“This is a stick up.”
Will we run fast enough. The cars won’t run us over, he can’t follow us into the street.
“This is a stick up. Take it all out.”
His voice seemed to be getting louder, shriller. More insistent.
Read MoreHis station was on 14th and 6th avenue, mine was on 14th and 7th avenue. It’s funny how memory can be so vivid and so vague for the same timeframe. I remember we were talking, I do not remember about what. Until it happened. And everything became super focused. I became hyper aware.
Read MoreIt’s funny. You would have thought I would have learnt my lesson. Fool me once, or something like that. Yeah, I know the phrase. Questioning the validity of it here though.
Read MoreI told you not to say anything, he wrote furiously, arms scratching, words cutting deep on the paper like the hurt in his heart. So i’m not trying to be spiteful, maybe it is coming out that way, maybe it looks that way, but I want you to know, and I actually do hope this hurts you, maybe it won't, considering what you’ve done. I do hope this hurts you the way what you did hurt me. His writing did not look anything like the usual neat scrawl. It was a scribble of lines. Somebody would figure it out. Somebody would translate it. Decipher it. He could not. He was seeing pain and betrayal. His head hurt. He smelled emptiness in the air, his eyes burned, brimming with tears. I told you not to say anything, you are my brother. There exists, or so i thought, a bond between us. A bond where i can expect to trust you. I was not sure i could. But i put faith in you. And you have shown me i was right. It hurts.
Read MoreHe thought he was a pawn on the board. At least he was on the board at all. At least he could control his future, more so than others. He had grown up in a middle class family. He had never thirsted or hungered or scrounged for scraps like some of the more well known fighters. He had never hungered for fame. What he had always wanted, and what had been denied in this world to him was freedom. Freedom to make his choices, freedom to not be enslaved, to not be dancing to the tune of money in this strip club. He was rather proud of that analogy. It came to him when he was at a strip club. He worked a desk job during the day, and was single. He would blow his money, carefully, not all of it, he wasn’t stupid, at a strip club. Everyone had their vices. He remembered the thought even now, the exact thought, ringing through his head like it had that day. This country, no this whole world is a strip club. There are people with the money, and there are the rest of us, dancing for it. He smiled. He was proud of that thought. He believed in the truth of that statement as soon as it echoed around the pole of his mind, it took him a lot longer to act on it. Maybe that was why his story wasn’t etched in the minds of the people. But also, he didn’t want it to be. He had never thirsted for fame. They all knew, even the number ones in the world, that he could wipe the floor with them. They didn’t want to fight him. He wouldn’t fight them. It was an open secret.
Read MoreHe had lived the most ordinary life possible. Waking up in the morning, going to work with his brown leather briefcase, worn by all those years of labor. Leaving the office at one past five every evening, getting home at forty six past five pm every night. He would make dinner, or supper, it would take him fourteen minutes. He would watch television as he shovelled the fork into his face. Another thirty minutes. Six thirty he would start the ritual for bed. By seven every night, he would be in bed. He would read, usually be asleep by seven thirty, be awake without an alarm between the hours of three and forty thirty in the morning. He would watch television and read some, slowly put some oatmeal in his mouth, and he would drag his bicycle out of his apartment, go riding. This was a recent edition, recent considering the timeline of all the rest. He had been working for thirty five years, he had this schedule for thirty four and a half. He had been riding a bicycle every morning for four and a half years.
Read MoreIt was known, but oft forgotten and overlooked. The sun shone high and wide above it, yet the people around were in a daze, and as soon as they left it, they returned to the dullness and forgetfulness of the world that was slowly being suffocated by the thick blanket of darkness encircling it. It was as if all the stars in the night sky had slowly blinked out of existence. Pop. Pop. Pop. one brief moment of sunlight in a sky covered with hazy clouds, with shadows popping into existence as surely as the light they replaced popped out of it. In that small area, the smells were pure, air flowed into it, and smelled clean, of green and of earth, and everything that is pure and from the ground, and as soon as it flowed out, it smelled bad, and like rot again.
Read MoreThe madman zigzagged around the lawns, immaculate, pristine. The manor stood, still derelict, but it was imbued with a different sort of light. Even though the sun was out, and in full force, even though it was noon, the middle of the day, and everything else was bright and sunny, the power that had given the manor life had also given it an excess of shadows. Shadows creeped up the ivy wall, creeped around the moss at the back, shadows crept on the ceiling of the manor. It was as if they knew this was where everything would begin. They were waiting before their master would be summoned. Their Rajah. They did not know if he would be summoned here, but here they were. They knew something very important for the prophecy would happen here.
Read MoreThis place was long forgotten, and as such, it was the perfect place. It was easy to get permits from the governments in chaos, scrambling as they were to put together systems in place for a people that were only used to being ordered, and had no initiative of their own. Even if people did find out, who would give a singular fuck about the people society had declared fucked up and sent to be fixed, knowing full well that they could not.
Read MoreHe gasped, eyes white, and staring up. Open all the way, and then some, and yet, unseeing. All he could see was what he felt. The pain. Red. brands across his skin. Every time they tore off another piece, everything time they took away another part of him, it was as if the pain of all of them was born anew. When he moved his hands, moved any limp, the cuts stretched and burned. The sewers smelled of rust and dust, and he could hear clanging in the corridors. They had not taken him to a different room, had not taken him far away. It had to be here, it had to be in front of the others. The pain did not occupy his day and night, yet it did. He was not in pain all the time. But he was always thinking of it. He could smell the sewage, it had become a part of their existence. The smell, and seeing it surfing through on the small waves and currents that had become the rivers and tributaries of this place over time. Forgotten, abandoned. Until they got here.
Read MoreOut of one prison and into another. Adam smiled regardless. He was the Messiah. He was working with the common man, even though these common men were butchers and murderers. Some of the worst, that society had collectively decreed would be locked up. He was their Savior. He was their Messiah, soon he would be the Messiah for all the people. He wiped some sweat off his brow. It was cold down here. And dark. Wet. humid. It smelled. There were crawlies everywhere. He guessed this was the price to pay to be a Messiah in this day and age. He was still thankful. His army not so much so.
Read MoreFor the first time since they had begun, the men were starting to show signs of stress. Their eyes were feverish, sometimes white. It was as if they felt that the Beings had locked themselves up. But how could they know. Not even the messenger, the Shadow Rajah, knew. He flickered by their side, and yet, he was stronger and firmer than before. The darkness was spreading over the world. The last few chess games had declared it to be so. It was evident which way the tides were turning. But there were many more to go before it would all be over, and so they continued playing. Their hands shook, and trembled with the weight of holding so many pieces, and staying up for so many days, sleepless nights, the elements raging all around them. Yet they strayed far from the board. Which seemed to glow now, emanating a power and light that could not be seen, only felt by those in its umbrella. It was electric, as if your very skin was on edge, fiery, igniting the passions in your heart and loins, arid and dry, turning your mind numb, and humming, your ears trembling as tiny pins and needles of noise entered them and made their way to
Read MoreHur kicked a rock in frustration. He winced as his toe hurt. Long worry lines had grown on forehead. His face now sported a long, straggling beard, his shoulders slumping under the weight of his worries, and the burden he bore for the world. His quest was not going well. He had just missed her.
The sun was cool, refreshing, shielded it was from him, between him and the mighty behemoth of a star that guarded the universe was a ceiling of green. He was in a forest, looking for sites. This site, in the Amazon, she had been here, he could feel it. Why had the man just not let him find her then. The time was not right. He could feel the voice in his head. Thin, raspy. Yeah, but then he wouldn’t have to go around looking for her. Why could he not have grabbed her as well as him. She needed to be there, she needed to lose what she thought could not be lost, to be ready. He hated it, hated having the answers. He was not ready. Hur was not ready.
Read MoreIt was gnawing.
It had happened over many years. The moment could not be pinpointed. There was not one moment. In hindsight, those many moments could be seen, could be noticed. This town was an experiment.
Read MoreThe men ran as one unit. They were shirtless, their chests were gleaming with sweat, their legs were hairless. The hair on their head was long and flowing behind them as they leaped across the savannah.
It was hot and dry. The sun beat down hard on the African plain - the melanin in the skins of these men positively gleaming with delight. It smelled of baked earth which burned, hazy steam rising from it as they ran on the ground. Yet they did not seem to notice, neither to wince, nor to stop and nurse their feet. They leaped through the ground. Their breaths too, were unionized, as one. In, out, in out. Not heavy, not gasping, but measured.
Read MoreThe studio was dark and dimly lit. It smelled of rust and something rotten, and dust floated about in the air, catching the rays of light, few and far in between as they were, streaming in through the open windows, welcoming the light of the streetlamps as the night sky twinkled, joyfully. You could almost taste the rusted metal bars of the windows as you saw them, almost all brown now, only a few specks showing their original color, black.
Read MoreHe stumbled along the gravel path, sometimes faltering onto grass, the dog running carelessly beside him. The grass was soft, and cool, fresh with dew that was coming in. The park smelled really strongly of pine today. Or maybe it was just him. Probably both. It was refreshing, though. The trees were swaying. No, that was him. Everything around him was dizzy. He spotted a bench a few steps away, and almost fell on it, as he made towards it. The trees were dark and menacing. He put his head in his hand, and gasped in a few breaths. Then he leaned back, and stared at the sky. It was pretty today. Soft warm colors, as if the sun was stretching, slowly waking up, instead of abruptly lighting up the sky as it usually did. Strange: the sun usually wasn’t out for at least another hour and a half.
Read MoreThe bells had not yet been rung. The signs were there. But the time for the Celestial Beings to lock themselves up, remove themselves from human affairs was not yet here. A man stood tall, looking out into the abyss.
Read MoreThe moon ushered in the New Year, and the first of the four sacred months. People would have celebrated, but many had lost the old traditions. Few knew it was a new year, few cared, and even fewer celebrated. The Beings sat atop their pedestals and waited for the signal.
Read MoreShe danced, sweat falling from her pristine figure. Swirled, her clothes now stained and tattered. Breath was heaving. Her face was pale and red, from the exhaustion. The animals were haggard, eyes white and wide with fear. Fur dripping with sweat, and shivering from fear. Leaves were slowly falling. Decaying, decomposing. Nothing seemed to work. And yet. Yet, this was the last spot. She danced onwards, body slowly becoming weaker, as it had been for a while. The first spot had been destroyed. The forest spoke to her, none had infiltrated except for the man with pretty eyes. And the other that had followed in. but they had left a while ago. The forest should not be dying. This was the one last thought. The fear carried her on. The last site could not be destroyed. If… she trembled at the thought, the forest shook a bit, mirroring her. She could not let it. Even if she must die. This beautiful world could not be destroyed.
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