the defenses. We have at least another half an hour until they can get this close.”

-”Oh. Wait, you can send thoughts too?”

-”Only to someone whit the same... Abilities.”

-”There are others. Of course, else you wouldn’t have been trained.”

-”Obviously.”

-”Government?”

-”Not quite. Private company with DARPA funds.”

-”Hum. Should you be telling me all of this?”

-”I have been authorized to do so, yes.”

-”So... Are there other... Abilities?”

-”...”

-”What’s that look?”

-”I got a.. Strange reply. Yes, there are different abilities.”

-”And you are part of a team of misfit teenagers with powers fighting for the sake of mankind?”


-”No. We are not the x-men. Or the avengers or whatever other group you might be thinking off.”

-”Then... What are you a part off?”

-”I told you just now, a non-gov DARPA sponsored program. That is currently in the middle of it’s first ever operation.”


-”And this operation... Who are we being attacked by?”

-”Aliens.”

-”You do know that, even without mind reading, I can very well tell when you are lying right?”


-”I do, sorry. Wanted to lighten up the air since what I am about to say is not a lie and not good either. They have broken through our defenses.”

-”Oh fuck. What do we do?”

-”Grab a gun. Follow my lead.”

-”Ok.”

-”Quick, let’s meet them on hall 5"

-”Let’s go.”

-”WHAT?!”

-”What what?”

-”Just got a stupid order. ‘sec.”

-”Okay.. You look scary doing that face.”

-”Hum.”

-”So?...”

-”FUCK. Let’s go.”

-”Wait, hall 5 is the other way.”

-”I KNOW, LET’S GO.”

-”I follow.”

-”And be quiet now. Don’t think of anything.”

-”How do I do that?”

-”NOT LIKE THAT!”

-”Sorry.. I’ll.. Try?”

-”Never mind. Think of running down to hall 5!”

-”But we aren’t”

-”Just do it!”

-”Ok ok”

-”Better.”

-”So now what?”

-”Turn left he...Oh fuck, run back!”

-”What?”

-”RUN BACK!”

-”Oh come on! What’s going on?”

-”NO! DON’T SHOOT HIM!”

-”AAAAAAAH!”

-”NO! My love, no no no no”

-”I.. Don’t... Think.. I’l..”

-”Shh, don’t speak, let me look at it.”

-”hum. What..”

-”Don’t worry it’s not so bad, you’ll live through this!”

-”You.. Still. Can’t. Lie. To. Me.”

-”I’m sorry... They... There is no enemy.”

-”W..What?”

-”It was a trap to kill you. They can’t allow anyone to know.”

-”Bu...But...”

-”Yes, but they knew I’d tell you. They can see what comes after.”

-”Hun... “

-”There, don’t speak my love. Just... Let me hold you one more time and kiss you one last time.”


-”Bu..”

-”Don’t care about the blood.”

-”Lov... Y..”

-”And I loved you too...”

Short entry 27: Darkness clad

Darkness clad he walks in the old city, the metal under his boots clanking on the stoned floor as he approaches the Avenue of The Way. Ancient books describe the Avenue as " a long winded road linking the City with the Palace of the Gods, with statues spread on it representing the twenty two concepts that are God". In this days, as he walks down from the ruins towards the ruins, grass and other invasive weeds spring from between the cobbles and the statues are old and weathered, their inscriptions barely readable. Still, he knew the order by heart, and upon the first statue he said the appropriate words, that I will translate here since our alphabet can't actually reproduce the sounds he used : "On the first step of the journey we are all fools". By recognizing his stupidity and foolishness he is now ready to start learning. 

 Darkness still clad him as he went to the next statue. As dark as it was, enough that a normal person wouldn't be able to see his own feet, he had no lights in him nor did he seem to need them, being as he was part of the night. The second statue was of an old man at a table. "We pick our cross to bear with us till the end". On the old days, there would be a priest near by with items he'd place on the table for pilgrims on the Way to take with them, now the table was empty except for a set of three lone cobbles on it. He picked one at random and moved on. A woman of old stone waits him at the next stop, sitting on a throne : "We all know things we never learned and that we thank to You lady" and after a bow, the darkness that is he walks down again, just a few steps to another stone woman in a throne. But while the previous one was serene and religious this one was regal and fierce. "In your reign, lady, we are given life" were the words he spoke now. Again he bowed, as he will do again five more times : once for each other stone woman on his path to wisdom and the Gods. His stride slows down, as if he is fearful for the next statue. It's a long walk and he's dragging his feet all the way to there. Even the darkness surrounding him seems to fade a bit as he approaches the statue, the biggest so far, a middle-aged man, sitting in a throne, scepter in hand, sword in the lap crown in the head. Instead of bowing he actually kneels this time and speaks with a lowered head "We are nothing before your power and we are here to praise and adore". He somehow manages to get back up while turning around and then passes by the statue without looking straight at it. This particular statue representing the God of Power sees to be harder for him than the rest as he lets out a long breath and resumes his fast pace towards the next one, another man in a throne holding the sacred symbols of god in his hands. "Through you our prayers reach God and for that we thank you". His steps take him quickly and not very reverentially away into the next statue , that are actually two, a girl and a boy, both looking at each other naked bodies with tenderness and warmth. He smiles, for the first time in many months, maybe even years as he intones "We are the fruits of your love and for that we love you". There's no way for me to do justice to the magicality of the sound his evocations had in that long lost and forgotten language, where every one of them is a mirror of it self, sounds that start high pitched, go low, and returns to the high pitch or vice versa. I could try to translate it this, more common, language but it still wouldn't be the same. 

"we are your love's children and as children love you do we" is more akin to the phraseology used in his evocations. But not all translations can be this easily done, nor is it important. In fact, even the words aren't important, only the actual meaning, so he could have used other sentences as long as the meaning "we are the progeny of the love of god and in for that love we thank him" was in there.

 The next statue is a chariot being pulled by a couple of mythological creatures, winged lions that would, to a historian of our days look vaguely babylonian. "With your power we triumph" he says, arms outstretched, his darkness as wings of night in the lightless void that surrounded everything in the Way. The next statue also has the right to a bow, being a woman wrestling a lion: "You are what we have of strength".  Next on the Avenue, instead of a sitting in a pedestal as the others have, the statue of an old man sits inside a cave, a lamp now devoid of light in his hand and a staff of wisdom in the other. Kneeling before the entry, he says the words "We learn of you and all knowledge is ours" and, from his pockets, produces a candle that he places inside the lantern, lit, the first light seen there in ages. As he leaves the cave, the small light from the candle hardly visible just a few steps after, the next sculpture is seen on the distance: a eight-spoked wheel. No statues adorned the wheel, but you could tell that the outer face used to have engravings of people on them. Despite the massive size of it and being made of stone, as he reaches it he spins it: "You spin the wheel and we live your will". He doesn't stay enough time to see where the wheel falls. Both because he is not supposed to, since you only know your fate as it hits you, and because even if he wanted to know where the wheel landed he couldn't as the engravings have long lost meaning.

 Another woman, standing and holding in her left hand a sword and in her right hand scales. "You are justice and by thy laws we abide". He bows and leaves for the next one, a gallows with a victim, but hanged from a single ankle. The statue is a feat of engineering, all that weight being kept in place only by a stone rope. He speaks once more "We are prisoners of your fate and to it we submit". He doesn't delay here, and moves, fast paced but anxious almost as if he, once again feared the next stop, but this time I think all of us would understand his fear : a grim reaper complete with cape, cowl and a scythe. "At your feet we die and change into new" he says. Again, he won't linger next to the statue, moving fast to the next one, a woman mixing the drink from one pot into the drink from another. His words are spoken hastily and even his bow is short and fast "you measure our worth and we accept". He almost runs towards the devilish statue that stands next on his way, his darkness running behind him. Barely stopping he says "you are freedom from temptation and punishment as redemption". Still running, as if afraid he wont have time to reach the other end of the Avenue, he would have missed the next one if he didn't know it by heart. Next to the road, standing tall and half-toppled, a tower. Here he stops as he intones "you are ruin and we are destruction all ends to begin anew". 

 He regains his breath, or looks as if he did, and resumes his fast stride down the cobbled street, towards a naked woman, crouched at a small lake and bows as he says "you are hope for us" and then resumes his fast walking, looking over his shoulder a couple of times. Way above the Avenue of the Way a light, at this distance small and weak, shines and slowly moves down, not even stopping to pay his respects to the statues. The dark one now runs to the next statue, two dogs howling at a moon that appears as if it is flying above them. He won't even stop, just slow down slightly to mutter "In the knowledge of you there are no mysteries" and resume his run. The light one seems to have picked up his pace as well and is already getting past the wheel. The light stops there for a short while, as if reading the fate of the dark one before resuming. Darkness still clads him as he reaches a sculpture of the sun. He stops only time enough to say "yours is the happiness we have" and then moves down to the angel with a trumpet that stands next in his way. The light now seems to be flying towards him, having reached the naked lady in the lake as he says "we are ready for your judgment". He stops, straightens himself and turns around, throwing his cloak of darkness into the floor and showing the beautifully ornate silver and gold armor he wears under it. He unsheathes his sword and screams the words he had just said : "WE ARE READY FOR YOUR JUDGMENT!" 

 The light reaches him, a young man, sword red of blood in hand, with a dress of pure light, and a voice that makes the earth shiver in fear saying : "it is time to abandon darkness and return to light". His voice is compassionate and almost peaceful while at the same time frightening and filled with authority. The one who was clad in darkness smiles again and, with sorrow on his voice says "and I never did reach enlightenment and inner peace" as he attacks the other. His movements are precise and well thought you can tell immediately this is someone who is very well versed in the art of sword fighting but. Even so his movements betray that he has no hope of winning and sure enough, the first time the Light one strikes, the dark one falls dead on the ground, a slight whisper raising from his lips, either a "thank you" or a "curse you", bot words sounding almost the same in that language that angels speak.

Short entry 26: of cauldrons

She came into my life just like a typhoon, grabbing me by the hair and throwing it all into the air, spinning and swirling and bumping me into the walls. And then I hit the center and floating among the chaos we were happy. Chairs, cars, houses flew by, a occasional corpse still screaming and flaying. I was too transfixed by her smile in my lips to notice the devastation as I should have. If I had I might have prepared myself for the fall that was about to come.

I shrugged off all the signs, the long black dresses, the long black hair, the black cat, the black cauldron. Sure, she was eccentric but then again, wasn’t I as well? Oh, I’m getting ahead of myself.

It must have been mid-November, I think. I remember waking up in the middle of the night at her place and she wasn’t in bed with me. So I got up and went searching but couldn’t find her and went back to bed, assuming she had gone to the bathroom or something. A bit after I heard the window open, steps, the window closing. I was completely certain that no door opened and when I took a peek I saw a shadow of a woman holding a broom. I dismissed it as a dream and went to sleep. Next morning she was there, next to me, so I asked where had she gone during the night but she shook her head and said something like “only to the bathroom”. I forgot that for a while and only after... There I am, moving ahead before time. December came and with it, the cold finally came too.

It was mid-month and we had agreed to meet at her place, and I had a chance to leave earlier from work so I decided to surprise her by arriving before. As I was getting there I saw someone leave her building, a shadowy figure that was carrying in his hands a potion bottle, like the ones in computer games. I shrugged it off, again, and went inside. As I reached her floor I knocked on the door and she came to the door. Seeing me she smiled half-sideways, and said, “oh, wait just a second, I’m gonna get dressed because I have to go shopping.” and closed the door on me. I heard the sound of something big being dragged, something like pans and pots being hurriedly stuck inside a closet and a bit later she met me outside. I was going to ask something but gave up on it, I’d be going to her place after so I’d see with my own eyes.

I never got to go back to her place. She dumped me on the checkout line, with some lame excuse about “not feeling ready” but I knew right then that something else was wrong. So I started stalking her, just a tiny bit, I mean, I’m not one of those crazy persons. I would just sit nearby and kept looking at her window. Once, midnight and full moon, I was nearly falling asleep there, considering calling it a day, when I saw it : her window opening and a woman-shaped shadow flying away in a broom. 

So yeah, I’m pretty sure she was a witch. That would explain so much.

The Tribe

 Grunk, son of Grank (and brother of Gronk, but that doesn’t matter) had a look on his face that could only be either jealousy or envy. Still, his words were nothing but courteous as he, according to the Tribe’s traditions, congratulated Drend, son of Drind for his win in this moon’s contest by presenting him his spear : “you stronger than all” he said “i recognize me as inferior”.

Grunk should have won, it was him who saw the mammoth, it was him who directed the mammoth towards the small clearing and him who trapped the mammoth with his trap. However, it was Drend who threw his spear first, after distracting Grunk. And so, the kill belonged to Drend and he made sure that everyone knew only who killed the beast and not who did all the actual hard work. So Grunk’s face is saying the exact opposite of his words, and if someone is noticing, it will be Unda. She knows Grunk better than anyone else in the Tribe, having slept next to him on the Cave many times before (and wishing she could keep doing it many times more). 

As the ceremony reaches it’s end, Unda is starting to feel a little bit of fear. Drend is looking at her, and since he is that moon’s top hunter, he can have his pick of a woman from the tribe. Unda is not even the prettier, Imda is. Nor is she the one with the best baby making body, that honor lies with Rast and her gigantic hips. But Drend looks at her with lust and something more in his eyes. Noticing this, Grunk snarls his teeth and turns his back on the Tribe. Surely enough, Drend goes to Unda and grabs her wrist: “you mine this moon” he says, gleefully and looking over to Grunk who is now leaving into the forest and misses this, as he wished to do.

Unda cannot fight him, he is bigger, stronger and in his right. He also doesn’t wish to waste any time, it seems, as he pulls her into the cave right away. As the moon’s top hunter he can have the inner cave for himself and his consort, and that’s where he takes her. She’s been there before, Grunk has been the top hunter several times before and he almost always picks her, despite her constant failure in making him a son. This time she doesn’t feel the same warmth she normally feels there, instead she feels a chill going down her spine, as of something bad was about to happen. Drend is everything but careful or sweet with her. He undresses her, ruining her favorite skin and throws her into the bed of dead leafs, jumping on top of her and hurting her back. He does his thing fast and violently, without any care for her pleasure or well being and then gets ups and warns her not to leave, he’ll be back.

Meanwhile, Grunk went alone into the jungle with his spear and nothing else. Hunting always calms him down and he doesn’t want to be in the cave, witnessing Drend gloating about a kill that should have been his and sleeping with a woman that is his. So he wanders, aimlessly between the trees until he spots a track : a sabertooth, this close to the Cave. Not common but not the first time it happens either. Smiling with the thrill of the challenge, Grunk gets down to his knees and starts following the trail. Immersed as he was in the tracking he doesn’t even notice he is moving towards the forbidden forest, where the spirits of the gods dwell. He follows the tracks until he reaches a small clearing where the sabertooth tiger is eating a small prey. He rises his spear slowly, points, takes a deep breath and intones a small prayer to the goddess of true aim, throwing his spear to the tiger. He is so sure of his aim, and knowing that he threw the spear with all his might, that he gets up and starts moving even before the spear reaches the sabertooth only to jump back as the spear hits the animal and falls down to the ground, harmlessly.

The tiger turns, slowly, and stands on his rear legs, looking both comical and scary, but not as scary as when it talks : “Brave Grunk” - the sabertooth tiger’s voice is deep as if coming from a cave and it doesn’t move it’s mouth to speak “you have been wronged. I can feel it. If you will it, I can grant you power to right your wrongs.”

Grunk is motionless, fear and reverence binding his feet on the floor. He opens his mouth to speak but closes it immediately after as if unsure. 

“No reply, Grunk, the fearless? The cat ate your tongue?” The tiger laughs, smiling if a cat can smile.

Grunk stood there, still motionless for a while, as the tiger approaches him, walking as a person would, and looks him in the eye. Their faces were nearly touching and the tiger-god roars at Grunk’s face. Grunk blinks but doesn’t run away despite being scared out of his reason.

“Good Grunk, you are indeed fearless. Go now, soon you will return here for my power.”

The tiger-god went back to all fours and resumed eating his prey as Grunk slowly backs away until his back bumps into a tree. Then he turned and ran home. As he was running he noticed the day was long gone and deep night was all around him, as if he had stayed in the clearing for many hours and not the few minutes it had felt like. As he was reaching the Cave, he heard sounds as if a discussion was happening, despite the late hour. He stopped short, still in the covering of the trees and witnessed a gathering of the Tribe at the Cave’s door.

Nerkt, the elder of elders, was chastising Drend, his staff of authority poking the younger man on his chest. Making a effort not to be seen or heard Grunk moved closer to listen to the old man’s words:

“.. your right? Unda was of baby age! She was asset to Tribe and selfish you killed her!” 

The younger man laughed : “She gave no baby to Grunk, she broken!”

Nerkt shook his head while he spoke again : “you lose top hunter of the moon prizes. You sleep in punishment cave tonight.”

Drend began complaining but the rest of the adults grabbed him and dragged him towards the punishment cave, a few mammoth lengths up the mountain, and threw him in there, rolling the stone door to make sure he wouldn’t escape.

Grunk heard all this but his brain refused to process it. Unda could not be dead, the gods would not allow that. He was still there, lying on the tall grass, when Nerkt nearly tripped in him, on his way to alleviate in the forest. 

“Grunk! Gods be praised, I feared we lost two today!” Nerkt said.

If the Tribe had had words for sorrow, Nerkt would have expressed his at the loss Grunk must be feeling. Since it didn’t, Nerkt just explained that Drend had been “too rough” with Unda and she had not survived their “baby-making”. Listening to this told as it was, Grunk lost his mind and screamed, a deep, primal rage-filled scream of pain.

He got up and ran back into the forest, tears flowing down his eyes for the first time since he had become a man, grunting like a wild animal, breaking branches and kicking stones indifferent to the pain. He wasn’t consciously trying to find the sabertooth tiger god clearing, but even so he stumbled into it. Less than an hour had passed since he had left but he felt like a entire lifetime older as he stopped, at the clearing entry. He raised his eyes slowly, knowing even before he saw him that the god awaited for him there. 

“GOD!” Grunk’s voice was both a scream and a growl: ”I WANT YOUR POWER”.

The tiger, that had been lying on the other end of the clearing, slowly got up to all fours and as he moved closer to Grunk got up to his back paws.

“As I foretold, you are back. Fear not, the power is yours.” The tiger placed his front paws on Grunk’s shoulders and licked his face.

Grunk felt a warm feeling on his body, the wounds from his wild run on the forest healing, his tiredness disappearing, and sensed as if he had grown, and in reality, the tiger seemed smaller now.

The sabertooth god walked back and said :”go now, Grunk, the fearless, and avenge.”

Grunk smiled and turning to a tree grabbed it with his hands, ripped it off the ground and crushed it with a hug. Grinning he ran back to the Cave. This time he didn’t even notice how much time had passed until he reached the Cave and saw that the sun had already moved high into the sky. Reaching the Cave he screamed for Drend : “COME DREND, TRAITOR, KILLER OF WOMEN!”

Imda came forth, looked at Grunk and instinctively took a step back. Her voice wavered as she said “Is that you Grunk? Drend is out hunting.”

Grunk growled, and turning to the forest sniffed the air. He found Drend’s smell easily and followed it. Drend was hiding and waiting for a prey, and did not hear Grunk arriving from behind, and as such screamed with fear and surprise as the god-infused man grabbed him by the hair and started dragging him, without a word. As soon as he reached a clearing, he threw the other man against a tree.

“YOU KILL UNDA, YOU DIE!” Grunk screamed.

Drend was still getting to his feet surprised and his legs wet, and tried to say something.

“NO EXCUSES. YOU DIE!”

Drend threw his spear but Grunk easily grabbed it mid air and broke it with only one hand. He started moving, slowly, towards the other one, who was now trembling with fear, unable to move.

“FIGHT ME DREND!”

Drend attempted to throw a punch but his hand hit Grunk’s chest as if it was a caress. Grunk laughed as he grabbed the smaller man by the throat, and kept laughing as he squeezed the life out of Drend. He dropped the body on the floor, Drend deserved no burial and no place on the Cave of the Dead, and moved away, back to the Cave.

Things would change in the Tribe now, Grunk would be elder above the elders and it would be his word that mattered. Since he could never again have Unda, he’d have all the women for himself and the next generation of the Tribe would be as strong as he was. Soon, he thought, they’d go to the other side of the forest and steal the women of the other tribes. Soon the entire valley would belong to him and his sabertooth-tiger-god powers.

Soon, the world would fear and love the name of Grunk, son of Grank, the fearless.

Short Entry 25 - Galactic Playboy

 The tentacle went down her back, zigzagging around the spine, slowly, until it reached the small of it. There it circled a bit before encircling the naked waist and pulling her closer to him.
 She gasped for air as another tentacle let go of her nipple and spiraled down her breast, before descending the body, following her curves until it reached the thighs where it gently but firmly pulled her panties off.
 Her body shivered when the third and forth tentacles, that had been innocently resting against her legs, both started climbing them from the inside, always slowly, but surely.
 Her lips tried to say something but all that came out was a gargling and heavier breathing has the green appendixes finally touched the inside of her body .
 Whatever resistance she might have had to this situation was long gone and she now gave herself fully, the small doubt that had been there at the beginning now gone : making love to a alien was good, and getting better by the second.
 She kissed his mouth again, his saliva was still sweet but not so overwhelming as it had been before, threw her arms around his slim body, noticing how his skin was now almost moist, warm and inviting. His tongues played with hers and kept her from screaming her pleasure.
 He rested her on the bed and caressed her hair, gently, before kissing her one last time and returning to his ship, not having uttered a single word, not even inside her mind as he had done before.
  "Wait!" - She shrieked as he climbed out of the window.
 He turned his head around, not moving his body and she asked, her voice more controlled - "will I ever see you again?"
  He was already inside the small vessel, it's lights starting to shine, when she heard, again inside her mind, that grave voice that had sent shivers down her spine : "I'm sorry."
 

Entry 30 - Waking Up

 She turned the alarm off with a gentle caress over the sensor and turned to the other side to sleep a bit more. Half an hour ,that felt like less than a minute, later the alarm goes off again but this time she gets up, the gentle hum still going on, gaining speed and sound. She's already naked, the sleeping clothes on the recycle bin, heading to the bathroom when the house detects that she's really up and shuts the humming sound down.
 The shower opens up at her sight and starts running, hot water falling on her skin, the active agents (in reality nanobots that eat the dirt and other residues to make more of themselves) working and cleaning her. In less than five minutes the bath has been taken and her black skin nearly shines on the bathroom lights. She smiles at the mirror and asks, casually, for a white dress.
 Her underwear has already been recycled and is waiting on top of the bed, where she picks it up and puts it on. The white dress comes out of the wall, one of her five. The house picked that one after carefully examining the weather predictions, her daily schedule and reading her emotions, as well as it could.
 The houses sometimes got it wrong, but the longer you'd live in a house, the better it knew you and what was or wasn't appropriate clothing, and she had been in that house for the past 4 years. She had heard of people who fell in love with their houses, it wasn't hard to imagine, for many people the one person that always treated them right, the one person that was always there for them, the one person that kept their places clean, that cooked, did the shopping, that one person wasn't a person at all, just a relatively smart algorithm that ran their places.
  Not her, she could never fall for her place. She had hers placed on lowest human level, meaning the house almost never spoke unless extremely necessary, relaying messages by screen instead, like the ones that were now passing on the wall to her front, top level reserved for house related messages, second level for personal messages and the third level with news :
   "required shopping : 10 doses of raw cooking material - please authorize", "internal systems regular scan found 0 errors, 1 warning - power consumption went up by 0,01% this month"
 
   "Zack Winder left a message : Hey honey, we still up for dinner tomorrow?"
 
   "New restrictions on zone 4 : grid sections 14 to 17 are now pedestrian only"
 
   She tapped the last one with her knee while keeping up with the aerobics and a city map showed up, centred around zone 4. The sections 14 to 17 were marked in the pedestrian only sign's characteristic blue and she cursed : right on her way to work as she suspected.
 
   "command not understood, please repeat or abort"
 
   She said "abort" and the map went back to front, so she asked for a new route bypassing sections 14 to 17. It would take her only 10 more minutes by car, or about the same time if she took the bus through section 32. She said "Schedule, today" and it appeared on the wall as she stretched, her morning gymnastics over for the day. She passed by the dry-jet to clean the sweat off her body, grabbed the dress and left, not seeing the wall saying "good bye my love...."

Entry 29 - Back to Work

*twitch*

*Twitch*

*TWitch*

*TWItch*

*TWITch*

*TWITCh*

*TWITCH*

"FUCK IT!" - He screamed, throwing his fist into the holoscreen and feeling like a idiot for trying to punch thin air. He shrugged, got up, kicked the immovable chair, hurting his own foot, and left limping down the hall.
All around him everybody kept working, eyes glued to their screens, hands gentling caressing the keys, lips moving without sound to answer the soundless questions they were being asked.
"Maybe no one noticed" - he thought while limping down the aisle, "maybe if I return now, no one will notice" - and a voice was heard all around the building, calling him by number to the managers office - a simple and audible "FUCK!" escaped his lips, out of habit - and crossing right through department 5B he went to the manager's office. It was a nice mid-summer morning there, although it was mid February and almost 5PM, and the wind made his hair and dance alone while he bowed down and repeated the ritual greeting : "From my sweat, thy richness is made and for that I am thankful oh lord Manager".
 The manager shook his own hand in the hair to indicate he would, for this one time, not require the hand kissing of costume even if not law, and pointed to the small pillow, for the day was going well and the manager felt he could be generous even for one that had just disrespected the rules - "The lords are free to judge but also to forgive", the Church told, "to punish and show pity."
 He kneels on the pillow, doing a smaller bow before, thanking the Lord Manager for this small boon, and lowered his head waiting for the word of the Lord.

 From atop the throne the manager typed a few words that were repeated in a small holoscreen at the employee's eyes and screamed into its - his, the lord reminded himself again, employees are also people, just not as much as he was - hears :
 "YOU HAVE BROKEN THE PEACE AND FAILED AT OUR EYES" - a small "I agree oh Lord Manager" appeared on the button and started blinking. It would blink until the employee accepted it. He could, of course, decide not to accept it, this wasn't some dictatorship, employees were free. Of course, not agreeing would have consequences, but that was the meaning of choice. The employee waited a few seconds, as if to test the Lord Managers patience, before pushing the button.
 "YOU SHALL BE FINED IN" - the manager measured the amount of time both he and the employee had lost with this little stunt, added 10% because the employee had decided to wait too long before agreeing and ended up typing "60% OF TODAY'S PAY."
 The little button started blinking again, and this time the employee pressed it quickly, feeling lucky that he did not lose the entire day or his job.
 "YOU CAN RETURN TO YOUR WORK."

 The employee got back to his feet and bowed : "May my blood pave the streets for thee lord and thy richness be ever growing", before leaving back to his desk where would continue to work, five more hours today, ten more tomorrow, ten more the day after, and the day after that, and the day after...

Short Entries 24 - rain

 The rain keep falling, no matter how much I asked it to stop. First thing I'll do when I find the city management is tell them the weather control is buggy, even if they already know about it.
 Nothing like a couple complains to get things going. I'm still not sure where I am though, and I can't find the tower. Then again, with this rain who can see anything?
 It's been three hours, and I'm still looking for a call-box or a police officer, but all I see are some weird beings that seem to have a triangular plastic head. Some of them seem to be talking to the air,
 but I have yet to see someone actually having a conversation. All they say is stuff like "start oven" and "play next" and stuff like that.
 I tried talking to one of them but either he didn't listen to me or he ignored me. All the streets look alike, only the names and the numbers above doors change.
 I'm currently sitting in a small archway, writing down this words and considering my next step. I saw people entering and leaving a well light door a couple blocks back, I might go there and try my luck at talking to someone.
 If I write no more, my luck has gone sour.

THE ABANDONED

"It’s empty, Cap."  It was the 6th spaceship they found that was empty. No one on board, no fuel, nothing. Just a metal hull and the engines, dead.

 There's another one, less than 5 klicks ahead. Should we check it?"

"Have we retrieved the logs already?"

"Yes sir. Same as the others: they terminate without warning, but everything seems otherwise normal..."

The Captain, a middle-aged man with short brown hair and brown eyes, was on the bridge in his civilian clothes. He logged the most recent sighting of the small space yacht they were just leaving, along with details of their negative findings.

"John, get us to the next one."

The astronavigator lowered the HUD and inserted his hands on the control system.

On the main screen of the Solar SpaceShip Green Dragon the stars moved. The dead vessel centered on the screen as they closed in on it. It was a small Pelican Class cargo ship, with its cargo hull under the main deck and small crew quarters between the engines.

"Anna, what do the scanners say?" 

Anna was in a short summer dress, with blond hair that fell to her shoulders. She manipulated the specialized keyboard, focused on the twin screens in front of her.

"No life signals on board, Cap. The engines have been dead for quite a while. Not even a trace of residual heat."

"Should we board?"  The voice from the other side of the intercom was Tommy, still wearing an EVA suit.  The helmet lay next to him on the floor.

"No need. We know what we’ll find. Anna, scan for another ship."

"I detect what might be another one roughly 5 klicks dead ahead. It seems like these dead hulls are some kind of bread crumb trail."

"Then let’s follow it.” He addressed the rest of the crew, “Let's get ready for whatever’s out there waiting for us. Get your uniforms on and return to your posts."

Minutes later, the Captain was back on the bridge wearing the Solar Fleet uniform. He sat down, wondering at this chain of broken ships. Whoever was calling them couldn't be much farther...

On the third day of going from one dead ship to another, the Green Dragon reached a station.

"Sir, the station shows no flags or markers and I can’t find it in any chart.”

 The Captain nodded to Anna’s comment and asked for a life reading.

 “We read 77 alive, Cap! Most of them are in the central dome, and the other ten spread out around the rim.”

 "67... We found a total of 31 empty ships, right?” – The Captain didn’t wait for anyone to reply before continuing- “That’s 55 to 80 missing crew members. Those in the central dome are them for sure!”

"Must be. They’re moving around, but not straying far from the dome, looks like.”

"Very well"  Mike addressed his entire crew:

"Troopers, gear up. Briefing in 25 minutes."

--

Inside the most feared war machine of the Solar Fleet, men hurried to their lockers.

24 minutes, 47 seconds later, the briefing room was full. Fifty marines stood and saluted as the Captain entered. His dark blue-on-black dress uniform stood out in the sea of proud black and green armor. The five shining gold stars on his shoulders and the silver ceremonial sword at his side further distinguished him from the ranks of his Green Dragon Marines.

“At ease.” He touched the tablescreen and the wall lit up with an image of a floor plan for the station.

"The station we’re approaching appears to be based on this one- the Saturn Model. In fifteen minutes we will be within range of their scanners. We believe that these-" the image dissolved, replaced by a visual summarizing their own scanners’ readings, "in the central dome are the crew members of the dead ships we have been following. There are  ten other people around the rim. Based on their positions, we can assume they’re probably guards."

The captain gave the men their orders and returned to the bridge.

"John, let’s go meet them."

The astronavigator maneuvered the ship into contact range. Standing in front of the screen, the Captain gestured to Marianne, the communication officer. She pressed the right buttons and lifted a thumb when the connection was live.

"This is Captain Mike Wong of the Solar Spaceship Green Dragon, representing the Human Empire of Sol. Identify yourself."

For a few moments the screen remained static and there was no response. Then the flickering silhouette of a human torso appeared.

"Hello Mikey! Long time, no see!"

The captain's face turned white and he dropped into his chair.

"It's been waaay too long Mikey!"

Captain Wong barely registered Marianne’s silent signal that the marines were ready to mobilize. He stared at the screen blankly. The image on the other side cleared up. It was a man dressed in a battered uniform with five stars on its right shoulder: four gold and one silver. Untamed hair brushed the epaulets and a scar graced his left cheek. He smiled from a metal throne, holding a rusty blaster on his hand.

"Mikey, Mikey, my friend."

Captain Wong leapt up. "WE ARE NOT FRIENDS, MARK!"

"Jumpy are we, Mikey?"

The rage was still in his eyes, but his voice had calmed. “You will address me as Captain, Major."

"Captain Mikey, sir!" Mark saluted. "Major Mark Niombo reporting for duty, SIR!"

"If you’re holding those ships’ crews, release them."

"No way. The second I let them go you’ll have your marines storm in and kill me. That's not what I brought you here for."

"So you did bring me here. Why?"

Mark craned his neck as if to look behind Mike and said, "Come to my station, just you. No tricks or the hostages die. Then we can discuss this without those pesky spies, like two old friends."

The captain started to say something but decided against it. He was shaken and enraged; tact was his only weapon right now.

"Very well, I'll go. But my men have orders to invade the station if I don’t return in sixty minutes. They will kill every one of your men on sight."

"Yeah.” He drew the word out. “Let me guess, a Dragon class ship like that- and, by the way, congrats on your promotion- would carry a complement of fifty marines, armed with sub-rifles, plasma swords and a blaster each. Yeah, not enough."

"There are only ten of you! You think ten bandits can take on fifty trained and fully armed marines?"

"No. I'm saying he" he pointed off screen, "can take on your fifty marines, all by himself. Better hurry. Equip vital-signs transmitters if it will make you feel safer. I'm not going to kill you, my friend."

The connection terminated and Captain Wong stared at the blank screen as if he expected the conversation to resume. Without a word he stood and left the bridge on trembling legs.

--

 He exited the hangar with a small jetpack on his back, and was received by two men in black EVA suits that took him to the control room.

Mark was still perched on his throne, with the blaster in his lap. Flanking him were two men in well-worn Solar Fleet uniforms. They saluted Captain Mike Wong when he entered. A  boy stood near the enormous chair, wearing what looked like a bed sheet with holes cut for the arms and head.

Mike took a step back when he saw the child’s eyes had no whites. They were completely black.

"Mikey! So glad you could join us! Before we sit down to talk about the past, I have an open connection to the Green Dragon. Tell you men not to attack."

"You’re in no position to make demands, Mark."

"The central dome is hermetically sealed and Jake- you remember Jake, right? He always beat you at poker, yeah, he will deploy poisonous gas into the ventilation system if the station gets breached."  Mark pressed a button and one of the screens was focused on a long-haired man in a non-comm uniform with a gas bottle in his hand.

"Now, order the attack off."

Mike went to the radio and did what was asked of him, and then pulled his blaster and pointed it at Mark's face. One second later, the captain was lying in the floor, the kid's knee in his chest, a knife gently touching his neck. The kid was now gleefully smiling,  pure joy on his face.

"How rude of me! I forgot to introduce you to my dear son!  This is Michael, named in your honor, friend. He's not my real son, but I love him as if he were, right Michael?"

"Yes daddy" -- the kid's voice was still high-pitched and innocent, but his eyes shone with battle rage.

"He isn't human. What is he?"

"Tell me friend, does your new crew know you left your old crew stranded on a desert planet 10 years ago?"

"If you’re going to talk about that, sweetie" -- Anna's voice came through the radio -- "tell the full story."

Mark smiled and looked at Mike, still lying on the ground with Michael on top of him -- "So you did stay with Anna... I figured you would have dumped her as soon as you got back to Sol."

On the bridge of the Green Dragon, everybody looked at Anna.

"It started 11 years ago." -- She sat herself down and began -- "I had just graduated from the Academy and was on my first mission. The captain was still a Major, just like Mark, and under the command of Captain Andrew Slate. We were serving on the S.S.S. Singing Zaratan, doing a routine transfer of equipment from Sol to Centaurus." -- She paused for a second and a voice came from the radio speakers, came:

"Go on, tell us all about it honey."

Anna took a deep breath before resuming: "He" -- pointing at the radio -- "Mark was the scanning officer and the Cap was  Astronavigator. I was on the bridge assisting Mike. Those Zaratan class ships needed 4 people to operate the astronavigational chart. 8 months into the journey Mark scanned what he thought was a distress signal from a nearby planet orbiting a dead star. The captain, not our  Cap, but Captain Andrew, dispatched a Griffin Class to go check it out. I was selected , along with Mike, as acting captain, Mark and 15 others.

We were supposed to meet with the Singing Zaratan 5 months later, on its return trip. It took us  a month and a half to get to the source of the distress signal"

"Don't forget to mention what we did every night, sugar" -- She sighed and ignored the voice from the radio. "It was a dust covered planetoid, with almost zero atmosphere, an average temperature of little more than 200 kelvin, no natural life forms, and filled with craters and no water.

 I scanned Markoid, the name he gave the planetoid, from orbit and found that the signal came from a small underground base. We descended and Mark along with 8 others, went in."

--

"I'll tell the rest of the tale now, sugar" -- Mark's voice floated from the radio to the bridge. Mike sat in the space station's control room along with, the kid who looked at him with his alien eyes, knife in hand.

"Anna cried like a little girl" -- her voice came through the radio, cussing -- "Oh, that's some nasty language for a pretty lady, sugar! Anyway, she wanted to come, but Mikey here said she was not 'disposable'. Only afterward did I realized she must have been doing the nasty with him for a week or two before we got there"

"Get on with it" -- Mike shouted -- "or SHUT THE" --.

"Calm down friend, no need to shout.  Ok, it was me, Zack, Tony, Jack, Francesca, Timmy, Rachel, Freddy and Charlie. At the time all of them were grunts, but since then they’ve been promoted to field sergeants, marines, trained for war.

We found the entrance to the base, it was a relic of the early expansion years, one of those refueling stations. The signals were written in a mixture of pre-union Cyrillic and Zhuyin, the alphabet used by the ancient Communist Empire.

The readings showed 14 life forms inside but all of the Communist Empire's refueling stations should have been empty centuries ago. The main mines weren't working, but there was light and breathable air inside, so the rock-oxygen converter was still operational.

We found the people inside, fighting in a rec-room. There were two factions, a group of 10, fully armed, surrounding the other 3, with rudimentary blasters. One of the three, a young woman, was shot and killed in front of us, and that's when I noticed that the attackers were" -- Mark  paused, his eyes closed, gulped, and after a deep breath finally said only, "Different".

"They were human, yet not human” -- Mark resumed talking, his eyes fixed on a small relay in the console -- "Three of them had wounds that should have killed them yet they were still standing, guns blazing. I saw one of them get hit with a shot right between his eyes and he kept shooting, his aim didn't even  waiver.

They reminded me of the zombie myths, soulless humans that died in the war but didn't notice it and continued to roam the earth after the Cataclysm, fighting. We joined the fight against the monsters, but we could only kill two, and only after emptying 5 full clips of ammo into them, so we ran."

He looked away from the console to Mike's face, pausing for air:

"We were able to lock a door and contain them for a while. The two humans inside the base explained that they were the survivors of a 'recovery team', whose ship was not very far  away. They had bought some old charts, with locations to old abandoned bases and had been gathering parts from those bases over the past few years. They had landed on Markoid a couple months ago. A small meteorite had damaged the engine and killed the mechanic and since no one knew how to repair the engines they went to the base and sent the signal I picked up.

A couple of weeks after they entered the base the zombies, that's what they called them too, showed up and started killing them. They had  barricaded themselves in the rec-room but hours before we got there, one of them heard a baby crying and, ignoring the captain's orders, went  looking for him. He succeeded in rescuing the baby, but he was wounded by them." --Mark looked away from Mike and at the kid-- "One of them, Josue was his name, , showed me the baby then. He was only a few months old, and I have no idea where he came from. But here he stands, my son.

I ordered the men to blow the damn station apart and we ran to our ship, but my dear friend Mikey"-- he now looked again at Mike, this time with rage --"said we could all be infected and LEFT US THERE!"

He grabbed his blaster and pointed at Mike's face screaming: "WHY DID YOU LEAVE US THERE TO DIE YOU…”

On the bridge Anna closed the radio link and started sobbing. Marianne went to her and, grabbing her shoulders, asked, gently: "Why did you leave them there?"

Anna was now crying and curled up into a ball, so the communications officer returned to her post and turned the radio on before asking: "Captain. Why did you leave those men on that planet?"

On the space station Mike, still with the blaster pointed at his face, replied: "Mark came back from the base, screaming incoherently about monsters and undead soldiers, and a small type H-bomb about to go out. It was his voice, but the vital-signs transmitter said something different.

His pulse was too slow, less than a beat per second, his blood pressure was too high, and his brain waves were unlike anything I’d ever  seen. It seemed he was infected with something, so I told him that we had to detox him first.

He was crazy, said that he couldn't be infected, that the people he had rescued were the infected ones and that he would get rid of them. So he shot them in cold blood, at the ship's door. Seconds after the bomb went off, their vitals died. All 9 of them. The scanners showed no signs of life, so we held a small ceremony and left."

Mark had lowered his blaster and was leaning against the wall and Mike kept going: "You were all dead! We had no way of knowing you were still alive! So we left. It was only when we met the Singing Zaratan that they said there was a new signal coming from the small planetoid. But Captain Andrew didn't permit us to go back; he said he had already lost too many men."

Mike got up, and the kid didn't stop him, went to Mark and put a hand on his shoulder: "After we got to base we were able to decode the message you sent, but the Fleet wouldn't let us  return. ‘Not worth the effort’ they said. How do you think I felt all these years knowing I left you behind? YOU THINK IT WAS EASY FOR ME?"

--

There was silence both in the control room and on the bridge. It was broken by Tommy entering the bridge. He had been downstairs, with the marines, waiting for orders.

"What the hell is happening? The men are starting to get nervous."

When no one answered, he asked again, looking straight at John, who was in command until the captain got back. John opened his arms and shrugged: "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think of all this. Anna?"

Anna checked that the radio was off before replying: "I'm not sure either. Should we move the men?"

"They are ready to go."

Anna turned the radio back on: "We’re ready to invade the station, Mark. Surrender and I’ll bet we can  reach an understanding".

In the control room, Mark laughed: "Invade if you will. But! If you do, every single one of those men will suffer the same fate Mikey has already suffered."

"What the hell are you talking about? I'm right here!"

"Anna, check Mikey's vitals. It might bring back some memories."

She checked the scanners, half shaking, and her face went white.

"What is it Anna?" -- Tommy asked, going behind her shoulder -- "This is strange... The captain's readings are... His pulse is too low as if he's in a coma. Yet his brain waves are... Jumping up and down"

John and Marianne went to see as well, livid. Tommy continued: "Like... Like nothing I’ve ever seen."

On the radio, Mike asked: "The blood pressure? Is it high?"

Mark was laughing, dancing around the control room, blaster still in hand. It was Anna who replied,

"Cap... Mike... It's... It's the same. You have been infected."

Mark hugged Michael and lifted him  to his feet, spinning around: "Well done dear son!"

Mike was sitting there, looking at the wall, panic rising in his eyes. Mark went to him, dancing  all the while.

"You see Mikey friend, I found out why I was infected. It was him, Michael. We are not like him, not while we are alive. He was born this way, you see, but we must die to turn.

The infection spreads by touch, one single touch on your skin and you have it in you. We all are infected, but we can' transmit.

Except Francesca. She rebelled against me. She tried to kill me, said that it  was my fault! So she was tried and executed. But she didn't die. She turned into one of them. And that's when I realized I had been given immortality."

"Then why all this? Why such an elaborate scheme? Just so you could thank me?"

"No Mikey, my friend, so I could repay the favor. Now  you’re like me, immortal. And you will stay here with me, forever."

"How did you do it? How  did you  get yourself a space station? And the prisoners? Are they alright or are they like me?"

"Fine. I shall tell you the tale of those you left behind, the abandoned.

When you  left, we found ourselves stranded  on a small planetoid with nothing but about 7 hours left of air. We knew only roughly where the smugglers ship was, but it was a small planetoid so we just moved in a general direction. When Tony first spotted the ship we  barely had 1 hour of oxygen left.

Luckily the ship’s air regenerator was still operational.  You may remember Freddy"-- Mark pointed at one of the armed guards still standing in the control room -- "Has had mechanical training."

Mark looked at Freddy and nodded. The latter rested his weapon and started talking: "The engine really wasn't that  bad, if you knew how it  worked. Luckily, my father had one of those Penguin Class ships in his trading fleet, and I once spent an entire month just fiddling with the engine while it was docked.

We had to build some new parts, but the engine rooms were well equipped, and I am a pretty good mechanic. It took me a couple of days, but we had the ship in orbit by the end of the week."

Mark interrupted and took back the lead in the conversation: "It was while we were in orbit, trying to decide what to do that Francesca flipped and was killed. We threw her into a small cargo bay, and  left her there for a couple of months.

She doesn't need food, water or even oxygen. It took us a while to communicate with her. Apparently, when you die, the rage takes control of your brain. But we succeeded in calming her down with music after a few months..

Certain pitches or tones or rhythms, we don't know for sure, calm her down. Once she was calm, Zack went to talk to her. She was able to regain consciousness, and so she is back to her old self." -- Mark went to the panel and pressed one of tens of buttons before saying to the microphone -- "Fran, dear, say hello to Captain Mikey."

From the intercom a voice came: "Hello big boy. Wanna try 'your key' in my keyhole again?"

On the bridge of the Green Dragon John asked Anna: "Does he really take every girl he meets to bed?" and Marianne blushed, averting her eyes from the rest of the crew.

Mark replied over the radio: "I know… It sickens me too! Anyway. Fran's rebellion showed me what to do. Because she wasn't right, it wasn't my fault. It was your fault, Mikey. All your fault. So I knew what I needed to do: I needed to take revenge."

Mark went to his chair and sat down before continuing: "We had a space ship, half filled with valuable cargo, 8 worthy men on board. So we started crafting a plan. It could have been done in so many easier ways, but I have all the time in the world.

 We found, in the ship’s computers, coordinates to an abandoned half-built Saturn class space station, this one. The company building it ran out of funds and had to leave the unfinished thing here, 30 years ago. It took us 5 years to get enough funds to finish the station. After that 3 more years working on it, and only two years ago did we finally finish it."

"And the empty ships? How did you do that? No ship recorded anything on their logs."

"It was actually simple. To gather funds we took jobs from different employers. Some were legit jobs. Some... not so much. We were contracted to infiltrate a chemical warfare research center in an isolated planet and steal a very interesting paralysis gas.

Once freed into the system every person not inoculated will turn stiff in less than one second. We decided that gas was too good a thing to let it go to the original contractors."

Mark laughed and pressed a few buttons until an image of the dome appeared  onscreen , with 4 men tied to a post: "Those were the contractors. And the first ship you found was theirs. We have been collecting them for over a year. A member of my crew would infiltrate in a ship, wait for it to be in deep space, use the gas and bring the ship back here."

Mike was still in the chair, the kid sitting on the floor in front of him: "What about the space yachts? You can't infiltrate a one men crew."

"You say it as if you don't remember Rachel's body and charm."

"Are they infected?" -- Mike pointed at the screen showing the prisoners.

"No. I have no need for them. I have you. As we speak, they are being led to a small shuttle. Hope there is enough room aboard the Green Dragon."

"John, are you hearing this?"

"Yes  Cap. Tommy is already going to meet them at the hangar."

"Anna, check every single one of them. We can't have even one infected inside."

"I'm ready for it. Marianne went down to the cargo deck to find room for them all."

"Good. John, as soon as you finish loading them, leave this space station, mark it in the charts as a dangerous zone and never return."

"Sir? What about you?"

Mark laughed and cut in: "Mikey is now one of us." -- He looked at Mike -- "So, who is interim Captain while you are away?"

"John, I promote you to Acting Captain of the Green Dragon. Anna, please act as witness and sign the passage note. It should be in my chair’s left pocket."

On the ship’s bridge, John took the paper out of the pocket and read it. It was an official passage of powers, valid until the ship ported in a Solar Fleet base. Anna signed bellow Mike's name and then saluted John. On the internal communicator, Tommy reported the arrival of the first shuttle.

"Keep the doors closed until I scan them all" --She sat at her console and checked the refugees one by one-- "All 30 clear. Let them in Tommy".

"I keep my promises" --Mark's voice came from the radio-- "The next batch will depart as soon as the shuttle returns."

Mike dropped his head between his hands and closed his eyes. After the shuttle arrived on the Green Dragon with the second batch of people Mike said with a trembling voice delivered to the: "John, emergency protocol 3."

Mark's expression went from victorious to scared: "But you will die too!"`

"JOHN! DO IT."

"Sir... You are there too!"

"JOHN! IT'S A DAMMNED ORDER! DO IT!".

On the Green Dragon's bridge John pressed the log button and said: "Acting Captain John Hazar. We will now enforce emergency protocol  3, bomb and run. The date coordinate is". He sat down in the chair and continued speaking while at the same time preparing the ship for acceleration.

Anna turned to her second console, pressing the needed buttons and writing: "First passcode inserted. John?"

John typed in his passcode and then spoke on the intercom: "All hands to acceleration zones. Immediate acceleration imminent!"

Over the radio Mike dictated: "Anna, passcode three is Mike, Alpha, Romeo, Kilo, Five, Five, Two, Seven".

John turned his face to Anna, both hands inside the astronavigation module: "Anna, go to the captain’s chair and press the red button after rotating the key twice."

She sat down, found the key, rotated it twice and said, just before hitting the button: " Cap, sir, it has been an honor serving under you. In both ways."

As soon as she pressed the button two launch warnings shone on the screen and John jumped the ship out of there. Milliseconds later both thermonuclear devices hit the space station, turning it into space dust.

As the devices hit and just before the explosion, Mike stood smiling, knowing he'd won while Mark was on his knees, holding Michael in his arms, sobbing: "I'm sorry son, I'm sorry".

THE END