@Ozzyy
@Ozzyy
Melody Xavier could control the world with music. He knew this as a fact. The day he’d met Angela he’d been listening to Lou Reed’s Perfect Day. The cassette had been on repeat in his Ford Torino as he’d driven the I-85 through South Carolina. He’d heard it on the radio the previous day, then listened out for it to be played again all that night. He finally caught it on a tape like he’d trapped a ghost; held the cassette up like a holy relic. It was as trapped by him as he…
@Ozzyy
Lucidity It was three in the morning when a patient, laying on a white king size bed fluttered open his eyes. As he tried to move his fingers, it felt as if they were stuck. As if the devils hand was not allowing him to move it. The man, barely the age of 30, with a face of pristine beauty due to which, many might confuse him for a woman, tried to move his whole arm. Only to once again unable to do it. "God damn it!" whispered under his breath. As he moved his line of sight…
@Ozzyy
Aphantasia [WP] As it turns out, aliens all have aphantasia. This makes Humans the only species capable of imagining images in their heads. This greatly confuses alien telepaths, who report seeing “constantly shifting landscapes of alternate realities” when peering into human minds ***** On Valennen, where the Dauri live, they think that humans are dangerously mad. This was my doing as much as it was Avi’s, a consequence of my dreams racing ahead. I’ve always been a dreamy…
@Ozzyy
Resurrection: Sacrifice “Welcome back.” Sera knew the voice, knew it better than she knew her own. The part that she couldn’t comprehend was how she could hear anything at all. She had sunk into the darkness moments before, sure that she had done the right thing by sacrificing herself. Sacrificing herself to save the person who was speaking to her now. “I don’t understand,” she replied, resisting the temptation to open her eyes. “I…brought you home,” came Armand’s reply, his…
@Ozzyy
Meeting Her Parents I was first caught off guard when I looked at the book the skeleton was suppose to read. It was How to Die: A Book About Being Alive by Ray Robertson. The irony of it just made a small chuckle come out of my now drier then dry mouth. A book about living while you are alive. I wonder who planned this. Who set this up? That wasn’t the weirdest thing in the crypt. Oh no, it just happened to be at the fire place was lit and looks like it had been going for…
@Ozzyy
Transit [WP] Finally dead, you wait quietly at the train station of the afterlife. As you watch everyone leave off to face their judgement, you eventually sit alone… waiting. You watch as a scythe-wielding hooded figure starts approaching, and he… sighs? “Aw man… why’d it have to be you?” ***** "'Because I could not stop for Death'..." I said, failing to smile behind the memory of a cigarette. "Not like I asked to stick around, is it?" Death sighed again, like a thousand…
@Ozzyy
Space Switzerland Welcome, to Terran Interstellar Bank's regional headquarters of the Sirius Constellation. Trust that our advisors will provide the most discreet and reliable of financial advice, deposits, and security acquisition and safety. So said the interactive holograph. It was a true color projection of an athletic androgynous individual. With their lean muscle tone, sharp Terran business attire, and flawless inflection in their voice, it did well to appear inviting…
@Ozzyy
a costly mistake [WP] You did awful, horrible things and served the tyrannical government with the promise of resurrecting your long-dead spouse. You finally capture the legendary rebel against this government. Who upon closer inspection, was your spouse. ***** A single, well-placed shot in the back of the man's neck. Was it cowardly? Perhaps. But I'd stoop to levels you can't even imagine if I thought it might alleviate the burden in my heart. Clarissa was a chain-smoking…
@Ozzyy
Chosen One The Old Man slowly lowered himself into his chair set up in the middle of the open fields and stroked his long grey beard in contemplation, letting his mind wander, staring blankly at his wrinkled hands as if they would hold any answers to his problems. When he accepted that they held nothing he reached across to the wine bottle on the table set up beside him and gave them something to hold. When the glass was almost full of the red liquid he kept pouring and…
@Ozzyy
Unearthing [WP] The serial killer confessed to burying the bodies under the house and excavation began. 10, 25, 50 bodies were exhumed and the deeper investigators dug, the more they uncovered. You were called in when they uncovered the rotting remains of a neanderthal. ***** “It doesn’t matter what I try,” she says, “it always ends up the same.” She doesn’t look like a killer. Just tired, like someone who got in late after a night of drinking. She’s maybe late twenties,…
@Ozzyy
Superhero You know that the average life expectancy of a superhero is twenty-eight? Twenty-eight, isn’t that something? That makes me luckier than most by almost an entire year. Lucky me. I’m sorry to start this story so bleakly but I want to be factual where I can. I heard being factual helps. I had this friend once. She had three fucking heads, all beautiful as anything. One of them could sing songs that‘d lure you towards her like she was a siren, like she had string…
@Ozzyy
eternal frenemies It was the last words she heard before her strength gave out and her fingers slipped off the bridge. The last thing anyone would ever say to her before burning in the flames below her. That is, if the last person she ever expected to help her hadn't grabbed her arm and held tighter than a boa constrictor. The smoke was so dense, all she could see was her opponents glowing, red eyes staring down at her. Aubrey had never known Myranda to show mercy. She was…
@Ozzyy
Deathbed On her deathbed, Simon's mother asked for pickles. "I am about to go meet my maker, but I am hungry. Please. Before I die, can you make sure I have one final meal of pickles?" Simon held her hand, it was frail as a bird, and he promised that he would fulfill her dying wish. "I will get you those pickles, ma. If it's the last thing I do, I'll get those pickles." Their ancestors--the Schlorpheims--had fled their home country carrying nothing but what they managed to…
@Ozzyy
Reality Dawns Light scattered through the dark-orange liquid within the bottles littering Gary Spunk's floor and as he heard the voice of his mother he winced. "This had better be about my chicken tendies," he muttered to himself. "Come upstairs, Gary. There are people here to see you." There was a hint of a trace of fear in his mother's voice. Like when he scolded her for disrupting his campaigns with inane talk of 'cleaning his room' and 'getting a job'. Some days he felt…
@Ozzyy
VIMH [WP] A woman has been hearing voices for her entire life. One day on a routine medical checkup doctors find out she has a brain tumor and, when she's about to be given anaesthesia for the surgery to remove the tumor, the voices tell the woman goodbye. ***** Don't, don't, don't, the voice implored. I ignored it. I marched into the lobby to register. Seriously, you're gonna die. "Fine with that," I mumbled grimly. The receptionist paused in her typing and looked up,…
@Ozzyy
Tooth Fairy The fairy fussed inside the upturned wine glass. It looked like a shooting star scooped out of the black sky, and now it ricocheted from side to side pinging the glass and swaying it slightly. “I need it back,” Jenna demanded, securing a hand around the glass’s stem. “You hear me, you little lightning rat?” She spoke with a slight lisp, barely recognising her own voice. She sounded like a child. The curtains were drawn and a square of moonlight split the room in…
@Ozzyy
Animalistique [WP] Aliens effortlessly overran the human population, but didn't expect such fierce resistance from local wildlife. British badgers, Indian tigers, African elephants, Alaskan wolves, Australia - nature rises in defence of Earth. ***** It’d felt like a kick to the gut, although this had been a thrashing tentacle and not a boot to his side. Still, Biscuit knew what a kick felt like — he’d been a shelter dog before Anna, and before that, well he didn’t like to…
@Ozzyy
She [WP] A drug is developed that mimics the effect of 8 hours of sleep, giving people another 8 hours of potential production. Soon, society adjusts to a constant state of production. However, a horrible consequence begins to unfold. ***** She was: a shadow on the edge of consciousness, perhaps less, though always more; a voice in the night, most often when you needed it; a companion in the daylight hours, those little slips that feel like death, and then rebirth on waking;…
@Ozzyy
Khorne Flakes [EU] "Blood for the Blood god!" "Blood for the Blood god!" "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" "Skulls for the Skull Throne!" "Milk for the Khorne Flakes!" "Milk for th- what!?" ***** "The milk of life is what sustains the Ruinous Powers. As such, it must be soured before it can quench the thirst of laughing gods" ~ The Tallarn Book of the Living Saint Cain\*. In the Imperium Nihilus, in the Regency of Lord Commander Dante, the Bringer of Lord Sanguinius's Light...…
@Ozzyy
Klones [WP] You can create temporary clones of people based on a photo, permanent if the person is already dead. After summoning a clone of your mom to sign a permission slip for school, you stand in shock and horror as you realize you can't make the clone disappear. ***** I first noticed my power when I was five. My mum had left me alone with an old photo album with pictures of our family. I remember stroking the picture of my dog Nala, a big old fluffy german shepherd. She…
@Ozzyy
Batmen [EU] “Childhood is idolizing Batman. Adolescence is when The Joker starts to makes sense. Adulthood is realizing Commissioner Gordon doesn’t get paid enough to deal with their shit.” ***** It was in December of 1987; the first day I saw that light projected into the night sky. I was 9 years old, and it was raining - although that's not saying much. Rain in Gotham. Breaking news: Water wet. I remember being so cold: and more than a little scared. Walking home through…
@Ozzyy
Technomancy Cid lit the black candles in his master's study. The necrotic power from the Orb of Val'dun swirled, like an emerald hurricane buffeting the inside of a snow globe. As he reached for the powerful relic, tendrils of green smoke reached back to touch his fingers. Over the centuries, he'd learned enough of the dead tongue to raise mice and birds. Today, Cid would try for something bigger. "Cid!" Cid glanced at the red wooden door leading into the rest of the…
@Ozzyy
Unmasked I groaned as I felt a twinge in my lower back. I hadn't noticed it during the fight, but Dr. Gun's supersonic blitz-bullets had apparently hit a nerve or something, I really needed to get a massage one of these days. People were stopping and looking at me, I might have groaned out a bit too loud. I held up my hand in a multi-national "I'm all right! Just a twinge" and they started moving again, a bit wary but ignoring me. Just the way I liked it. I had stuffed my…
@Ozzyy
Wishes Back when I was a kid I spent months working out how to best make wishes come true. I kept a diary and tried all kinds of methods: hunting four-leafed clovers, flipping coins into dark wells, snapping wishbones, rubbing lamps, even praying. I was methodical. I didn’t have much else to do, I suppose. What seemed to work best for me was blowing out candles on birthday cakes then closing my eyes. The first wish I remember coming true was back when my parents had been…
@Ozzyy
Digging When I was a kid, my neighbour — a former military guy — spent every night out in his backyard digging. This lasted for almost a month. My bedroom was at the rear of our house and on humid nights, if I left the window open, I’d wake to the scraping of a spade over rock. Some nights that sound would seep into my mind and I’d dream of a coffin being lowered into the ground, and that someone was digging up sods up earth and chucking them into an endless hole. If I…
@Ozzyy
Weak Point Tobias and Ines, twin siblings, discovered their parents, the King and Queen, had been murdered while they slept. The coronation was to take place the next day, and Ines, who was 15 minutes older, was to become Queen. Tobias thought this was unfair and threatened to make Ines' life a living hell if she didn't make a deal. She did, and they would become separate but equal King and Queen. They would each have a say in decisions, but if they disagreed, they would…
@Ozzyy
Gamesmaster I knocked at the office door of the incumbent mayor, back after a week of reelection campaign rallies. It was after hours, and the floor was empty except for him. The secretary downstairs let me in when I told her that I was a private detective, with information that I could only discuss with the mayor. It wasn't a lie. "You do know that its after hours, right?" He said as I opened the door to let myself in. I shut the door behind myself and walked over to the…
@Ozzyy
3rd Option [WP] Two identical infants lay in the cradle. “One you bore, the other is a Changeling. Choose wisely,” the Fae’s voice echoed from the shadows. “I’m taking both my children,” the mother said defiantly. ***** I've reflected upon my decision many times across the span of my life, but I've always come to the same conclusion no matter how many times I play it out. What choice did I have? Looking upon the faces of the children within their cribs, I couldn't bring…
@Ozzyy
Antisocial Superhero Most of the time I didn't really care. I preferred to live quietly, let everything else go on as they want. A lot of people know I exist, but thankfully not who I am. There was a lot of talk online last time the phone rang. People saying if I had been called first all those heroes wouldn't have died. Others are scared of me. My very existence makes them terrified. I don't do well with people. I prefer to keep to myself. It's quiet. Peaceful. And then the…
@Ozzyy
Balance “I’ve been murdered,” said the woman, almost casually. She eased back into the leather chair on the other side of the table and lit up a smoke. “It must have happened some time last night, between one a.m. and two, I think.” I let out an audible sigh. The thing with crackpots and drug addicts is they want many things solved but never have the money to solve them. And what really needs solving is often in their head. A therapist might have better luck finding a key…
@Ozzyy
Newspaper of the Dead The clatter of ancient typewriters makes Joseph think he’s trapped inside a set of chattering teeth. Inside some demon’s jaw. But they’re a good team, Joesph thinks. Dead or not, they’re hard workers. Got real spirit. He allows a rare grin as he marches the aisle inspecting their work. He’ll turn this whole damn business around — he just needs a little time. There are blue wisps of people sitting at each of the desks, memories that still linger long…