Math 100 is a huge class. Easily 200 students in a big lecture hall. Even in that sea of people, she stood out to me.

Long jet black hair, black nail polish, black lipstick, lots of real leather both on her clothes and for her accessories, knee high black boots with a heavy sole. No one dressed like her and no one looked like her. She did her own thing in a room bursting with conformity.

She asked sharp questions, in a soft but commanding voice, in class. Her questions brought clarity to everyone who listened.

She sat in the same spot every class but didn’t mingle with those around her. She was alone but didn’t come off as lonely.

I occasionally saw her on the campus quad, usually under the shade of a big elm tree. Never doing anything, just sitting and basking in being outside.

It’s not that I was stalking her or anything - I just always seemed to notice her when she was about. Just about her, always captures my attention.

—————————

“Dude,” Justin says as we are walking through the quad, “you are staring at her again.”

“I am not staring. I am just…. noticing her… sitting there,” I said defensively.

“You need to go say ‘hi’ already. Your noticing is starting to get creepy.”

He was right. I was staring too much, too often.

“Fine! Fine! I will go talk to her,” I said, trying to convince myself this wasn’t a horrible idea. I walked across the lush green grass of the quad. There were students lounging around, some playing frisbee, some just goofing off. It was easily my favourite place on campus.

I walked towards the tree she was under, I could still veer off, I could still bail out - should I? Fuck I am getting close I gotta -

“Hi,” she said simply as I got close. “I was wondering if you were going to get the nerve to talk to me.” She was smiling a bright genuine smile that lit up her face.

I awkwardly sat down opposite her.

“You noticed, huh?” I said, running my hand through my hair.

“You aren’t exactly subtle,” she says still smiling.

We chat the afternoon away. Little things - our majors, what dorms we are in, our professors… all of the usually university chit chat. She was easy to talk to. So comfortable in her own skin - in who she is.

We talked through my 3pm class and through her 4pm class. We were both enjoying ourselves in a way that I have never had while talking to someone else. It just all felt so right.

“I should get going,” I finally said, glancing at my watch. “I have volleyball practice and my coach will tear a strip off of me if I am late.”

I stand up and offer her a hand up. She takes its. Her hand is warm. It is unexpectedly calloused, like someone who does lots of work with their hands, and much stronger than I expected. I pull her up.

“See you tomorrow, in math class,” she says with a wink. She takes a step and then leans against the tree, letting out a little grunt.

“Hey, you ok?” I am instantly worried for her.

She hangs her head and takes a couple of deep breaths.

“Fine. I am fine,” she lies.

She is clearly not alright.

“I will walk you to your dorm. I have time,” she starts to protest, “Don’t. I will walk you. Can’t have you passing out half way there.”

She takes my arm in hers and we walk to her dorm.

The chit chat has died out and she looks apprehensive. Scanning the quad - she is tense and on edge.

The sun is dipping behind the campus buildings, casting the quad into premature twilight. The lamp posts flicker and come to life - one by one.

I keep trying to get her talking but I am just getting one syllable answers. Something has her preoccupied.

We are almost at the dorms. There is a rustling over by the dumpsters. She freezes. Tension runs through her body and I can feel it in her arm. Her breathing speeds up.

“It’s ok, we are almost there. It is just a couple more metres,” I say reassuringly.

A shadow separates itself from the dumpster. Must be someone dumpster diving. Seems harmless. The shadow starts coming towards us, walking then running.

She brushes my arm off and squares herself to the shadow.

“Fuck,” she mutters under her breath. She drops her backpack and stand with her legs shoulder width apart and her arms loose. Her hands start to glow in a bluish white light.

The shadow is clearly a man, about our age, running towards us. His face is covered in messy rotten food.

“Die! Witch!” He yells.

She swirls her hands around and then suddenly pushes them out from her centre. A ball of bluish white light blasts off from her hands and hits him in the chest. He staggers and then falls to his knees.

She runs to him, spinning her right arm, windmill style. The bluish white light gathers on her hand. She leaps at him - just as she is about to land the light from her hand lashes out like a blade - slicing him in half.

Stunned - I shake my head and walk over to her.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she says panting.

Looking at the guy, sliced cleanly in half, lying on the ground in front of her and then back to her.

“What the hell is going on?” I say, terrified.

She takes a knee in front of the body. “Ghoul,” she says. “It was rooting around in the dumpster for rotten food. They usually feed on dead animals and people but anything filled with decay will do in a pinch.”

Her eyes never left the body as she spoke. A soft light emanated from her hands. She pressed them to the ground in front of the body. The grass started to glow. The glowing spread and enveloped the ghoul as well. Then the whole thing gets swallowed up by the grass.

She stood up and looked into my wild eyed face. She smiled slightly.

“I am Angela and I am a witch,” she gave a slight tilt to her head, “I don’t usually tell people in such a dramatic fashion but ghouls are an abomination that have to be dealt with. They will corrupt everything they touch. It had to be dealt with.”

“Ok,” I said simply. Somehow I wasn’t bothered or even phased by this. I handed her the backpack she dropped and we walked to her dorm.

I open the door for her.

“You good?” She asked as she went in the door. “You have been awful quite since…. Since the ghoul.”

“I am good,” I said with a smile. “You didn’t need me to walk you back at all. Did you?”

“No, but it is very sweet,” she said with a smile. “See you tomorrow?”

“You know it!”

She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and headed into the dorm.

Titans fought overhead. Larger than life, stronger than mere mortals - they fought. Crashing into buildings. Punches sending their opponents barrelling through the street - into massive craters.

People ran in all directions - including me. You can’t run far enough fast enough to get away from a fight like this. They are just everywhere.

I ran to the park. At least I won’t get crushed by a building. I should be able to see them coming.

They tumbled into the park. A trail of destruction behind them. Red Justice had the upper hand. He was beating Dr. Mechano bloody with his fists. His hands were moving faster than I could even see.

It was over. Dr. Mechano was dead. His head crush flat by the beating. Red Justice fell over, exhausted.

“Hey kid! Kid! Come over here,” he panted. He leaned up against a tree trunk.

I walked over cautiously.

“I am done. I might have won but I am dying. Just too much damage. Take off my helmet, would you?”

I knelt beside him. His helmet covered his head and face. I couldn’t see a way to take it off.

“There is a button. On the left side…,” he said weakly.

I pushed the button and face mask opened up. I eased his helmet off as carefully as I could.

As soon as it was off he began to shrink. His massive muscles deflated. His shoulders got narrower. He transformed from a hulking adult to a wiry teenager - like me.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “Take the helmet. Red Justice can’t die as long as someone is willing to put the helmet on.”

I looked at the helmet and then back to him.

“It will make you strong. You will be able to fly. And fast - so fast. You will be a super hero. But you can be defeated. You can die. cough but it is worth it. When your time comes - pass the helmet ooooon….”

His eyes closed. He looked like he was sleeping, slumped against the tree trunk.

I stood up and put on the helmet. I closed the face mask - it sealed with a loud click. I grew taller and wider. My muscles stretched and grew. My clothes transformed into Red Justice’s suit.

I am Red Justice!

“Thy end” or “my end”…. It is going up your butt after all

“What do we have here?” I said as I moved the tooth pick about in my mouth.

“A murder?” My partner said.

“A suicide?” I said looking at the gun in the victim’s lap.

“With blood splatter like this?” My partner said pointing to the ceiling.

It was a good point. Splatter should have been high, but straight up. No. This was murder.

“Motive?” I grunted.

“The victim is a lawyer - do we need more than that?”

My partner was just jaded from a bad divorce where is wife had a much better lawyer than he did. That kind of bias could poison an investigation. I make a mental note to talk to him later.

A plain clothes officer walks in, “coffee?” He offers us each a Timmies from a tray.

“Double double?” I ask.

“Is there anything else?” He responds with a smirk.

Back to the case.

“Suspects?” I ask my partner.

Shuffling through the papers on the victim’s desk my partner’s furrowed brow doesn’t give me hope of anything useful.

He pushes the papers aside and looks at the victim. “Does this seem like a crime of passion to you?”

I shrug. Murder usually is. He knows that though.

“Where are you going with this?”

“Does he have a girlfriend or spouse? Does he have a mistress? Does he have anything in his life other than work?”

“Does his dog count?”

He rolls his eyes at me.

“Can you have a crime of passion without some one to be passionate with?”

I nod my head. He is right. This SOB had no one but his dog.

“So what are we thinking? Client?”

He nods his head. Had to be a client.

I poke my head out the door and flag down the victim’s assistant.

“Could you get me a list of clients and why they were employing the victim?”

She nods.

“Do you want that list sent to the station?”

“Is it a big list?”

She shrugs her shoulders, “is a list of twenty big?”

“Do you have the station’s fax number?” I ask.

She nods. Tracking down twenty clients and seeing if any had motive. This could take a while. I could see my partner had the same thought.

“Should we grab some Thai on the way back to the station?”

My stomach was already grumbling. It was going to be another long day.

I loved walking the high wall with daddy. We would just walk around and around the top of the building. Daddy would talk to me about all sorts of things. Mostly of things from before The Fall. Things like movies and television and electricity…. All of the things that are make believe now.

He always walks with a big rifle on his back and a walkie talkie on his hip. He calls these walks ‘patrolling’ and says it is super important. How can a walk be important though? That is just silly.

Daddy can be like that though, super serious about the silliest things. Not all dads are like that though. A lot of them are super serious all the time - serious and mad. Daddy is never like that.

We were playing hopscotch on our walk when Daddy stopped and looked over the wall. He started talking real fast into the walkie talkie about ‘stumblers’ on the horizon.

The whole building went crazy. Everyone was up on the wall. There are people everywhere. People screaming and yelling. Little little kids are crying and nobody is paying them no mind. Something serious is going on.

Daddy and all the people with big riffles line up along the wall and look down the guns. The guns are so loud. Even plugging my ears with it fingers, I can hear them shoot.

There must be a zillion rabbits on the other side of the wall because they just kept shooting and shooting and shooting. Nobody was going down to get the rabbits though… someone always went to pick up the rabbits. They must be missing it lots.

Finally the shooting stopped. It was so nice to be able to take my fingers out of it ears. Daddy said we were out of ammo and so we have to hide from the shamblers. That sounds like a fun game. I am really good at hide and seek - I bet this is just like hide and seek.

Lots of people were crying. Maybe they don’t get to play the game. I bet they could play if they just asked Daddy. Daddy is really nice and he would totally let them play with us.

We go to our room and Daddy moves a bunch of stuff out of the closet. There is a secret door in the back of the closet! That is the coolest thing ever! Daddy says I get to hide in there but that is silly, he already knows where I will be. Daddy is doing his silly serious voice, so I go into the secret door and Daddy closes it from the other side.

It is really small and dark in here. I sit down and wait for Daddy to come find me but he is taking forever. Like…. he knows I am right here.

I can hear yells and screams through the door but they sound funny - like they are far away but not - yeah know?

Anyways, I am bored and sleepy. Maybe I will take a little nap while I wait for Daddy, he is going to find me really soon I bet.

Maybe some one who is really poor having to choose between keeping their cool power or selling it.

The adventures of Sally and Bernie. I would totally read those as well.

The number of deaths at a location is surprising. I use to work at a hotel and we would have 2 or 3 deaths a year. And that was at a small town hotel.

Never read the thunderbolts. I heard they were making a movie but that is about all I know of that one. Might have to look it up.

“Hey Jerry, how has your evening been?”, I ask as I walk into the Flying W gas station I work at.

“Dead, man. Absolutely dead. I haven’t seen anyone in like two hours, man.”, Jerry said. I am pretty sure he is stoned again, but whatever.

I wander behind the counter, “If it has been that dead, then why don’t you take off. I got this.” Our shifts are supposed to over lap for an hour to cover the 11 to midnight rush but I was betting it wasn’t going to happen tonight.

“Duuuuuude! You rock!”, Jerry leapt over the counter and was gone. I am sure he would have been fired years ago, but he is always on time and the till always balances…. This place doesn’t set a very high bar for employee of the month if you know what I am saying.

Midnight came and went without a single customer. One am and two am came an went too. It was a very dead night.

Around two thirty the fog started to roll in. It was thick and low. It made the street lights into fuzzy orbs of floating light since the poles were hidden. The highway, just a couple hundred yards away, might as well have been on the moon. Only the occasional glow let me know that there were still cars going by.

I have been working the night shift for almost five years now. At first I thought the worst of it was the after the bar crowd or the crack heads but it is the witching hour when the crazy shit really happens. Between three and four am. If something is going to go down, that is when it is going to happen.

This fog felt ominous and put me on edge.

Three ten am. A vintage model-T Ford pulled into the station. I gawked. I had never seen one in such mint condition. It was a beauty. The driver was in period clothes too. Black felt top hat, driving goggles and a black suit, even spat shoes …. He went all out.

The driver got out and was walking towards the building when a second model-T came by, not slowing down I saw two Tommy guns sticking out the windows, they open fired, shredding the driver, as he fell to the ground he and cars disappeared.

I guess it was going to one of those nights.

Three twenty five am. A 1970 something half ton truck pulled in. The box was full of teen age kids, all dressed for the beach. Probably heading out to the old swimming hole off route 3….. which was paved over about a decade ago.

The kids piled out of the box of the truck and came into the store. They were all over the store picking phantom merchandise off of shelves that weren’t there any more while walking through the shelves that were there. They chatted among themselves, laughing and having fun. They paid in cash at a till that wasn’t there any more and then piled back in the box of the truck. The truck pulled out and was creamed by a semi going in the opposite direction. Bodies flew from the truck box and then disappeared as they hit the ground.

Three forty two am. “Give me all your money!”, he yelled, a sawed off shot gun in his hands.

“Easy man…. Easy.”, I said as I started to open the cash register. I saw a the barrel of a shot gun appear in my belly and let off a round. The would be robber went flying. I turned to see a young man with a Flying W t-shirt holding a gun. He must have been the cashier…. No clues as to when this robbery was. I got out of the ghost cashier’s way. He looked over the counter and got a shot gun blast to the face. He spun and hit the floor, disappearing along with the robber.

Three fifty five am. A couple came in. They were arguing. She went to get some chips and he asked for a package of cigarettes. I got the pack of cigs down from the display just in time to see her stab him in the neck. Blood squirted out and hit the door. His eyes bulged and he went down, she just kept on stabbing until they both disappeared. I put the cigs back into the display case.

Seven oh five am. The morning shift had arrived.

“Hey Stanley, how was your night?”, they asked as they came in.

“Oh it was pretty quite. Little excitement around three am or so but nothing too crazy.”, I replied.

Containment Six…. affectionately known as ‘Deep Six’. The most secure facility in the world. It is a prison for containing the worst, most powerful, super powered people in the world. It is on the ocean floor, almost a full mile below sea level.

Every cell is equipped with power dampeners. They don’t just suppress your powers, they feed off of your powers. You spend all day doing nothing but you are exhausted like you used your powers all day, everyday, non-stop. They literally suck your will to live…. to power the lights.

Down here, there is no sun rise, no sun set…. They cycle the lights randomly to keep us from getting into any sort of routine, from being able to measure time or days or figure out guard rotations. Some ‘days’ have two hours of light, some have twenty six hours of light, and, of course, we have everything in between…. Just an extra layer of punishment to our days in solitary.

I don’t know how long I have been here. I don’t belong here, but the courts said otherwise.

There was a fight between two supers. They were tearing apart the city trying to kill each other. One of them crashed into the high rise I was in, right at the base of the building, taking out a structural pillar holding the whole damn place up. The building began to lean, she was going down, so I did the only thing I could think of…. I stood where the pillar was and held up the building.

I was shouting for everyone to evacuate, but it takes time to evacuate ninety floors of office space. I started to sweat. The strain of holding ninety floors up is more than I have ever experienced. The building was slowly crushing me. I could feel my muscle bulge and ache under the strain.

The longest minutes of my life passed as I struggled to hold that building up. The fighting supers came back this way and hit the building again. They took out a second support pillar and the building came down.

I was buried in ninety stories of rubble. I dug myself out and walked away unscathed. One hundred and fifty three people made it out while I held that building up. Two hundred and thirty three died when it came down. The supers kept fighting like the lives didn’t matter.

A rage I didn’t know I possessed washed over me. I watched the two supers flying and fighting, ignoring the carnage and the lives they were destroying and that rage became a fire that I could not contain.

I leapt into the air and crashed into one of the supers flying over head. I wrapped my legs around him and started punching. He couldn’t get away and he couldn’t shake me and by time we crash landed there was only a bloody stump where his head should have been.

The second super landed near us as I screamed at the bloody corpse of the first super.

“Thank-you citizen! I will” #BAM

Fuck him. I hit him with everything I had in an upper cut. I found out later that I knocked his body into orbit. They never found his head.

I collapsed and cried for people lost that today. For the senselessness of it all.

The courts didn’t care about the people who escaped from the building because of my efforts. The courts didn’t care about the people who didn’t escape. The courts didn’t care about the supervillain whose head I pulverized. No… it was city’s hero, one man, that they cared about. I was charged and convicted of knocking the strongest man in the world into orbit. What a farce.

It was decided that I was a threat. That I couldn’t be trusted walking the streets. That I could snap and start punching people into orbit at anytime. I was sentenced to life in solitary at Containment Six.

There were memorials built in his honour…. There was nothing built for regular people that died that day. The world was in love with superhero’s and it didn’t matter how many people they killed, injured or maimed…. As long as it was in the name of the greater good.

Fuck the greater good.

“Open twenty-two!”, a voice yelled. My door slid open. A man in an expensive black suit stood outside my cell. “You look bigger than when you were locked up.”, he said to me.

I shrugged. “I think it is the dampeners. It is like they are forcing me to use my strength non-stop. I might as well be at the gym twenty four seven. This place has made me stronger than I could have ever been on the outside.”, I said.

“Dampeners!”, he yelled. I felt my strength return in an instant. It was like a breath of fresh air. I flexed my muscles and stretched. I haven’t felt this good since I have been down here.

The man in the suit smiled. “I have a proposition for you.”, I raised an eye brow at him, “I am looking to put together a team.”, my face dropped into a scowl. “A team that will stop supers…. Heroes and villains. I don’t care about good and evil. I care about saving lives.”, he said. He was watching my face closely. Reading me. “I watched your trail. I watched the footage of you holding up that building. You cared about the people…. Not the other supers. Not the press or fame… you cared about the people. Join my team and help me put an end to threat the supers pose.”

“Who are you?”, I asked.

“I work for the government. The people maybe in love with the supers but the governments of the world aren’t. They have created a NATO task force, in conjunction with every government in the world, to deal with the super threat.”

“You are going to stop supers with supers?”

“How else?”, he said simply. I shrugged. “Will you join my team?”

“No stupid spandex suits. No cheesy names.”, I said.

“Agreed.”

And just like that I joined the team that hunted down supers.

I felt around the trunk for the thousandth time. Still no latch, no tools nothing that can help me escape from this bloody car trunk. I have no idea how long I have been in here, time seems to have lost all sense of meaning. I drifted in and out of sleep in between screaming and banging on the trunk lid.

I was laying there, out of breath, my hands raw and bleeding from pounding on the trunk lid. My mind drifted back to when I was a kid, when I got trapped in my closet, I was there for hours before my parents found me. I played with my imaginary friend to pass the time…. Stanky Stevie…. He looked like a mutant muppet. Bright green fur, a big bulbous nose and a huge unibrow. He was funny and silly, we played games and he protected me.

“Oh Stanky Stevie, where are you now?”, I said to myself as I started to cry in the dark trunk.

“Hey, hey, hey!”, a familiar goofy voice said, “are we in the closet again?” I could feel him right beside me. I reached out and ran my hands through his fur.

“Hey Stanky Steve.”, I said dejectedly. “No. I am not in the closet. I have been kidnapped and stuffed into the trunk of a car. I have been here for a long time, just waiting for them to come back and kill me.”

“I don’t know that I like this game.”, Stanky Stevie said. “How about some tic tac toe or some hide and seek?”, he said in his goofy voice.

“Stevie…. This is serious. I am going to die if I can’t get out of here. It isn’t time for games…. What the fuck am I doing? I am talking to an imaginary monster in the trunk of a car…. I have fucking lost it.”, started sobbing uncontrollably.

“I am as real as you need me to be, always have been. Most people forget about monsters like me once they hit a certain age…. But we are always here, waiting to be called upon.”, Stanky Stevie said in a serious tone.

Stanky Stevie was snuggled up, comforting me, in the dark trunk. I felt better, just knowing I wasn’t alone anymore.

#BAM BAM BAM

Someone was pounding on the outside of the trunk.

“Wakie wakie! It’s time for the fun to start!”, a creepy voice said from outside trunk. I could hear the jingling of keys and then a key slipping into the lock.

“Hush now. Stanky Stevie will make it all better.”, Stanky Stevie said quietly to me.

The trunk opened, I was blinded by the bright lights but Stanky Stevie bounded out of the trunk, right at my captor.

“Let’s play a game!”, Stanky Stevie yelled as he started hitting the man.

“What the hell is going on!”, the man said.

“We are playing a game!”, Stanky Stevie said, just as he sprouted fangs and sunk them into our captor’s neck. He shook his head, ripping out chunks out of his neck. “Are you having fun‽ hahahahaha!!!”

Stanky Stevie rode the man down to the ground, ripping bigger and bigger chunks out of the man. Blood spraying all over Stanky Stevie. Then he just stopped moving and bled. Stanky Stevie looked at me, blood running down his chin. His fur covered in blood. His fangs making him look absolutely terrifying.

“Hey, hey hey! Can we play a game now!”, Stanky Stevie said.

If it was rotting then eventually a vampire would just… fall apart. There must be some thing else in play to keep them…. ‘Together’. I could see a revenant or a animated skeleton or a zombie or something like that to always be rotting. But a vampire is a bit different.

You could eat an undead, but I makes me wonder if there would be a bit of the “you are what you eat” kicking into effect…. Making the Hunter slowly turn into something new… something dark. Hungers for the meat of the undead, hates the light but still has a heart beat and a soul…. I think there is room for a fun take on this.

We were forced underground when they came. They can’t deal with the dark and deployed satellites to light up the night sky. It is bright as day all of the time now. We took to the sewers and subways to hide…. eking out a minimal survival in the wastes of our once beautiful cities.

We call the day they came, ‘the arrival’.

crack

I lit a green glow stick, it’s crack echoing down the subway tunnel.

“It is a waste of a glow stick. These are just graffiti. Ramblings of a nut job with a spray can.”, Andrew said. He thought following the tunnel was a waste of time.

“I am telling you, they mean something. We just have to put them all together.”, I said as I scanned the wall with the glow stick. “The last one was ten feet further in, so there should be one near here if the pattern holds.” Scanning the whole wall by the green light was slow going. “Here! Here it is!”

Every piece of graffiti was signed by ‘the prophet’ and dated. The dates went all the way back to 2010, but they all talk about the arrival, which didn’t happen until 2023. I think this ‘prophet’ person was an actual prophet. Andrew thinks the prophet is a nut job.

I read through the whole thing. “Write it down Andrew. I will read it off.”

They will come by night and bring the day. 
They will fear the night, we will fear the day. 
They will die by night, we will die by day. 
   - the prophet 2012

I was reading it over and over again. Checking to see if I missed any thing.

“The first line is clear enough.”, Andrew said.

“So is the second.”, I said, “ but the third line…. they will die by night, what does that me?”, I pondered out loud.

“Think that the dark actually kills them?”, Andrew asked

“How?”, I asked myself out loud, “the dark is the absence of light. It isn’t a thing all by it’s self.”

“Let’s see if we can find another one before the glow stick dies.”, Andrew said as he shook the stick.

We hurried down the subway tunnel, scanning the wall as we went.

“There it is!”, Andrew said excitedly.

“Give me the stick.”, I scanned the wall again, “This prophet repeats themselves. Write it down Andrew.”

Fear the day as they fear the night
Bring them the night as they brought the day
Bring them death as they brought death
    - the prophet 2018

“You got that?”, I asked.

“Yeah. I got it.”, Andrew said as he finished writing the last of it down. “Bring them death as they brought death…. It really sounds like the dark would kill them.”

“Come on. One more!”, I said as I shook the glow stick again.

“We are getting close to the opening. I can see a faint glow up there.”

“Don’t be a chicken. You know they don’t come where there is any darkness. Come on.”, I rushed ahead without waiting for him. “There is one right here. It is way too close. No way that was ten feet.”

“What does it say?”

Break the false suns and break their hold
Break the hold and reclaim the surface
Break the surface strongholds and live
   - the prophet - 2015

“The false suns are a satellites. The strongholds are the crazy hive thingies they live in.”, I said as I analyzed the text.

“We know this stuff. We have like 50 of these quotes written down. And they don’t tell us a damn thing we haven’t already guessed. So what if this prophet knew it years before everyone else? It doesn’t help us now.”, Andrew said in an exasperated tone. He was right. The prophet was just telling us things we already knew.

“Think there is another one?”, I could feel him rolling his eyes at me. I walked down the tunnel without waiting for an answer. “There totally is. They are getting closer together.”

Follow the path Jesse 
Ignore Andrew the dissenter
Find the past to save the future
   - the prophet - 2021

“Holy shit…..”, we were both stunned. “He wrote our names. Both our names”, I ran my hand over my name…. The rough bricks pulling at my fingers. “How did he know our names?”

“I am not a dissenter….. am I?”, Andrew questioned.

“You really haven’t been on board….”, I said, leaving the answer just kind hang there.

“We have to head back. The glow stick is dying.”

He was right. The glow sticks are closely rationed. We won’t get another one for weeks, and that is if we do every shitty job we can volunteer for.

sigh

“Fine. But we are coming back as soon as we can!”, we both put our hands to the wall and started walking back in the dark.

Two pages is kinda the problem. I kinda hit a wall around two pages. Not sure how to get a long story than that….

LoL Just Sunday morning babbling.

Hoping for a Dresden take on this one.

My traitorous student walked into my lab, the sword of destiny in one hand, the other a fist, clenched in rage. The scowl of his face said it all, he was here to kill me.

“Hello James.”, I said causally, “something on your mind?”

“Revenge. You kicked me out of the program and now I will take your head.”, he cursed as he spun the blade in his hand.

“You think that blade will be enough to kill me? You think you have the skills and fortitude to kill me?”, I prodded him.

“This is the sword of destiny! You wielded it once, at the battle of Sonova, but it was too much for you and you gave it up. Everyone knows the story.”, he said with a smirk, “if there is a blade in the world that can kill your old ass, this is it!”

I let out a long sigh. “I am old. So very old. Everyone knows wizards live a long time. Two or three hundred years on average. What are you? Seventy years old? You are a child to me.” I sat down in my recliner chair and lit a my pipe. I took a long slow puff.

“I created a spell a long time ago that extends my life. I don’t know by how much…. The math gets a little crazy when you are dealing in that kind of power, but I am a great deal older than you think I am.”, I let out a perfect slow smoke ring and then blew a second one faster to go through the first one.

“I am eight thousand years old…. I think. We have switched calendars a couple of times and I think I might be out by a couple of years… maybe a decade… doesn’t reality matter after your first millennia”, I explained.

“That is impossible!”, James yelled, “the amount of power that would take is insane. There is no way for you to gather that much power fast enough without burning yourself out.”, he was so sure of himself.

“Power can be pulled through an amplifying artifact…. “, I said simply.

“Still not enough power.”, he said smugly.

I took another deep puff of my pipe. “Magically power is all around us. In every spec of life. In ley lines that circle the planet. In electrical storms. In earth quakes…. Everything has power. Now if someone was to absorb the power of, oh, let’s say an active volcano, through an amplifying artifact and channel it into a longevity spell…. Well… assuming you didn’t burn yourself to a crisp with the power influx, you would have enough power to create the most powerful longevity spell ever cast.”

I could see the doubt starting to take seed in young James.

“What do you do with that much life?”, I asked him

“I don’t know. It isn’t possible”, he stammered.

“It is possible. And what you do…. Is everything. I have been a tailor, a carpenter, a blacksmith, a weapons smith, a gold smith, a baker, a gigolo, a politician, a weapons master…. I have mastered every skill I ever came across. I have lived thousands of lives.”, I tapped out my pipe in the ash tray, “I created the sword of destiny almost a thousand years ago. A challenge to myself to create the most powerful sword ever created.”

“Bullshit! Merlin created the sword! Everyone knows that.”, James spat.

“You are right. Merlin created the sword. But I was Merlin… and Gerald the great… and Edouard the wise… and Stevo the whacko. I have been so many people over the centuries that I can’t even keep track of them all. But believe it or not, I created that sword. Every couple hundred years, I wield it again and remind the world of its power, make sure it is in the hands of someone worthy.”, I stood up and cracked my neck. “You aren’t worthy of that blade. I didn’t give it up because it was too much for me. I gave it up because it makes everything too easy. After eight thousand years, I do things the hard way or a different way or in a new way just to entertain myself. I am bored. Now if you are going to kill me, I suggest you get on with it. I have a 2pm class to teach.”

James gave the blade a spin and charged at me. What a predictably boring opening.

I kicked my ottoman and it him in the shins, bringing his charge to an abrupt stop. He swung the blade and I dodge it easily. I leapt to the right and kicked off the wall to get more height and then spun and kicked him across the face, landing lightly in front of him.

“You need to do better James. You have the sword, come on and use it!”, I taunted him.

I could feel him pulling in power. The air crackled and lightening jumped down the blade as it amplified the power, he swung the sword over head and unleashed a massive lightening bolt right at me with a mighty scream.

“Excellent James.”, I said as I caught the bolt. I curled the bolt and formed a ball with the electricity. All of my hair stood on end as I built the charge even bigger. “Now catch it James.”, I said as I lobbed the ball of electricity back to him.

He slashed at it with the sword. The power running back into the blade and into James. I could see the lightening dancing in his eyes. The fool of a boy had never played with even this much power before and he was coming to kill me? Stupid boy.

James was struggling to hold on to the power. All of his muscles were tense and he was fighting to keep his hands on the hilt. I fashioned another ball of lightening and lobbed it at him. And another. And another.

“How many more can you take James?”, he struggled and then dropped the sword. The power scorched the stone floor and the blade sunk half way into the floor. James fell to his knees trying to catch his breath.

“You were kicked out of the program because you are mentally unstable. You have minimal control of your very considerable power. And you lack the discipline to over come those things. And now you have come to kill me. Pathetic.”

I spun around an kicked him in the face causing him to fall into the blade. The sword easily took his head cleanly off.

“Such a pity. He had potential.”, I gathered my books and headed off to class. Hopefully the maid will be by to clean up while I am away.

I am what is referred to as a cyclical man. It is an ancient magic that can only be cast on a group of willing people. Every group has a different composition and a different set of rules.

I knew a cyclical man that was just two people. By day one of them existed and by night the other. But only living half a life they each lived for twice as long.

I knew a team of adventures that became a cyclical man. A thief, a mage, a barbarian, a bard, and a great scholar. They would rotate as certain skills were needed. They were an unstoppable team of one.

The neat thing is that the memories are shared and you only age by as much time as you have actually lived. It seems great but you are stuck living a half life. You can’t settle down. You can’t have a normal job. And it is impossible to break the spell.

I joined with a unique group of adventurers. We are a group of ‘monsters’ and we cycle based on our individual strengths. A centaur that can travel fast by day. A vampire that can never see the sun light. A werewolf by the full moon so he is always at his full strength. A merman when we hit the water. A heat loving dragon on the hottest of days and a yeti when it is too cold for anyone else. We are always at our strongest.

We are six individuals that make up one man, and this is a story of our adventures.

Now add a first day in the field. What would happen if someone had learnt a little on their own? Critical mana levels and their head explodes? Maybe they could see some of the fallout from mana at play.

For a month a year, I have the greatest job in the world. I am a mall Santa.

The mall is decked out in its holiday finery. Trees, and lights and garland and Christmas music playing. The hallways are bustling. Parents want to shop and get out. The kids want to come and see me, to tell me their wishes and secrets. It is truly a magical time of year.

“Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas!”, I say cheerily from my chair. My voice gets swallowed by the busy din of the mall. One of the helper elves brings a little girl out to my chair. I looked up to the second helper elf who has the child’s name on a little white board that only I can see. It is the little things that let me bring the magic to these kids.

“Hello Mary!”, I say as the child gets close.

Her eyes get wide. I see her turn back to her mom and say, “he knows my name!” She says excitedly.

“Of course, I know your name. You have been a very good girl this year.”, I reach out a hand and welcome her to my chair. “Tell me Mary, what would you like for Christmas this year?”

Mary is a shy girl and looks down and then whispers, “I want a pony.”

“Ho Ho Ho! Oh my, that is a big wish.”, she nods in agreement. “Do you have a place to keep a pony?”

“I don’t know. Maybe in the garage.”

“Do you have a place for the pony to run and exercise?”

“No”, she says sadly

“Mmmmm…. Maybe something a little smaller would be better?”

“I want a Sally talks allot dolly”, she says after some serious thought.

“Oh, that is a great dolly. I really like that one! She has long blonde hair just like yours and she says so many different things. That is a great gift idea.”, little Mary grinned from ear to ear. While I make small talk with Mary, I use my right hand to spell out the gift she wants in sign language to one of my elves to tell the parents. “You have a great Christmas Mary!”, I say, as I send her on her way.

Little Billy is next. He is not sure if he is a believer or not.

“My friend Steve says that Santa isn’t real.”, he says sadly

“I will tell you a secret Billy. Santa isn’t a single person. Santa is the spirit of hope, and innocence, and wonder, and childhood. That spirit lives in you and in me and in all of us. If you do something that gives a child hope or sparks their wonder…. Then in that moment, you are Santa.”, I said as seriously as I could. “But remember, that is a secret.”, I tapped my nose and winked at him and sent him on his way.

The rest of the evening is a blur of children and impossible wishes. Some sweet kids, some bratty kids, some entitled parents and everything in between. A typical evening in the mall.

We were just about to shut it down for the evening and there was one more kid. A young boy, a little older than my usual kids.

He ignores the helper elf and comes out to the chair and sits beside me. “Ho Ho Ho! Merry Christmas little man. What would you like for Christmas this year?”

“I know you aren’t really Santa. I know Santa isn’t real. I just… I just need some one to see me. To know I am trying.”, he voice breaks and he is about to cry, “ I am trying as hard as I can but he still hits me.”, a tear rolls down his cheek. “I don’t know what else I can do….”

I reach over and give him a hug and he sobs, and then pushes me off and runs away.

I wish I could say it was the first time I had heard a heart breaker but it happens too often.

The chime played on the mail speakers followed by the mall is closing soon message. We pack it in and shutdown for the night. In the backroom, I change into my street clothes. I look in the mirror…. The big beard is natural. I need the glasses and I have a full head of grey hair. Even without the red suit I still look like Santa. “Ho ho ho”, I say sadly to my reflection. That last kid really got to me.

I head out to the bus stop and I see that same kid waiting outside trying to keep warm by a vent. I watch him as I wait for my bus and I see a tall man walk out of a pub a couple of doors away from the kid. He walks up behind the kid and slaps the back of his head.

“Come on you little shit. Let’s go home”, he says drunkenly. The boy visibly shrinks back from him as they walk down the street.

My bus comes and goes and I am still standing there… watching them walk down the street. I start following them. Out of the down town core. Out into the warehouse district. Out into the low income, high density housing…. The high class slums of the city.

They get to a building and he opens the door for the kid and pushes him in. “Get the fuck up stairs you…. Burrrrrrp…. Fuck…”. He leans against the building and lights a cigarette and starts smoking.

I walk right up to this drunk guy. “You need to stop hitting that kid.”, I say in my meanest voice.

“Fuck off Santa.”, he says and spits to the side.

I sucker punch him in the stomach, doubling him over. “I said, you need to stop hitting that kid.”, I lift his head up by his hair, “did you hear me, you fucking drunk? You can Fuck up your life, but that kid still has a future. It is your job to protect him and help him. You don’t fucking hit him. Got it‽”

“Fuck you!”, he yells and he punches me in the gut. It should have doubled me over but it felt like nothing.

I feel cold. Ice cold. My fist is steaming like it is made of dry ice. I hit him in the face and I see ice form on his cheek where I struck him. I hit him again and again…. Left, right, left, right. My hands are literal blocks of ice.

“Who, who the fuck are you?”, he says. His lip is split and cheeks are red and raw.

“I am Santa Clause, motherfucker!”, I say slowly. My breath coming out like thick steam. I grab him by the collar and easily lift him off the ground. “I will know if you have been good. I will know if you have been bad. So you better be good or I will be back and I will fuck you up. Are we clear?”

“Yeah. Yeah. We are clear.”, he whimpered.

“Merry fucking Christmas, asshole.” I say as I drop him. He stumbles. He fumbles for his keys and runs into the apartment building.

I let out a frosty breath and start walking back to my bus stop, humming ‘Santa Clause is coming to town” under my breath.

“Luxury Gay space communism”…. That is a new one for me.

Yeah, it was written as one post but hit the character limit of a comment and had to split it into 2 parts.

Thanks! If you check my comment history there are lots of stories but I am very hit and miss. But I am working on it….

These two are my favourites right now:

This one is really short: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/yhfw9r/wp_you_are_a_barista_in_a_24_hour_coffee_shop/iudq6rb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3

This one has 6 parts I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/yr1zuf/wp_for_50_dollars_ill_help_you_do_anything_one/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf