WRITING SURVIVAL!!!

[Suuper-san]

These would make some fantastic one shots Lego, make sure to save them all up for later

[legomaestro]

Yeah definitely going to have to do that. Facebook has decided to remove its note function so I've got a lot of stories that'll be floating in the ether there, along with the ones here. I definitely need to gather them up, print them out just to be sure.

@Echo I suspect fighting games haha. Smash Bros maybe?


Day 1

Bad Blood

Trisha wasn't a helpless little lamb, so even as the motorbikes closed in on us, spraying us with depleted uranium rounds she kept her hands on the steering wheel and navigated the insane traffic with only a grimace on her face, but there was a reason I'd been hired to protect her.

I transformed my left hand into a rail gun and shot out the front tire of one of the motorbikes to our left flank. He flipped over, and the explosion took two others with him.

Trisha's eyes widened, "You're a modder!? My family doesn't usually hire your kind!"

I grunted. "Desperate times, as your father put it."

I flipped myself out the window and stood on the roof, taking fire even as I blasted another motorbike. For now, our pursuers were cowed. But I wasn't looking forward to another engagement. I only had 40% in my reserves, and it had been a long night.

I flipped back into the car as she took another turn.

"How far till your safehouse?"

"10 minutes." She said, "Thank you... For doing this. Nobody wanted the job."

"More like they wanted the job... to get you."

Trisha grimaced, "Problem with being popular."

I looked at her, still amazed that a white haired porcelein beauty like her could exist without a single genetic modification. A rarity after the Post-Eugenic Bomb.

All the cosmetic companies wanted her DNA. It was one of the rare natural births that wasn't tainted by modification or disease, and they'd put her in a blender without a second thought to  get the most of it. Her mother had already suffered the same fate.

"In an age like this." I popped a pill, "Integrity is the only thing I can sell. Everyone can be a cyborg, a modder, a top class hitman... But heroes like me?" I winked at her with my red eyes, "Dime a dozen."

She scoffed, turned a hard corner. Behind us, a fast-tank sniffed our tail and started catching on us. Already, it was blasting the road with its laser canon.

"Well, you better do your job well then, hero!"

"Aye aye." I said, turning my hand into a sword. I jumped out of the car at the tank, grinning as I slashed down...

[legomaestro]

Day 2

Sniper

He was someone who made super heroes. Or maybe he was a psychopath, or maybe he was acutely aware of people who were in a state of stagnation, who had all the materials necessary to rise up to the occassion and become better men and women, hell bent on justice and correcting the wrong world.

He coughed blood. It didn't matter. In his short career, he'd murdered four people with well placed bleed shots. Gave his victims enough seconds to look adoringly in their loved ones' eyes before they died.

And now The Twilight Raven, The Shadowmancer, King Gold and Teresa Storm were one of the most world-renown heroes the world had to offer.

Now he was targeting a certain Patricia Neuman, girlfriend of a rookie upstanding cop, Bob Neuman. He was way too good at his job. Way too righteous. And perfect to make a tragic super hero out of.

He aimed. He took a breath, prayed to the devil, and took his shot.

[legomaestro]

Day 3

They waited for the first plants to grow, the two war criminals, the two men who's hands had known nothing but the carress of an Ak 47, a scimatar, a human face under their boots and found their closest connection to peace they'd ever known.

One was blind, the other crippled on his left side. They'd been fighting for their own sects in the desert some decades ago, and as fate had it they'd been left to die in a village they'd just razed, and after that first night of cursing eachother and trying to fight, they decided to live.

In time, survival became a wish to turn the abandoned village into a forest,

and now the first plants were growing.

"Tell me what they look like." The blind warlord said.

"They're... I just have no words. Come. Smell them. Touch them."

The cripple led his fellow to the first bed of seedlings, and he did just that. Then he sat back in the dust, seeing nothing, but feeling like he could see for the first time in centuries.

"Oh what time we wasted, not knowing what life means."

The cripple grunted, "It is too soon to speak vague philosophies. I'll get the booze, then we reminisce. And tomorrow, the work continues!"


Years later they found their bones in the forest that grew amongst them. No one knew their name. But the trees did. Or at least, I would like to think so.

[legomaestro]

Day 4 and 5

Melody


There was something haunting about the way she sang. Haunting in the true sense of the world, like a chill down my spine, a knot in my gut.

Dread, dread, dread. I've been in shootouts before. I'm a gangster, ready to rumble, but she's singing something this night that just makes me want to go home earlier.

I'm too sober, and that's just as well.

Tomorrow we're meeting the gun runners from Ukraine. The boss is finally moving into weapons and hardware, and I was going to be part of the muscle.

"George." I knock on the counter.

 George is distracted, watching his silent soccer game, ignoring the music.

"Hey." He looked at me and the 300 bucks I'm offering him, "For the tab the boys left."

George nodded and watched the game. I looked at the stage. She'd finished singing and people clapped politely. She turned and walked away. I tried to catch her eyes but she was all focused on herself. I know she's pretty, but the moment she walks into the dark of the crowd I forget her face. I don't even remember the colour of her dress.

"Who was that?"

George looked at me, "No one you want to know, trust me.

" I was curious, but I let it be.

---

It was a warm Friday evening, and everything was just getting started in the metropolis that never slept.

I don't remember the hour long walk home, but it's better that way. I dread actually getting home, actually.

The small apartment with the functional sofa and the functional microwave and the functional facilities.

At the drop of a hat I could leave. I never needed a roof over my head anyways. The streets were my family.

---

Sitting and watching the replays of the soccer match George had been invested in, I find myself humming the melody note for note.

I don't remember her face, but god the song is there, clear as crystal. I know every single note.

I've never even remotely been a singer, but my timbr and tone is perfect. And the chill, the haunting chill is there.

When I sleep, I curl up in a fetal position. I dream of swimming in a river of red, drowning, spluttering, swimming.

Other people are swimming with me too, all crying out for help, all screaming.

---

The gun deal goes as well as it does.

All the details were already hashed out, so this is more of a symbolic thing.
 
The truck is full of the newest, most beautiful military hardware this side of the hemisphere. Black polished machine guns and pistols, gleaming in the night lights.

"You Okay man?"

One of my buddies asks.

"Yeah, why?"

"You keep on humming that weird song..."

He said, but he didn't seemed annoyed by it.

Seemed almost fascinated too.


---


I dreamt the same nightmare again, and this time I saw that at the end of the red river the woman stood, singing the song again, and now I can hear the words and see the terror. She's singing all of my failures, my fears, and eventually, in absolute clear detail, how I would die.


---

I woke up humming the song again, and the dread was gone. I wiped my eyes and smiled at the moisture there, and the dream and melody were all but forgotten.






Mindmaze

There was once a book that trapped you in its pages when you opened it, and stole your time. Its letters were written in black, flowing script, its paper impossibly thin and holographic, such that the words mingled with others to form intricate patterns, hypnotic images that put you in its thrall the moment you opened it.

The content of the book at first was harmless. It told the story of a boy who wanted to be a pirate, and so stole his fathers’ fishing boat and went out at sea, looking to pilfer and pillage, armed with but a wooden sword.
You followed the narrative well enough then realized you were also reading another story parallel to that one, one of a girl who inherited her fathers’ farm, and fought to keep her hands on it and turn it into a sanctuary for weary travellers and outsiders.

Even while you were astounded that you could read two stories at once you found other stories creeping in at the same time, and by then the trap was sprung, and you found after a hundred stories running at the same time, ending and starting and ending and starting you were reading a story about yourself, reading a book that trapped you in its pages when you opened it, and stole your time.

[legomaestro]

Day 6

The Aliens had read enough literature and seen enough films, scanned the planet enough to know that like all the other sentient races, Earth was full of savage, self interested people.

And so Mejjessessekk laughed as he dropped the omni orb, a device that could fabricate anything that its user wished. This was their test. This was their game. Inevetibly, it would land in the hands of a being who would eventually lead to the ruin of the planet.


The orb landed in a farm, where Jacob Joe Joel, 56 lived a solitary life with his wife Mary. When the orb dropped, he felt its infinite power, understood its infinite purpose almost immediately.

So he told it to turn itself into a nice old rocking chair, because his had broken the day before and after a long day milking the cows and chopping wood, he had no interest in repairing it himself.

"How did you fix the chair so fast?" Mary asked Joe in his rocking chair. He shrugged.

"Just a miracle from heaven, hon."

[legomaestro]

Day 7

Ronin and Squire


Sakamoto parried the bandits' sword and punched him into the face, flooring him. "Your ways make no sense to me. Why can't you become a knight on your own?"

"It's just the way things are done, Okay!" Robin rolled and stabbed her knife into the leg of another bandit. She tripped him up as he screamed, and kicked him in the head, knocking him out.

"It's the same way you need a Lord to become samurai, is it not?"

"I can still be worthy without a Lord." Sakamoto grunted, impressed at how quick the girl was.

With that, the four bandits were done. Panting, old ronin and young squire sheathed their katana and daggers respectively.

They were an odd pair, those two.

Sakamoto, the 50 year old man, wore dark green loose fitting clothes with a hood. His katana and straw hat the only indication that he was typical samurai. His katana too was far too ornate, far too beautiful to be considered one of a battle hardened warrior. But he had been gifted it from Lila, a merchants' daughter, who he had every intention of marrying once he regained his honour as a samurai.

The knightless squire, Robin was diminuitive, even for her 14 years of age. She wore black leather armour and had a buckler on her back, at her side were her trusted daggers. She came from a cloister that had once doubled as a sect for assassinations against heretics, and she had every intention of becoming a loyal squire and then knight of someone - anyone - who was honourable and without any hypocrisy. She had broken her vows, stolen her gear and now teamed up with the man to find a land where she could learn to become a virtuous knight.

"It'll get dark soon. We must continue. The next village is not too far."

"They won't make it if we leave them like this." Robin pointed at the men. Already she was looking in her pack to bandage the bandits' wounded leg so that he didn't bleed out.

"You waste your time and condemn others to being robbed if you heal them. Let nature take its course."

Robin grinned, "Oh, make no mistake. I have every intention of turning them in."

Her stomach growled, "Besides... I'm a bit hungry."

Sakamoto grunted, then headed to the woods, "They must have horses or something nearby. we'll drag them into town."

Robin grinned, "Thank you kind Sir."

[legomaestro]

Day 8

Editor

He jumped through the window and landed in the living room, smashing the coffee table even as he patted out the fire on his coat. He'd barely survived the incendiary grenade.

"Gramps, how the hell did you survive that." He exhaled. He'd definitely not be diving into any war-related photos for a long time.

He cleaned up the pieces of the coffee table and still dressed in his WWI outfit sorted through the rest of the photos. His phone was also on the table, but he'd tested his powers on it to the full extent. Or rather, as an introvert he rarely took photos so he didn't have much to dive into.

He picked up another photo. It was his mom. 1979, Cuba, where his father first met her.

"Hm."

He was curious enough. Closing his eyes he touched his forehead against the photo, and as he'd discovered last week the transition was immediate, but smooth. He felt the warm summer sun, heard the music and when he opened his eyes, he realized he was none other than a bartender on a walm sultry evening in Cuba, serving drinks at a beach party.

This dive would be interesting. And if all went well, he'd make it even better for his parents than they ever imagined.

[legomaestro]

Day 9

Bricks

They brought the bricks, one by one to the edge of the ravine. They had been hermits for many years, but they were hungry, so they'd rob the next spice caravan that came through.

"Brother Michael, isn't it better to starve than to commit such a crime?" One hermit said. His once youthful glowing face was an approximation of a skeleton, his eyes and jaws sunken, his gut bloated from malnutrition. He was so weak he'd only been able to bring the bricks one by one.

Brother Michael grunted, "Then starve, just like our dearly departed Brother Lewis. Me? I intend on understanding the mysteries of the spiritual realm on a full stomach."

The spice caravans were barely guarded. The fat merchants always assumed that nobody lived in this part of the desert, and were cheap enough to avoid the extra cost of a guard for the journey of several leagues. If the bricks hit their target - and they would, there were about a thousand of them, gathered from an abandoned castle - then if not for fatal injury they'd be seriously stunned. Other acolytes would then set upon them with knives sharpened out of animal bones.

The caravan came into view,

"When we do this sin, we will pray for forgiveness. Not after."

The hermits beside him swallowed, or at least tried to. The oasis they'd been subsisting on had dried up a day ago. And no amount of prayer had given them any other ideas than robbery and murder.

The caravan came into view...

Brother Michael inhaled, held the brick up. It was framed in the sun, and he looked like a veriteable prophet coming down from a hill with sun on his back.

---

Later, in his temple of white marble stone and flowing fountains, some ten years older, Elder Michael pored over his script, rewriting The Holy Book by hand for the seventh time in his life time as a sign of his penance. Age had caught up with him, and he had rosy cheeks and a bit of a belly. Long gone were the days of fasting, being an Elder and leader of his denomination.

"And man... Fights against his body, day and night, just as The Spirit fights The Evil one, from the beginning of time... to the end."

He sat there in his chair, silent, solemn. He did his duties, silent and solemn, but in his head he could still hear the screams, still see the blood.

(The first brick they'd thrown had struck a child, the son of the merchant, excited to be leading the horses. He could still see the brains, dusted up in the sand. The boy had shivered for a whole minute before dying. )

And he wrote more in the book. And he imagined he was smearing it full of blood and dust, and he felt hell calling his name.

[legomaestro]

Day 10

Mimi-chan is Mine


"No- please-" Terry swung the hammer and broke the pathetic otakus' knee cap. He held a hand to his mouth as he screamed,

"Consider this a mercy. If you ever so much as look for Mimi-chan again, I'll come back."

With that he took the boys' copy of Lost Hearts in Goldtown : Redux and pocketed it in his rucksack.  He hopped out the window, jumping down easily from the low roof and went out of the yard and over the fence, panting heavily.

Today had been a productive day. Lost Hearts was a rare game indeed, and finding two copies in one night was almost unheard of. Developed by the reclusive genius O-Majoris, he only released 2,000 copies into the wild with unbelieveable commercial success.

But it was not proper to talk about Lost Hearts in the cold terms of capitalistic victory. It was a romantic visual novel that offered countless paths and experiences with countless heroines, and Terry had found his one true love in Mimi-chan. Cute, beautiful Mimi-chan.

He had spent a night with her after winning her heart, and realised to his sickening disgust that several other unworthy men had done the same.

No, he could not stand it.

He'd pry all the copies of the game of their cold dead hands if he had to.

And he had the money and means to do it. Thank goodness for being conscripted into the army. Thank goodness that he loved guns and knives.

No one had died yet, but if it came to that, then it would.

[legomaestro]

Day 11

Fairy Snow

There are days when the fairy snow covered even the gulag where the political prisoners were being kept, and for all their unbridged power across the continent, the government could do nothing about it.

Fairy snow was said to be the remnants of the old magic that crafted the very world. The elves would know more about it, but ever since they'd left humans to their devices magic was all but unknoweable.

Regardless, the warm magical snow carressed the hearts of the captured. They felt energized, even beaten and half starved, and catastrophically for the government, even after years of torture, they felt hope.

The fairy snow fell on evil and good heads a like and barely remained for more than an hour before fading away, but now, as it had done many times before it reminded the downtrodden that there would be light at the end of this long tunnel.