If I didn’t see this written I was going to take a short stab at it. This WP was just waiting for this prank.

Ending zero (actually three, just to make sure this doesn’t confuse anyone unnecessarily, also the true ending):

Nothing made sense. I had just heard my father speaking, but this wasn’t the first time. And it didn’t feel like it would be the last time. No matter what I said he didn’t answer back. He was dead. He died well before the madness of twenty years ago. And yet I heard him. This couldn’t be happening, so obviously it didn’t. I hadn’t spent the last twenty years going slowly insane to just snap right in the last moment, yet here I was.

Obviously, I was crazy.

But didn’t crazy people not know they were crazy? Wasn’t that one of the requirements? You couldn’t be crazy if you knew you were crazy? I could have swore I remembered that being the case, something about it being a catch. It didn’t matter, though, because I didn’t spend the last twenty years learning just to go crazy so easily.

If insanity wanted me, it was going to have to fight for me.

And fought it did, and so did I. Twelve years of my life wasted in studying the topics I shunned previously. It didn’t come as a surprise to me when I figured out a way to fuse elemental hydrogen at room temperature and sea-level pressure. I was crazy, so obviously I’d think I could do the impossible. Watching the pure glow of a nuclear candle burning through the sky itself, I knew this had to be a delusion.

It didn’t matter though, because it was better than the converse. I’d rather fall fully into this madness than pretend that I was figuring out a way to move space and time than to come to terms with my own inability to change world. At least this way I wouldn’t feel so useless, the same way I felt as I watched my family die.

Sometimes I was grateful that I wasn’t a romantic person, and that I never went beyond a few short relationships. No children of my own to watch die, no more blood on my hands. Or at least, I thought I didn’t have a lover and children, but maybe I did? My memory was already suspect because I could remember every aspect of each of the four space stations I visited. Or was it three? No, four, it was four. I spent more time finding that fourth station, well over a decade more, nearly fifty years since the start of this all. It had to be four.

It didn’t matter at that point.

Nothing mattered.

Everything mattered.

The device I built would have barely worked without the power source, and I’d have never been able to orient it correctly without knowing that both other directions were wrong. I don’t know how I knew they were wrong, but I knew that they were just wrong.

I knew that I had already lost touch with reality, but still something pulled at me. Dragged at me. If only I could just stop for a moment and think, but the moment I tried I was overwhelmed with thoughts that were not my own. No, they were my own, but not me. Countless thoughts, and yet only a few. A dozen, yet trillions.

It didn’t even register to me when I pressed the switch. The sensation was unlike anything I could ever imagine as felt myself changed. Nothing changed outside the small ports of an exotic matter made of some strange array of barely stable quarks that allowed light through but no other force. If I didn’t have an array of graviton emitters, I’d have been thrown around the small cabin. None of this was real anyway, so having some truly absurd technology at least made this a bearable fantasy.

And then my phone rang. But I didn’t have my phone with me. And it all came crashing back to me in that moment.

I answered it, knowing what I had to say, what the timeline demanded of me. Completion.

I hated myself for speaking, but I knew I didn’t have a choice. Acceptance.

None of us have a choice, we’re all players on the stage and not the author. Finality.

“Hello...hello? Oh my God hello!”

Reverse Funny valentine

"You stupid boy. How many times do I have to tell you before it gets through your thick mortal skull? Twice a day, with water. And make sure to eat, for God's sake. Can't believe I have to remind you to literally eat!"

I shifted from my glass-eyed stupor and lifted my eyes from the television to meet her intense gaze. "...Oh, you're here."

She tousled my hair. "What's the matter with you?" She glared at me with fiery red pupils, and the unnatural alabaster pallor of her skin made her face and arms glow in the dimly lit apartment where I laid sprawled out on my couch. "Come on... eat. I made your favorite. Fish and chips, home-made tartar sauce. Spent the better of my evening on this so you damn well better enjoy it." She stroked her raven hair out of her eyes and shoved the tray of fried food towards me. It dangled dangerously on the edge of the coffee table and, though I was dead tired, I forced myself to swing myself upright and catch it before it toppled to the ground.

Because as much as I hated to admit it, I've started to appreciate these home intrusions of hers lately. What was once a horrifying break-in has become a welcome visit from a friend. We've got a weird arrangement going, and it's been so long I've forgotten how it was set up in the first place, but the deal is she comes to my place, cooks me dinner, tidies up the place and generally checks up on me, and in return I let her feed on me without resisting (not like I could put up much of a fight against someone like her in the first place).

I tentatively dipped one of the fish sticks into the sauce and took a bite. "It's good." I told her, and a small smile emerged from my almost as pale face.

Delia momentarily flushed purplish crimson in the cheeks before turning away and letting out a "Hmph! Of course it's good. I made it."

I chuckled. It was honestly cute how a century old vampiress such as her got so flustered so easily. But I was always a sucker for a good tsundere. "So, you're early tonight. Extra thirsty, or what? Or did you just miss me?"

She twirled a strand of hair in her finger, forming rings, fidgeted a bit with her worn leather duster. "M-miss you? Don't get so full of yourself, boy. You had it right the first time. I've had a rough week, and am in need of nourishment. And that's why I need you at your best and ready for a feeding."

I put down the tray and looked at her in the eyes. "Rough week? Was it the Hunters again? Are you alright?"

She blushed that blush of hers again before regaining her composure. "Y- what do you care? It's my business."

"Delia, we've known each other for what... 6 months now? I can't help but care about you now, even if you see me as nothing more than a bloodmeal. Go ahead and vent. I'm here, and I want to help."

She blinked. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion for a split second, gazing into mine until she was satisfied. Having seen I was genuine, she blushed slightly once more before settling down next to me on the couch. Her old leather duster smelled of iron. Old dried blood. She unlaced her equally as dark boots and took them off to get comfortable.

"Glad you're finally letting your hair down." I muttered.

In all of 6 months, this was the first time she'd settled down on the couch with me like this. Usually she'd just feed me, make me take some pills, suck a liter out my neck, and piss off while I lay in a heap on the ground, drained.

"Don't get used to it. But you're right. I need to talk about this with someone."

"I'm all ears."

"The Order's been on my trail. Sent some of their Hunters after me, the crazed lunatics. One of them tracked me down. Attacked me in broad daylight! These people, they don't care who gets caught in the cross-fire as long as a vampire gets dead. They're sick."

"Wait, I thought vampires get fried by sunlight?"

"Not all do, boy. My lineage is resistant to sunlight. 'Daywalkers,' the Order calls us. And its my kin that the Order hates the most."

As she spoke I noticed some white gauze peeking out the top of her gray button-up that she wore beneath her leather duster.

She traced my gaze and quickly pulled her duster together and buttoned up. "It's nothing. Just a scratch."

"You're hurt. You need somewhere to stay? Someone to keep a lookout for you? You can crash with me if you'd like. I mean, I'm not much good in a fight, but I can at least keep a lookout so you can rest well..." I've worked myself into an anemic shell. Long hours at the office, a slave to the megacorporate machine. If not for Delia, I'd probably have wasted away a long time ago, dead in my dingy little apartment on the 32nd floor, in a giant neon city with millions around me that would not be aware I was gone until I'd started to stink up the place.

Worse still, I was not modded up in any way. It was the 22nd century and I still had not gotten any chrome. Guess I was scared it'd change me. This had always put me at a disadvantage. At work and in my personal life. But it was this "purity" of body that drew Delia to me, so I suppose it all worked out in the end. 'Not much natural blood left nowadays' was what she'd told me when we first met.

She looked confused. "You want me, your tormentor, your bloodsucking leech, a monster... to stay here with you? Everything all okay up there, boy?" She rapped her knuckles lightly atop my skull.

"I've already told you just now that I've come to care for you. You're not a monster. You're my dear friend, and to be honest I've come to depend on you and your visits. It's not an exaggeration to say that it's one of the things that's keeping me going day after day working 12 hour shifts and all. So yes. Stay here if you'd like. I'll protect you, come what may."

"Stupid boy... silly, silly boy..." She wiped at something on the corner of her eyes. "I never wanted to do this to you, boy. But a Vampiress has to eat..."

"Delia... I'm in my late 20s. A grown man. Call me Lewis."

Her pale thin lips curled upwards. "Do you know how old I am, boy?"

"25." I said, joking with a straight face.

She took the bait and had a good chuckle at that. "No, boy. I am over a century years old. I was turned at a time when Man had not yet altered themselves en masse with cybernetics and nano-serum replacements... When the world's oceans had not yet engulfed entire cities and nations, and when red meat and drinking water was not yet rationed. I was here decades before you were born, Boy. So you'll forgive me if I cannot see you as anything but as a wet-behind-the-ears whelp."

"Well I don't want that."

You see, as much as I hated it, there's another feeling that's been twisting and knotting itself in my heart the past few months. And I've finally come to accept it.

"What do you mean 'I don't want that'?" She asked, head tilted.

"That is to say, well, I care about you, as more than friends. So..." I cleared my throat. "So call me Lewis, not 'Boy.' And let me take you out for some coffee this weekend. I'll ask my boss to not have to come in this Saturday."

She blinked, twice. Then blushed a deep purplish pink. "B-boy. Erm, Lewis. What? What are you saying?"

"I like you. I'm asking you out on a date. I'm pretty sure the concept of dating was around 100 years ago." I said, bluntly.

"W-well, yeah but... Bo- Lewis, I'm a vampire. I literally feed off you. Drain your life force and leave you a pale withered husk every time I come by. What on Earth could possess you to want to pursue a relationship with me?"

"Ok sure, getting my neck bit and sucked through like an ICEE slurpie isn't great but you're also a great cook, you come by and spend time with me nearly every week, and you listen to me vent and take care of me even when I'm being a pathetic little shit that can't even eat properly and just vegs out in front of the TV. You're someone special to me, Delia. And I won't lie to myself about that any longer. All my cards are on the table. Ball's in your court." I turned to face her and looked her in the eyes. Sunken eyes surrounded by dark rings met fiery red pupils.

"OK. Ok. Fine. Let's try it. Emil's Cafe, 12 PM, Saturday. Meet you there." She said, making a show out of looking resigned and giving in, but all the while her little grin gave her away. Contemporary vampiress wisdom dictates that you do not fraternize with the food. But hell, she'd started to develop feelings for this silly man as well, and his confession just now pushed her over the edge of self-control. She'd indulge in this mortal feeling, rekindled after a hundred years of dormancy.

...

I let her have the couch, while I stood watch, my eyes glued to the peephole looking into the hallway of my little flat. Occasionally, I'd walk over to the window and look down to the ground and scan for anything that looked suspicious, as well as scanning the horizon for airships that bore the Order's insignia.

A few hours passed and I was starting to let myself doze off when I spotted it. A shuttle with the Order's insignia, a stake punctured through a skull with fangs' eyesocket, floated down and landed on the ground just in front of the lobby. From my view up on the 32nd floor, the men were no bigger than dots piling out of the airship. A whole unit, about 6 men. I squinted. Looked like they were decked out in the latest armor and guns. Likely chromed up all over as well.

"Ah fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck. Delia!! Delia, wake up! They're here." Still woozy from being fed on, I leaped to where Delia was laying with her arms crossed over her chest, and shook her.

Took a good minute before her eyes opened and she turned upright in a 90 degree angle, eyes flitting around and slowly adjusting back to the world of the semi-living. Guess it takes a bit for her to wake after a meal

"Damn! I thought I'd covered my tracks. You're sure it's them?"

"See for yourself."

She took a look through the window and hissed through her teeth.

Looks like we're in for a fight...

[hit character limit. if interested, I'll write more]

Thank you for the compliment! I do a lot of role play gaming stuff with my little sister, so maybe it rubbed off on my writing? And I am glad you liked the ending! I wasn’t completely sure about it, so I am glad it worked!

I don't have much to say except that I definitely would not have known that you hadn't done this before?

What I particularly like is that it ends with us not being entirely certain that They/Them are actually real, either.

[removed]

I love the twist!

I am from the Windows and your computer has a virus.

Okay, so we set it on an outpost on some other planet or something where environmental requirements and limited needs make resilient analog POTS lines the best option.

Or in 1975, I suppose (that's pre-computerized-switching, right?). That'd work too.

The idea of potatoes being my main source of sustenance is wholly depressing.

Glad he found someone so close!

Ray Bradbury's The Silent Towns features the last man and last woman on Mars, who find each other in this way. The date that follows doesn't work out, and he leaves and ignores all ringing telephones he hears from then on.

I love that the world has come to an end and yet, like roaches, spam calls can't be killed.

The first president to get a 110% approval rating

I mean, yeah I figured. I just looked at a map and described it as a saw. Any better way you would say to describe it or tips?

Ending two:

The silence after I screamed myself bloody, when I couldn’t hear the voice again, was the most painful silence of the past twenty years. I had imagined it, surely. There was no way I heard my father’s voice, and yet I had. I still did in my memories at least. The strongest memory of a human voice besides my own that I could remember in the past twenty years.

I had a mission now. Something that I needed to do.

My first thought was fairly crazy. To find a way to go back and fix everything. No, such a thing couldn’t do, and would be insanity. But I could at least do something to hear another human voice, a real voice.

The years flew by like no time at all. It was almost like I had done this all before in a way, and what felt like it should take twenty years took only fifteen.

Somehow, I even was prepared for the harvesting of materials from the space stations, and the horrors it would bring.

My body hurt less than I expected on the ninety-eight launch. It seemed like more launches than were needed, and yet I knew that any less would not work.

Not for what I needed to do at least, not for my goal.

The ship I was in wasn’t designed to return to the planet. No, it was meant to never return to a gravity well again.

Almost like a dream, I woke up one day and I knew that I could bypass causality. But more useful to me was my ultimate goal.

I knew I couldn’t fix things, but I could at least not die with the last voice I hear being all in my head.

I’d have rather died hearing the speech of a politician, the random concern of a farmer, or even the angry shout of someone cutting me off in traffic.

My finger depressed the button, and everything changed. I had nearly left the device rotated incorrectly, but ninety degrees made all the difference between time and space.

I was gone, moved through space at a speed beyond understanding. If the ship had been designed with windows I would have already died because nothing transparent to visible light would survive the forces. And there was nothing to see, because when causality was broken light stopped working properly.

The ultracapacitors only lasted for a few milliseconds, but it was enough. The ship stopped, almost ninety light years away from Earth, around the start HD70642.

And with the power left in the communication system, designed for one more task after this one, I spoke as the high gain antenna focused back towards my homeworld:

“This is the last message of the last person to live through the end of humanity. There will be a crash in a rural farm at the coordinates I will broadcast at the time I will broadcast. The crash will contain a sickness that will destroy humanity. You need to stop this, or everyone will die.”

I knew it was pointless. No one would believe me. Even I didn’t know why I knew those coordinates, that time, and that it would be my own body laying there. Carrying the sickness that destroyed humanity. Nothing I could do would change this, but I had to try.

And then I listened. It was difficult, but I could just barely make out the transmissions that were still escaping into space, sounds that were recorded but with some tuning I found voices that were just recorded, that were as live as I could expect.

I listened, and closed my eyes hearing nothing else every again.

The wellington description doesn't make any sense. This is what happens when you mention New Zealand, we come out of the woodwork

[removed]

[removed]

To paraphrase: "I am never hanging up."

This in itself could be one of the most romantic or disturbing things ever said.

Once the hysterical laughter stops they will need to have a long serious discussion.

At least no one will interrupt them, or will they? ;)

This is like the second time I have ever answered a writing prompt, so criticism is totally welcome! Please don’t read it as if I am at all experienced though.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

This marks the 35 year anniversary of Them taking over. Of the destruction of the world I loved. Of almost every living thing that wasn’t plant life disappearing from the world. At this point, I don’t have much to do except try to survive and hope They don’t decide our satellites are useless, as they are being kept up for now. In my free time, I read, watch movies and old videos (although those are running short-I am getting dangerously close to only seeing conspiracies in my feeds) and I call. I pick random numbers, type them into my phone, and hope for a nice voicemail to talk to. It’s better than all the voices living in my head, anyway.

Sometimes I get the annoying default ones (bla bla bla, leave a message after the beep), or the mean prank ones, but I also occasionally get nicer ones. The ones where they say they love you, or seem to be happy to see you. But they are normally OK.

I punch in a random number, and get a pizza place in New Jersey. I wish they still existed… I try again, not really expecting much of this one either. But then… “Hello? Hello? Are you real? A REAL PERSON??? Or just another bot?” I gasp, surprised that someone actually answered. No one was left… right??? “Hi!!!” I say. “My name is Rowan, and I thought I was the last person on earth!!! Are you real?” “OH. MY. GOSH.” She says on the line. “I am!!!” “I probably won’t hear you for a couple of seconds, because I am going to set my phone on speaker so I can put it down.” “OK!” She responds.

I go to put the phone on speaker, but then I see the screen. There is no call. There were only the voices in my head. But now, they’re answering back. I probably won’t be alone for much longer though, as I hear something in the distance. It’s Them. They have found me.

Hello…hello? Oh my God hello! Hey. Please tell me this is real and not a voicemail. It’s not a voicemail. Oh my God this is amazing where are you? Um I am at 732 broken street in ohichagan. Do you mind if I come to you umm ma’am. The name is Cherry and go right ahead it would be nice to have company for once sir. Thank you Cherry my name is Sarusto and I will come to you as soon as possible so Goodbye and I hung up the phone. So I went out to the car and got it up and running and made my way to Cherry’s place. On the way there the car broke down and I couldn’t getting it working so I hot wired a random car and continued the drive. When I finally got to her place and knocked on the door, I woke up in the hospital. The doctors came in and told me that I had been in a coma for the last 20 years and they thought I would never wake up but it turns out it was all just a long nightmare.