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

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] 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.

Whoa! This is just…Beautiful!

The famous battle of the, Grand Vizier's fabulous airships and the Dukes awe-inspiring Earthshaker artillery

The voice will come from next to you, from someplace close but unfamiliar. "It will crash upon you like a wave," it will say, and it will be warm and deep and quivering against the bit that holds it. "There may be pain at first, yes, and fatigue. But these, like all things, shall fade."

The voice will seem to be behind you, then, and you will feel pushed forward, upward, rushing faster than you've moved before. Light will surround you, too bright for you to ever have looked at, but matched perfectly to your new eyes.

"It will roar in you like the north wind," the voice will say, "and in it you will know satiety without eating and drunkenness without drinking. In it will be stillness and silence, furious joy, and the cries of gulls before the storm."

The voice will stay with you as you climb, guiding you aloft, until the whole of Earth will spread before you. Thunder and rain will join with you, then, to be your breath and bear you on. Alate with wings of cloud and starry stuff, you will look upon the surface and its people and see how wonderful, how small, and how real they are. And you will look upon yourself and see how much more wonderful, and small, and real you have become.

Beyond this height and brighter light, none have brought report.

Death may be cruelly hard, but the afterward contains joys beyond mortal kenning. Delight now in the goodness you have brought and the goodness brought unto you. Take heart, gather your courage, and prepare to revel wildly in the life to come.

[Thank you, deeply, for the chance to give this gift.]

Hah nice

Even if the advanced civilization doesnt agree, they are gods as far as any primitive society would consider. Especially if they're advanced enough to create an entire planet and ecosystem to inhabit it.

I had almost forgotten the sensation, like slipping between two immense silken couch cushions out of one environment and into another. The little wooden porch fronting my little wooden cabin had been warmed by the rising sun. Now, I stood barefoot on cold marble in a drafty, cavernous hall. Before me were two men I didn't recognize at first. One stood tall and gloating. The other, pressed up against a pillar as tall and thick as a spruce tree, was on his ass, panicked eyes fixed to mine, a rapier at his throat. But that look, those eyes. I knew him.

"Your pistols," the disadvantaged one rasped at me, "Where the hell are they?"

"Still hung up over my fireplace, as they've been some twenty odd years," I said slowly. I recognized the situation for the tinderbox that it was, and instinctively knew not to add any friction it didn't need. I sipped my tea, still warm. At last there could be no mistake: I knew that boy.

"What trick is this?" said the gloating one.

"You just hush now," I said, and returned my attention to my old friend. "Max, my boy. You finally got the whiskers you always wanted. Some of them at least."

Max touched the paltry beard on his chin, and I chuckled. The other one, a fancy sort, now that I'd had a minute to size him up, let his blade droop just a bit but didn't sheathe it.

"Of course I'm tickled that you'd still think of me after all these years, but why oh why did you have to call me during my morning routine?"

"Well I'm in quite the... the pickle, as you can see..."

Fancy boy flicked his blade at Max's face. "I'll do the talking here," he said. I threw my teacup, smashing it against his brow.

"Where I come from, 'hush' means one thing. I don't know what it means to you."

"You devil!" he cried, bleeding.

"I'm still holding the saucer. Put that toothpick away."

He did, and slunk away in a huff.

"Max, what did you do?"

"I... tried to do it without you. I thought I had it figured out. I did really well! I got a job in the service, I read the stoics, and I made a life. I thought I was done."

"But?"

"But, they kept coming for me. One asshole or another, there was always someone trying to tear down what I'd built. I was only defending myself."

"And that guy is trying to kill you because of it?"

"Well, I also might've involved myself with his wife."

"Ah," I said.

"Believe me, I can deal with that on my own. It's messy, but it's actually relatively straightforward from my perspective. I was just hoping you could prevent me from getting my head chopped off. On that account, I feel we're square."

"I was just about to cook some eggs. You hungry?" I said.

"No, actually I think I need to puke."

"Fair in the eyes of God."

And then, the gloating one regained his courage. "I feel like I've humored this long enough."

By then, I felt the silk cushions of eternity calling my back. "Is there anything else you'd like me to do?"

"Kill this asshole."

"Like I said, I left my guns at home."

"Then whatever." Max shrugged.

​

fin

Somehow, I was sitting by a stream. Not a stream, THE stream, the one I dreamed about. The steam in woods by my house. I wasn’t dreaming though, I felt this. The sun was shining through the trees, it’s warmth not stopped by the leaves. I reached out and blocked the shine with my fingers. Non gnarled fingers. I flexed them so I could confirm what I felt. No pain. I brought my hand to my mouth,no mask and tube. Maybe I was dreaming. “Hello son.”

I whirled around at that voice, it was wired into my soul. I’ve never seen the man using before. At least not in the flesh. Only in photos had I seen the face before. An odd blend of myself and my eldest brother, but with bigger ears. “Dad? Am I dead?” The mid 20s man before me nodded. “Yes you are, the last of my kids to cross, I wanted to be here for you.”

I looked around me to see if anyone else had appeared. “Where is Mom and everyone else? Bill and Sandy had to have made it to heaven if I did. I understand the others not being here.” Young dad laughed. Of course he would, we all got our bad sense of humor from him. He motioned to a rock “have a seat. Everyone is here and not here.” He squinted his face to match what I just did at this confusing statement. “You’re dead and you can do whatever you want. The family isn’t here because you didn’t think of them. You thought of this place first. Is this the creek in the woods?” He paused. “Yes sir, older I got the more I dreamed about walking along it again. They were my best dreams.” I replied. He continued “and now you can walk from here to the Ohio, down through the Mississippi, and to New Orleans. Or go up stream and wind up near Walton. You control your reality. You can do what you want to do, go where you want and see who you want. Only if they want to though. I’m sure all your siblings would want to see you, your mother as well. When you’re ready.”

“I’m not ready?” My obvious surprise face was being mirrored by my dad. He waved his hands around “standing in a creek bottom. This is what you wanted.” “I don’t remember you being an asshole to your kids while you were alive” I replied with a tone. I assume it had a tone, because young dad balled up his fist and jokingly said “we’re both young now, and I will easily kick your butt.”

I laughed, then thought. I put my face in my hands. “You’re right. I want to be alone. I just spent weeks in a bed having my wife, my girls, and grandkids telling me they love me in a way that I knew meant I was dying. Nurses telling me how chipper I was if I managed to pee. Constant noises. I wanted to be alone.”

I raised my head. Young dad was gone. It was just the creek, birds, and trees. I knew there were roads just over the hill, but there was no traffic. He always read me like a book. Mom was smarter, but Dad just knew more. I picked up a branch the perfect height for a walking stick. Upstream today, I’ll cut across land to Big Bone, follow it to the Ohio.

This is beautiful (and I had tears streaming down my face as I read it). Thank you for sharing it!

This is beautiful (and I had tears streaming down my face as I read it). Thank you for sharing it!

The locker room was dead silent save for my mumbling through the lyrics to Stela Cole's Love Like Mine. As I sketched out my latest drawing, I saw a towering shadow creep up behind me. I paused my music and said, "Hey Aisha."

My girlfriend groaned and responded, "Am I ever gonna be able to sneak up on you?"

I chuckled. "Not when you're ten foot eight, babe."

Aisha pouted as she shrunk back down to her usual five foot two and took a seat on the bench next to me. "You always make fun of my usual height."

I kissed her on the cheek and replied, "Mmm, that's because you're cute when you pout."

Aisha tried her damnedest but ultimately failed to hide her blushing smile. As she leaned against me and watched me sketch, she asked, "You okay, Millie? You don't come in here unless shit's going down."

I sighed. "Ah, you know, the usual. My mom's being a bitch, the other students won't leave me alone, and the teachers aren't doing anything. I just want, like, one break. One break, is that too much to ask?"

"I mean, I don't think it's--WHOA!!"

An invisible force pulled Aisha off of the bench and into an open locker. The locker abruptly closed, revealing Tiffany Leone, who snidely said to me, "You got time to chat, Millie?"

I sighed in exasperation. "Seriously, Tiffany? You can't go one day without being a Tiffany?"

Tiffany stomped over to me and slapped me. As her cronies Lauren and Layla telekinetically stole my sketchpad and placed a seal on the locker Aisha was stuck inside, Tiffany pulled me up by the hair and hissed, "It is one thing to get a lower grade than a Powerless. It's another thing entirely when you get a lower grade than a Powerless tra--"

Aisha cut Tiffany off by yelling, "Finish that sentence and I swear I'll dropkick you through that fucking wall!!!"

Tiffany glared at Aisha and screamed, "STAY OUT OF THIS!" She then turned my attention back to me and made a finger gun. As an explosive spark built up in her fingers, Tiffany aimed for my sketchpad and sneered. "This is what happens when you don't stay in your lane."

ZWHOOOM!

Suddenly, I wasn't held in Tiffany's grasp anymore. I was still in the locker room, but everything around me was a multicolored fever dream. The walls and ceiling looked like a rainbow had vomited on them as the air around me was filled with little glints of light. I looked to my left to see Tiffany and her friends looking around confused trying to find me. Then I saw Lauren was still holding my sketchpad, and I got pissed.

In an instant, I popped out of wherever I had ended up and slammed into Lauren with enough force to slam her against a row of lockers. Tiffany and Layla stared at me in terror as I reclaimed my property. Layla started to back away as she asked, "W--where the hell did you go?!"

I shrugged. "No clue. But I'm not about to complain about finally having the means to kick your asses."

With a single thought, I returned to the colorful world, this time via the floor. Once Layla realized where I had gone, she started panicking and fruitlessly stomping the ground. I popped back into reality directly behind her, kneeing her in the crotch hard enough to send her airborne for a brief moment. As Layla lost concentration, the seal on the locker disappeared, giving Aisha the opportunity to burst out with a murderous look on her face.

Tiffany fell on her ass and tried scooting away to no avail. Aisha sized up and grabbed Tiffany by the collar as she growled, "You're in luck, Tiff: I'll settle for this instead of launching you through the wall." Aisha then shoved Tiffany into the locker and slammed the door shut.

Aisha shrank down a bit as she pulled me into a hug excitedly. "You have powers!! My baby actually has powers!!!"

I hugged Aisha right back and responded, "I know, I can't believe it either! Hey, what did it look like to you?"

"It was so cool; it's like you were a living drawing or something!"

"Ooh, that does sound cool. You wanna see if we can use this to sneak into a movie?"

Aisha grinned and took me by the hand. "Hell yeah I do!"

I was going to add that some of the alien visitors want to build a shrine on your lawn, but the title was getting too long, and that was a little too specific.

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

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] 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.

Dear Diary:

It is a year since the infection went global, and all the poor waifs that chose to turn to their uncivilized firearms have all perished. Their ammunition was spent within the first six months, and as nearly all factories are down, production of ammunition is limited.

The fools.

I stand here, sword in hand, within my great castle, the Arundel Mills Mall. Here, I have found more than enough suitable weaponry for my defense. Within these halls, there is a Medieval Times, a place filled with swords and armor which require no ammunition. Chain mail may not block bullets, but it can block the rotten teeth and fingernails of the undead with ease, and the plat armor I could scavenge is practically impenetrable to the creatures; the greater ones are so strong that not even modern armor would protect from their attacks, so practically, I am as well off as any soldier in defense.

I scoff at ammunition. A knife sharpener form a kitchen supply store and my chosen blade, which I have dubbed Dragonfang, are all that I need to leave countless filthy zombies in my wake, dismembered and beheaded. Their teeth cannot pass my armor, yet Dragonfang cuts through their rotting forms like butter. If it were not for some of the larger mutations, I would be next to unstoppable.

Society laughed at me before the infection. They called me a dork, a nerd, and scoffed at my interests in HEMA. Now they come to kneel before my throne, pleading for my protection. Before I was their source of mockery; now, I am their king. I sit in the royal throne of the Medieval Times, casting judgement upon my new subjects. I am fair but firm; I cannot have dissidents endangering our lives by insisting that they have their own way. Such people could be tolerated and ignored in the bygone days of peace, but now, such selfish arrogance will earn them a trip to the torture chamber, or worse, to exile, forced to walk alone in a world filled with the hungry dead, far from the safety of the kingdom.

My executioner has had little to do in the way of punishment, thankfully. He is a twisted man with a predilection for both sadism and theatricality, and has found the most disturbing uses for all manner of things we have looted from the mall. I know not his true name, but he goes by Bloody Ben, and he seems to have quite the chip on his shoulder from society. He usually wears a crude cloth mask, so not many of us have seen his true face. Thankfully, he seems to respect me and my knights, but he is all too eager to dish out punishment to the disobedient subjects, or as he calls them, "normies".

Ah yes, my knights. Thankfully I am not alone in this fight, and several other brave souls who have mastered the blade fight at my side:

Sir Dave the Cunning, a man who worked at a Games Workshop and studied combat tactics in Warhammer tournaments. He is my right-hand advisor, and has led the men into combat numerous times with his talent for strategic planning.

Lady Zuri the Immovable, who uses her hefty weight to become an unshakable wall of defense, and has a religious virtue and faith as unshakable as her form.

Sir Carl the Mad, a fearless man who's life as a homeless crackhead has flipped the tables to make him more prepared for this apocalypse than most people.

Sir Jose the Fox, so named because of his great cunning and trickery, and his talent for luring the undead into his traps.

Sir Ben the Bold, who wields the katana Deathgleam. What time he does not spend fighting he spends training, slicing at whatever we have available with his unique twit on Asian fighting styles. That, or watching anime; he claims it "hypes him up".

We hope to add more knights to our ranks; currently we have a dozen or so squires lined up to be trained for war against the undead legions. But when thing get tough, we knight mount up our horses and charge into the fray, slicing at the undead like a scythe through wheat.

Verily, we have horses; we found them at the Medieval Times establishment. They have been an incredible asset to us in hunting the undead and in travelling great distances when we need to. My chosen steed I have named Firebrand, a lovely and majestic creature who is as lethal to the undead as I, kicking out with deadly hooves and rearing to crush our undead foes.

I shall end my entry here. I am needed on a matter of urgency. If this is my last entry, then faretheewell. I shall die like a true knight, or survive to lead my kingdom into glorious victory. Deus vult, you undead fiends! You face the Knights of Arundel!

The Ewok revolution on Kashyyyk

They were being imported as pets/funny little guys by the Wookies, at best being treated like children. Finally they had enough and started fleeing into primordial woods that were too dense for the Wookies. After several raids the Wookies sent in a batallion of Ewok-catchers, underestimating their ability to build traps and willingness to clobber the Wookies over their heads once they got them to fall.

A second expedition wasn't much more successful, but there were enough deaths for the Wookies to finally send a call to C-3PO to arrange peace talks and return the Ewoks to their moon.

Probably not, but thanks for replying.

I need this thing to hibernate. I wrap my left hand in several layers to keep the infection contained and go to my desert environment. I have to borrow several sprays of water suckers. Seeding them in my lab, which is warmer than the desert garden, they immediately, joyfully expand.  

My phone rings and I answer it.

“Rose?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“This is Dr Saunders. We saw you move out of your lab, what’s going on?”

“I got some water suckers. Trying to dry the fungus into hibernation. It’s spread to my entire left hand.”

“Okay. Be careful, we’re working on this on our end too.”

“Sure. I’m gonna sleep now.”

“Copy.”

The spread seems to slow in the dry environment, it remains only on the hand, but I feel thirsty more, and I suspect my blood is providing an inefficient water-substitute to my own infection. The night-glimmer seems perfectly healthy. Even the leaf I tore has reappeared. Healthy, but covered in lace.

I use a heavily-controlled algae, that reproduces quickly with any amount of moisture, and introduce it to one of the three environments, as well as a fourth environment with untouched species. Fire bloom, it’s called, as it tends to spread like fire. I find that this is not enough to kill the fungus, but it does keep it from expanding any further, containing it like a ring of green fuzz around the lace.

After another conversation with Dr Saunders, I am told to examine my skin above the hand, and to test a blood sample. I do both, and both are lacking any trace of the fungus. He says he’ll get back to me. I do not wait for him to get back to me. I use fire bloom on my wet wrist, creating a green fuzz. My skin feels itchy and dry beneath the algae, but through the day, the fungus reaches, but does not go past the fire bloom.

Dr Saunders is surprised and impressed, when he hears what I’ve done. He offers a means of escape. I would have to undergo thorough testing and decontamination, which is perfectly fine. But I can hear his grimace at the next words.

“You’d have to cut off your hand.”

After two days of isolation, it sounds insane. But two days drags into two weeks, with daily applied fire bloom keeping the infection where it is. I begin to run low on food plants. Mine is a garden, not a farm. When the hunger kicks in, the low blood sugar, the two weeks of isolation talking only to suits and lab coats on a phone, I agree to do it. With my phone on speaker, I get an axe, a saw, shears. I inject coca into my arm, just above the ring of fire bloom on my wrist. Aloe is there, and a powder muddled from an agave that serves as a coagulant. A garden can be a pharmacy too. Rather than try to hack my own hand off, we concoct a scheme to attach it to something very heavy, and let it drop onto my hand. Precision and force. I have the saw ready should it go wrong.

The blade drops. My coca-numbed arm feels nothing, and I blink stupidly as I lift my blood-pulsing stump of an arm. I pass out.

When I wake, I am in a hospital bed, in a head fog. Dr Saunders is there, in a yellow rubber hazmat suit. Behind a window. He’s bigger than I expected. I’m still in a clean room. Still in plastic.

“What happened.”

“We’ve moved you to a containment lab for the time being. We don’t think you’re infectious, but… well, we’re not taking any chances.”

“But I cut my hand off,” I say. My own voice sounds strange.

“I know,” he says. “But look at it.”

And I do. There on my wrist is my left hand, fully intact, fresh and new as a baby’s.

Part 2/2

Overgrowth

I lead the young lady through the neutral environment corridor, through a cursed moment of a sterilizer, and into the living bulb which keeps the desert balance. The moisture is kept down through thirsty fibrous vines that suck it from the air, and, it being day, the sunlight is concentrated making the place warm. It will drop to near-freezing come the night, forcing the water suckers to retreat until the morning.

With her help we coax her cistern-cactus, which filters and stores water, from the loose, rocky soil. It is healthy now. I place it on a wooden wheelbarrow and we walk it out of my gardens and into her barge on the wide canal, one that cuts through every part of the city.

I hand her a pack of seed-stuffed soil.

“Spread them well, be sure to prune them the moment they stop being fearful of the sun. Call me if you have any trouble.”

“Thanks, Rose!” She waves as she poles her boat away. She will call me, of course, and one of my assistants will remind her. Most of our clients come to us because they don’t understand how their plants work. They see them as tools, as purely functional, rather than living, spirit-filled things that care for us and need care in return.

I pat the wood of my gardens, living wood, active wood, chimerical and multi-faceted. On the one hand, she requires a lot of care herself, but for everything she receives, she gives back twice as much. Few living woods could house this many different growing environments. The next client is waiting in a neutral environment, on mossy wood. The neutral part is a misnomer. Diversity of life has a diversity of needs. There is no such thing as neutral, but rather a place that is not deadly to most, nor is it a place where many can thrive.

In his lap, he holds a pot with a wilting broad-leafed plant. A common night-glimmer. He looks up from beneath long dark curls as I approach. His eyes are full of worry.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I’ve tried everything,” he pleads.

I am touched. Many would have recycled such a common plant, gotten a new one, grumbled about the cost. Certainly it would be cheaper. I tell him as much, knowing some would be upset if I haven’t. He doesn’t mind the added price.

“Follow me,” I say. I lead him to my lab, and a high counter, flattened for convenience. I indicate for him to place the night-glimmer on it. I rip a clipping off on a dead leaf. Examine it under concentrated sunlight. It has somehow been choked out, moisture cut off, discoloured, but not in any of the common neglect ways.

“Hmmm, hmmm, you’ve never spoken like this to me before,” I whisper under my breath. I put my ripping beneath a microscope. Find the culprit. Thin, charcoal grey, netted tendrils creep across its stem. But they are not merely spreading across the surface. They dig into just below the surface of the leaf, clinging to the veins. A fungal infection, most likely. Not one I’m familiar with though. I tear the piece into three, and put it into three contained test environments, small goldfish bowls with lids and varying levels of humidity, soil types, and even air pressures. Not all fungal infections can outlive their hosts in sub-optimal environments. I know in this case, we humans choose a survivor. In the meantime, I search fungal databases for a descriptive match. I explain what I’m doing to the man, who remains stoic. I have no answers for him yet. This fungus is not catalogued, or hasn’t parasitically consumed a night-glimmer before. Not all of them are, so I will likely have to add it to the database. But plants of this size tend to go through time quickly. Where the wood that houses my gardens takes time for everything, waits patiently for times of growth, blooming, seeding, plants of this size can be accelerated into full reproductive cycles up to five times a year. Some fungus move more quickly. I keep his plant in its own little quarantine tank with its own ideal environment, hoping it will be nurtured enough to survive its parasite.

The next morning I am shocked to find that this fungal infection moves faster still. Rather than thriving in some environments, and weakening in others, this fungus has taken over all three. All other test plants, cuttings, some still living, are now showing the same signs as the night-glimmer. Choked out but microscopic webbing, digging into their veins.

No matter what I do, the fungus outlives its hosts. I find it also consuming insects that contribute to the soil health. Some fungus can infect insects. Some can infect humans, such as athlete’s foot. As an afterthought, I examine my dirty, calloused finger under the microscope.

A charcoal grey lace spreads across my skin, digging in, searching for veins. I call the man, insist on him getting his fingers examined, struggling to keep my own voice calm through my heavily beating heart, my own head feeling lighter and airier than it should. I quarantine my little lab room. Locking the door, hoping that the fungus will not spread to the motherwood that holds my gardens.

I call colleagues, my teachers, professors, floropaths. None of them have heard of this before. By now, three fingers on my left hand have turned red. The lace, has reached my capillaries and joined them. I should have used gloves, but I cannot bear the sterile vinyl. I’ve always preferred the feeling of damp, soft humus and soil.

I keep working. Perhaps things will go badly for me, but perhaps I will cure myself. I am putting the fungus through every test I can think of, as well as any means of destroying it, including killing its host. Fire successfully kills the host and the fungus. Drying it out seems to put it into hibernation. Drowning it just seems to encourage it.

Calls come in, from increasing levels of experts and contamination authorities. They have questions, and suggestions for other types of tests, but are unwilling to break my self-imposed quarantine. The infection is isolated to myself and my lab. The poor boy--the one whom I now realize could have prevented this by burning the plant and buying a new one--he is lucky enough to be uninfected. I conclude that wood samples from the mother tree are not vulnerable to infection, which is a major relief. Leafy plants, with capillaries near the surface, not so lucky.

The Contamination Authority sets up camp outside my gardens. As a precaution, they seal my bulbous gardens in a layer of transparent sheet-plastic. Enough to let in the life-giving sun, the one that is setting. Any novel infection that can quickly take over entire plant populations is a danger to a flora-tech society. They call in suggestions.

Night falls. I fall asleep quickly after a long day. I wake, feeling thirsty. My entire left hand is covered, red. I know I will see that greedy lace if I check the microscope. I drink water. Blood is not an environment where fungus can survive, but this one seems to be taking in mine anyway. I notice, in its contained environment, the night-glimmer is glowing away happily, healthily; the soft pale blue lights up. I rip a piece off and examine it beneath the microscope. The lace is still there, but it too is now glowing. I examine the other test plants. They are all looking sickly, and greyer than they should be, but they’re also a day behind the night-glimmer on their infection.

Part 1/2

"Really sire, is the foul language really necessary?" The Angel addressed the God.

"Yeah, it is. Fuck all that noise." The God was resting on a blanket, tanning under the red sun. With teal sunglasses, he lowered them down to his nose, "All these fuckin rules man. I had it, I'm done!"

"Sir, this planet is inhabitable. This earth has been desolate for decades now." The Angel's shoulders began to tighten, wings drawing closer to their body.

The God took note, and softened his own face. "Look, Sweetheart, I've been reigning and causing hell in Paradise for centuries and centuries to come. It's time to retire."

The Angel nearly shrieked, "Retire?!! Retire!?! There's no such thing as a God, especially you!"

The God stood up abruptly, waving his arms, "Hello!!!! I am the reason Earth turned into a shithole. It's me! ME!" He furred his brows, crossing his arms. "Without MY MISCHIEF, the world wouldn't have gone out in a fiery blaze."

He took a deep inhale, reminiscing about the parade of nukes being sent all across the world.

"Besides" The God paused for a beat. The angel hanging onto every word he said in disbelief. "It's quiet"

"Too quiet."

"Care to join me?" The God snapped his fingers, a bucket of ice and two Budweiser appeared from nothingness.

The Angel shook their head.

"Aren't you tired of being such an Angel all the time? Having to be good and all."

"I wouldn't exchange it for the world." They protested.

"Well, there isn't a "world" anymore. Won't you let loose a little?" He handed them one of the beers. The Angel kept shaking off the offer.

The Angel sighed.

Wait, like... actually dying irl?

Yeah... You *REALLY* need to keep this going!! It's really starting to get good. (And I agree, I'd kill that manager without too many qualms myself! I *HATE* those kind of douchebags!!)

[removed]

The Mutiny of Aran:
The first widely reported battle of the Grand War, despite attempts to censor it, the Mutiny of Aran kicked off in the town of Aran when the invading Second division refused to attack and formed an unsanctioned truce with the Primary defenders.
Both sides refused orders from higher-ups to fight, and in fact turned on their own artillery units and officers who attempted to re-initiate hostilities.
 
How did the mutiny end? What consequences did this have for both sides of the war? How did the Second and Primary governments adjust their war doctrine to address the greatly increased threat of defections and rebellions? Did anyone win the war in the end, or did both countries destabilise?

Fair fair

I'm always in a mood for sci fi stories when playing Stellaris. Basically how I found this subreddit to begin with.