How is that a new take? It's literally what I learned in high school and college history classes. WWII ended with the Soviet Union and the USA as victorious superpowers that feared each other's strength, to the point where the USA refused the Soviet's offer to help with Japan after V.E. day.

I have a degree in History, which is worth less than the paper it's printed on, but that's the broad explanation behind the beginning of the Cold War. I'm not downplaying the idealogical differences in culture, religion and political influences, but just simplifying it for a reddit comment in a creative writing subreddit.

Thanks for pointing this out! Writers can't grow without critics (not saying you're critical).

In my mind, the 2-species planet that goes to war each election is more stable than humanity. They fight, a winner is declared, a Senator is sent, and the two species go back to peaceful cooperation. Now look at humanity's history of wars, where things like WWI directly causing WWII, and WWII sparking the Cold War era and the Korean war and Vietnam war and countless proxy wars... in the alien's view, did WWI ever actually end? Or does each war only serve to start up the next one?

I hope that makes sense. I wrote this while up with my fussy infant at 1 AM, so I apologize if I didn't make that cohesive enough.

...oh damnit, I forgot about that. Frick.

I think you replied to the wrong comment, friend. The only thing I know about Michigan is the Lions have suffered long enough

"Cut them!"

I ignored the antique sword as I continued to tidy my apartment. If my date went well, I wanted the apartment to look its absolute best.

"Slice the throat of the world, and bathe in the blood as it pours from-"

"Would you shut up?" I snarled, flinging down the blanket I was trying to fold and storming to the mantle. The ancient sword had seemed like a great centerpiece, but that was before it had begun to talk. "I don't know where my Grandfather found you, or why he left you to me in his will, but so help me, if you don't stop talking I'll melt you down for scrap metal and sell you for beer money."

The sword huffed. I swear if it had eyes it would have rolled them at me. "Whatever, you're just as lame as he was. I'm only trying to bring excitement to your miserable life."

I threw up my hands in irritation. "My life is miserable because of you, I hope you know. You scared off my last girlfriend, you get noise complaints all the time, and I'm pretty sure you killed my turtle."

The sword snorted. I had no idea how a sword could snort without a nose, but then again, I had no idea how it could talk at all. "Tiffany was cheating on you, and your turtle was a dick anyways."

"So you DID kill Fluffy!" I yelled, "I knew it! I'm getting rid of you as soon as the smelter's opens tomorrow."

The sword huffed. "Fluffy is a dumb name for a reptile and you know it. Plus, the damn thing stunk. Did you ever consider that might be a reason all of your dates keep failing? As soon as they come in here, they're hit with gross turtle shit smell. Not exactly an aphrodisiac, Fabio."

"Whatever. It's still a living thing, or it was. You don't get to just kill things that annoy..." my words trailed off as a realization crept up on me. "...Did you kill my grandpa?"

"WHAT?!?" The sword shouted. I was definitely going to get another noise complaint now. "Nu-uh, I didn't kill that old party pooper."

"Then what did?" I asked slowly.

"...lack of blood in his neck?" The sword offered lamely.

"Oh god, you DID kill him!" I shouted, backing towards the front door. I fumbled behind my back as I tried to grab the doorknob, but I couldn't seem to quite grasp it.

"Calm down, it's not like he had too much longer to live anyways" the sword said. "He was, like, a million years old."

"He was 68!" I yelled at the inanimate object. "He had just retired, you dick!"

"Ugh, you even sound like him" the sword said, then continued in a mocking tone. "*Oh nooo, please don't kill me, I finally have the time to play with you, I promise this time, blah blah blah".

I found the handle and flung the door open, falling through the doorway and landing in the gross carpeted hall beyond.

"OY!" A boisterous voice shouted from down the hall. "Could ya' shut the 'ell up?"

The sword flew above me, curving in mid air and lunging towards my grumpy neighbor. It landed in his chest with a sickly squishy thud, and burried itself to the hilt.

"YOU shut up!" it cried, twisting around in his chest like a spinning dreidel. "Shut up shut up shut up forever!"

The man would have screamed, presumably, if his lungs hadn't just gone through an immersion blender. Instead, he merely gaped like a fish out of water, with bulging eyes to match. His blood poured into the hall, staining the already disgusting communal carpet even further.

"Oh my GOD!" Someone shouted behind me. The sword removed itself from the man, and flung itself towards the new speaker. "Mind your own fuckin' business!" It screamed in uncontrolled rage.

Desperate to stop the onslaught, I lunged at the flying sword as it passed by. Somehow, I was able to grab its handle, arresting its murderous flight.

"FREEZE! PUT DOWN THE WEAPON!" The voice shouted again. I looked up to see a uniformed police officer, his service revolver pointed at me with trembling arms.

"Sir, this isn't what it looks like" I said, as I tried to gesture with the blood covered sword. "its... erm, a magic talking sword?"

"DROP IT NOW!" The officer shouted.

I tried to let go, but the sword clung stubbornly to my palm. I swore I could hear it chuckle to itself as I struggled.

I felt the bullet hit my shoulder before I heard the shot. It ripped through me like nothing I had ever felt before, leaving only pain behind as it passed through bone and muscle alike. I fell to the floor and tried to grab the wound, but the sword stayed my hand.

"Tell your grandpa I said hi" it whispered, before the next shots rang through the hall.

/r/SlightlyColdStories for more

"Four? But why?" Slyggzen asked, waving his upper tentacles in agitation. "Everyone else has one. ONE. Even that planet with two sentient species has one senator, and they start a war every-time they need to send a new one."

I ruffled my feathers, hoping the octopod could understand my body language as easily as I could his. "I have no good answers, my friend. I only bring word from the high council."

Slyggzen waddled to the viewing port, gazing into the void from our vantage point in the Human's star system. "Everyone gets one. Thats how it has always been, for... well, since the GP was founded. Why change now?"

I clicked my beak in irritation. "I have no definitive answer, Slyggzen. I was told a rumor, but... I cannot confirm its authenticity."

Slyggzen swiveled in place, rotating on his lower tentacles. "Well? A rumor is better than nothing."

I disagreed with my coworker's opinion, but I responded for conversation's sake. "Apparently, Humans cannot agree with themselves. The four Senators are from the four most prominent mindsets of the species."

Slyggzen's mouth fell open, forming a gaping maw of teeth and tongues that made a grotesque belt along his midsection. I knew it was rude to react negatively to any other civilized species' physical differences, but I couldn't repress the shudder that ran through my very core. Sliggzen seemed not to notice, or at least was cordial enough to ignore the slight.

"Four MOST prominent?" He asked, once he had regained his composure. "They have even more than that? Do we even want a species this internally divided in the..."

I squawked in shock. "Slyggzen, we have NEVER excluded a sentient species from the Galactic Union! Even the Arachnopodes have a seat, and their ambassador keeps trying to eat me!"

"We've never had FOUR senators for ONE species, either" Slyggzen pointed out. "The precedent has been set. This species is different, and needs a different solution."

I sighed, whistling softly through my beak as I did. "Its not so simple, Slyggzen. These people are not restricted to one biome, they live on 5 of the 6 large landforms on the planet. They evolved differences, almost enough to classify sections as different sub-species according to the xenobiologists. Did you know they have different colors? Not to distinguish males and females, but evolutionary adaptations to the environments they live within."

Slyggzen shook his tentacles in... something. I would need to consult my xenosocial manual later to interpret this gesture. "Nonsense. Why would they have migrated to climates that they would need to evolve to adapt to? That doesn't make sense."

"It appears to be true" I said, shifting my grip on my perch. "Did you know they have multiple languages?"

"That's not so special" Slyggzen said as he slithered back to the desk on his half of our shared office. "We have three ourselves; one for business, one for family and close friends, and one for hunting. The last is only spoken in historical preservation societies, but I think it's a waste of resources personally."

"You don't understand" I replied. "They have languages based on the regions they evolved in. By our estimates, Humans have over 7,000 languages, not counting the abandoned ones."

Slyggzen was silent for a few moments as he contemplated this latest bombshell. "Seven thousand... that's more than the entire Galactic Parliament has across all species..."

"Precisely. These people are more like their own Galactic Union, all on one planet."

Slyggzen was silent for a lot longer this time. His tentacles began typing something that I couldn't see, perhaps the start of a formal protest to the unorthodox arrangement. When he finally spoke, his voice was cold. Calculated. Constrained. "Should we take matters into our own tentacles?"

I blinked both sets of eyelids. "What?" I squawked.

"We cannot let such a divisive species infect our Union." Slyggzen said softly. "We would fracture the alliances that have stood for a millennia."

"And what peaceful alternative do you propose?" I asked. I slid one wing under my desk and activated the hidden audio recorder. Slyggzen was beginning to worry me, and it was best if I had evidence in case something went wrong. "We already admitted them, and granted four seats for their chosen senators."

"We need to destroy their planet."

I froze in fear, unable to even twitch a feather. "W....what?"

"This species is too dangerous to let live" Slyggzen said, rotating to face me once more. "I can arrange it so it looks like an accident, maybe a cold fusion reactor disaster or a meteor strike. But this species must not be allowed to fracture the universe."

"Slyggzen! How could you even say such a thing?" I asked as I hopped up and down on my perch in agitation. "We are a civilized Union! We try to improve the lives of every species, not-"

A small polite chime sounded, indicating that a political representative was requesting entrance to our office. I was not expecting a visitor, so I relinquished the door controls to Slyggzen's console without a second's thought. Slyggzen immediately opened the door, revealing...

The Arachnopodes representative clicked its fangs in excitement as it scuttled into the room. I flapped my wings, launching myself off of my perch as the massive spider delegate lunged.

"I'm sorry, Cheerep. I really am." Slyggzen said, with what sounded like genuine regret. "I must stop this, for the good of the universe. And that requires your silence."

I was too preoccupied with trying to remain un-eaten to respond. The Arachnopode lunged again, striking my left most claw with its massive limbs. I squawked in pain as its fangs sunk in, striking bone and nerves alike as it injected its venom.

"Goodby, my feathered friend" Slyggzen said, as he slithered out of the office. I tried to watch him leave, but my vision was quickly obscured by the spiderwebs that were woven around my frozen body. The darkness enveloped me, both from my organic blindfold and from the fast acting venom that surged through me.

/r/SlightlyColdStories for more stories, with surprisingly more stories involving spiders. I should probably ask my therapist about that.

<3/3> The pen's one way transmitter had a short range, maybe 5 kilometers at best. If she was listening, she was close. If she was close, it was likely that she was watching us. And if she was watching us, then most of the officers on site were already dead.

"This is between us", I said to the pen. "Leave them out of this".

The pen declined to respond.

"I'm going to make up some excuse to leave. Follow me out, we can talk face to face-"

My monologue was interrupted by a soft whistle, followed by a loud CRACK. I dove to the ground, trying to use the bodies as cover. "SHOTS FIRED!" I shouted into my own radio. "ALL UNITS TAKE COVER!"

A cacophony of whistles and cracks erupted around me, with a chorus of screams and the thuds of falling bodies accompanying the performance. One by one, each officer at the scene changed roles from police officer to murder victim. I saw Harris on his stomach, crawling towards me with his service revolver in hand. It was useless against mum's rifle at this range, but its presence may have brought the agent some small sense of control of...

Harris' body jerked and stopped just as quickly, and settled back onto the ground. His lifeless hand still gripped the emotional support weapon.

The barrage of sniper fire ceased, which meant that all of my colleagues were dead. I tried to slowly crawl back to my car through the mud and puddles, but it was a futile effort. A boot stepped on my right hand, pinning me to the mud below.

"Your crimes end now" my mother growled. I chuckled.

"Do you think the Mob will give up just because I'm dead?"

"No," she said. "But I will."

CRACK

​<2/3>

"Why does he always pose them like this?" Harris said, walking carefully around the pair of corpses.

"For the same reason they're always killed from behind" I said, "stabbed in the lower back. Leaves the face and hands undamaged."

Agent Harris looked up from the crime scene, staring at me from the other side of the circle. "Huh, I didn't notice that bit" He said, taking another sip of his coffee.

The forensic photographer stood nearby, taking pictures of the bodies from every angle. "Hey kid" I said, getting his attention.

"I'm 24, I'm not a-" the kid began.

I grunted dismissively, in the way only a decades long smoker like I could produce. "Do you have access to the other crime scene photos from this case?" I asked.

"Um, yeah, back in the car" the kid said. "Why?"

I gave the kid the silence that question deserved, staring him down with an iron gaze until he took the hint. "I'll, uh, go get them, sir." He stammered, before leaving the scene.

"What..." Agent Harris began, but I cut him off with a wave. We waited in silence until the kid returned, handing me a thick manilla envelope. I took it without comment, and began sorting the other victim's photos by date. I held the photos by the top edge, and began to slowly flip through them. All of the victims were posed in the same shape... although there were subtle differences, only a few inches here or there...

"My God", Agent Harris gasped as he watched over my shoulder. "Its..."

"A flipbook" I finished for him. "Sick bastard's using corpses as characters in a flipbook".

The Hero's Union was, quite frankly, a colossal failure. Not only did they keep foiling my plans, stopping my schemes, and throwing me in jail; but now they decided to go on strike. And none of the bastards would cross the line to defend the damn city.

Pathetic.

"Ma'am, please remain indoors." The man on the other line of the phone said. "Help is on the way... hopefully."

I scoffed, and placed my ornate phone back in the ancient cradle. There was nothing more that the police could do. Worthless peons.

I sighed, and reached a frail hand towards my reading glasses. A long, black leg got to them first, gently scooping them up in its tiny claws and handing them to me.

"Thank you, dear." I said, smiling my warmest grandmotherly expression at my spider minion. "I'm afraid we're going to need to go out soon. Could you be a sweetheart and summon the brood?"

My Goliath Bird-Eater spider bowed slightly, then scurried out of sight. I grabbed my 8-legged walker, and with the help of several spiderwebs, rose to my feet. I took a deep breath, and began incanting in the language of creation itself.

#S̸̹̑P̸̪͆I̶͕̒Ḑ̴͊E̵̘̅R̴̛̙S̴̭̀,̷̱̏ ̴̝́ A̷̜͗Ŕ̷̖Ă̵̺Ć̷̨H̵̳͗N̷̏ͅḬ̸̈́D̴̛ͅS̸͉͝,̸̯̉ ̵̣͝C̶̨̾Ṙ̶̞Ê̴͓A̷̩̒T̴̝͂Ú̷̱Ṟ̴͗E̷̘͌S̸͙͗ ̶͓̈́ O̸̠͂F̷͚͂ ̵̬̈ Ṭ̵̀H̸̟͝Ė̶̬ ̷̛̣N̸͚̅I̶̯̚G̸͖̿H̴̭̅T̷̻̓,̷̩̒ ̸̙̊I̴̦̕ ̷̜͐S̵̟͠U̴̪̅M̶̞͊M̸̥̔Ŏ̷̹N̴͍͝ ̴͖͒ T̷͉̚H̸͓̎È̷͇E̷̥͂ ̷̢́F̵̦̓O̷̺̿R̵̗̍ ̸̧̏ B̸̨̔A̸͓͒T̶͠ͅT̷̢̎L̸̜͘Ē̸

I coughed slightly as the demonic words left my mouth. The feeling of the words always reminded me of the texture of a slightly old apricot, or the strange store brand of denture cream I once used by mistake.

My spider minions surrounded me, growing in number and size by the second. Well, I called them my spider minions, but it was technically every spider in range. In this case, it was every creature with 6 or more legs in the tri-state area.

My favorite Goliath Bird-Eater returned, leading a parade of golden orb weaver spiders to me. With practiced speed and skill, they formed my villainous costume around me, weaving their magnificent webs in intricate patterns. At last, once they had formed my face mask, the spiders clutched my earlobes, dangling like a demented set of earrings.

"Could one of you remind me to take my Dementia pills when we get back?" I asked. Millions of spiders clamored to be the first to volunteer.

"You're all so sweet, my dearies." I said, petting the Goliath tarantula as he perched on my walker. "Now, let's stop these pesky invaders. I would hate it if they destroyed my favorite park."

With a surge of legs and fangs, my legion marched. We would not let someone else have all the fun. Not while Grandmommy Longlegs still had a say about it.

/r/SlightlyColdStories

The portal cracked the very fabric of reality, splintered the concept of spacetime, and burned a small black singe onto the delicate curtains.

I stepped forth into the realm of Man, burning the flooring under my hoofs. The smell of melting vinyl made me gag with demonic pleasure.

"WHO HAS SUMMONED ME?" I declared, scanning the small room for the warlock or wizard that had...

"Oh, that would be me, dear." A soft voice called from the corner.

I turned to see an old woman, who I had mistaken for a pile of blankets originally. This must have been some witch, disguising herself as an elderly woman for some pleasantly nefarious reason.

"WHAT BUSINESS DO YOU WISH, WITCH?" I snarled, slinging spittle across the room. Tiny holes burned through whatever my satanic saliva touched.

"I wanted to share some pictures of my grandchildren." She said, patting an album on her lap. "They just went trick-or-treating, and my daughter mailed me some photos of their costumes."

I stormed across the room, scraping my horns along the ceiling as I did. I stopped when I was almost touching her outermost lap blanket.

"AND YOU WISH TO KNOW WHAT PRICE THEIR SOULS WOULD-"

The woman shook her head, which curiously had no affect on her hair. "Oh no, I was just proud of them."

She opened the album to the last page, revealing a smiling family of four celebrating my most holy of holidays. "See? Timmy here was a cowboy, and little Jessica was a fairy!"

I squinted at the images. "I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, MORTAL. WHY DID YOU SUMMON ME?"

"Well, I didn't really feel up to going down to the cafeteria with the album." She said, turning the page. "I have a hard time carrying things and using my walker at the same time. My son in law offered to build a basket for the handles here, but just between you and me, he's not very good at making things, bless his heart."

I tilted my head, driving a horn through the ceiling above us. The woman's expression didn't change as she was showered with ceiling debris.

"YOU RISK YOUR MORTAL SOUL TO CONVERSE WITH A DEMON... FOR THIS?" I asked, bewildered.

"MARGARET!" A voice shouted from above. "You're going to pay to fix my floors, do you hear me?"

I pointed a finger above me. A jet of hellfire erupted from my claws, sending a pillar of the fires of creation through the ceiling.

The complaining ceased.

"This is my daughter holding Jessica when she was born." The woman said, flipping to the next page. "They had to use a surrogate, thats why she's standing so soon afterwards. The poor girl lost her uterus to cancer shortly after-"

"YOU HAVE NO ADDITIONAL MOTIVATION? NO BLOOD PACT, NO SCHEME OR PLOT OR NEFARIOUS INTENTS?" I asked, ignoring the fire alarm that now blared around us.

"Oh heavens no!" She said, clutching a necklace of pearls around her neck. "I would never want someone to get hurt on my account, Jesus willing."

I lurched backwards, struck with pain by the mention of that name. "DO NOT SPEAK THE NAME ALOUD!" I growled, clutching my ears with both of my claws.

"Lord forgive me, I didn't mean to cause any harm!" She said. "Do you need medical attention? I can push my first aid button here, it brings up an ambulance from Saint Peter's Hospital down-"

I staggered back, clutching my chest. "PLEASE! CEASE YOUR INFERNAL WORDS!" I begged.

The woman pulled a small black box from her jacket, and pressed a large red and white button.

"This is Mary with Saint Peter's Medical, do you need assistance?"

I screamed, shattering all of the glass within my sight. "IT HURTS! STOP!" I cried, reaching behind me to the portal still crackling in the air.

"I hear you, we have dispatched an ambulance to your location. Please remain on the line, I will walk you through this." The voice from the box said. "Do you have anyone you'd like for us to contact on your behalf?"

The woman perked up. "Oh, yes! Could you ask Father O'Malley if he received my-"

I turned, and leapt through the portal, sealing it behind me. I found myself surrounded by concerned faces, baring their fangs in sympathy.

"Demon hunter?" Beelzebub asked, skittering towards me on his many feet.

I shook my head. "I don't know what that......THING was."

The demon looked at the closed portal, then snapped an order at the lesser demons. "Seal the portal, and cast it into the pit. We shall allow no more of our brethren to be harmed by this warrior."

I curled into a ball as the minions got to work, and sobbed.

/r/SlightlyColdStories for more

"Hey, uh, Earl?" My wife Janet called from the back door. "What breed did ya' say these new chickens were?"

I looked up from my breakfast, swallowing the scrambled eggs before responding. "Jersey Giants, why?"

Janet glanced back into the yard, then back to me. "One of them is, well, different."

I took a sip of my black coffee. "You think he's a Roo? Happens, 's hard to tell when they're youngn's-"

"Its breathing fire and speaking english." Janet blurted out.

I froze mid-sip, coffee mug suspended by my lips. "You what now?"

Janet stepped to the side, giving me a clear view to the back yard... and the smoke billowing from within the coop.

"What in tarnation!" I cried, dropping the mug and sprinting outside. "Grab the extinguisher, there's a fahr!"

I sprinted to the coop, and flung open the side door, prepared to rescue as many birds as I could. As it turned out, there was only one chicken in there, snuggled into the nesting box where they preferred to lay eggs.

I grabbed the chicken and pulled it through the door, leaving behind the eggs it was brooding upon.

"UNHAND ME, HUMAN!" the bird screamed, belching a small puff of fire from its beak. "OR THOU SHALT FACE MY WRATH".

I dropped the bird, and took a few steps back.

"Sorry, Henrietta, but there's a fahr in there." I said to the chicken, realizing just how ridiculous that was. Apologizing to a chicken, much less talking to a chicken, was just absurd.

"I AM NO HENRIETTA! I AM KHEFLEACHS, MOTHER OF DRAGONS! AND I SHALL RESTORE MY CLAN TO OUR FORMER GLORY!" the bird said, punctuating its statement with a tremendous belch of flames for a bird of its size. This happened to equate to roughly the size of a cigarette lighter.

"Erm, what's tha' now?" I said, momentarily forgetting the issue of the burning coop.

"FOOL!" Henrietta cried, flapping her arms with irritation. "I AM NOT INCLINED TO REPEAT MYSELF TO SATISFY YOUR MEAGER CURIOSITY."

Janet opened the back door, holding the fire extinguisher aloft. "Earl, I think thisn's empty." she said, shaking it slightly.

From between her legs, our dog Biscuit emerged, drawn by all the commotion. She sniffed, and caught sight of the loose bird standing beside me.

"Biscuit, NO!" I shouted, as the dog leapt into motion.

"STAY BACK, BEAST, BEFORE I AM FORCED TO SILENCE YOU ETERNAAAAAAAAAAAA" Henrietta screamed, as Biscuit snatched her torso in his jaws.

With a sickening snap, a small burst of sparks and blood shot across the lawn, and Henrietta fell limp.

"Biscuit!" I scolded. "Bad dog!"

Biscuit dropped Henrietta's dead body, lowering his head apologetically. I felt along the chicken's body, and found no signs of life.

I turned back to the coop, and found the source of the smoke.

Three eggs lay in the nesting box that Henrietta had occupied just minutes earlier. They were a strange texture, almost like a fish scale instead of the smooth eggshell I would expect. The eggs were each emitting a plume of smoke.

"Damnit, the eggs turned." I muttered, collecting the warm eggs with one hand.

Holding the eggs in one hand and Henrietta's corpse in the other, I walked back towards the house. "Janet" I called to my wife. "Could ya' get a trash bag for these?"

/r/SlightlyColdStories for more