This explains so much...

One winter when I was a teenager I visited my great granduncle Johannson's place, up in western Norway. I was a bookish lad, but my cousins were country folk. The sun would roll along the horizon for a few hours near noon each day, leaving it in twilight and dark through the long nights.

One morning before light my cousin Emma was packing. Boards, a wrapped canvas, food. "Come, Christopher, I'll show you our cabin," she said.

She loaded my bicycle and hers and we started down the hill. I talked of Ivanhoe. We reached the harbor at dawn.

"Ach, that's Karl, he's a fisherman, ignore him," Emma hissed as we walked to her boat.

"HELLO PRETTY LADY!" he yelled. "YOU SHOULD COME SEE A REAL BOAT SOMETIME!"

"Sounds like he's fishing for you," I said.

"Ugh I'd rather die," said Emma.

"THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND, EMMA?" he yelled.

"He wants accismus," I muttered.

"Pffftht," said Emma, "he's no getting a kiss from this miss."

"No no ... 'accismus' is pretending not to want what you really want. If he wasn't so direct he might get more girls."

"Ooo, is that what you're doing?" she asked. "Being shy and polite all the time?"

I flustered. "No! No I'm just always this way." We got in her rowboat and she started up the outboard motor. The water was smooth and the sun was warm. Spectacular scenery.

We reached an island cliff and carried her supplies up a narrow dirt path. A little dark cabin perched on the rocks.

Inside, it was sturdier than I expected. Emma hung the painting on the wall and took the tarp and some boards out the window and up onto the roof. She started pounding nails.

The portrait was of a man with ruffled black hair, facing left. He had a big sharp nose and a monstrous mustache below his little beady eyes that stared out accusingly.

"What's this painting?" I asked.

"Mother's portrait of great uncle Bernard Ollson, barrister. He declared the moon illegal."

"Crazy, was he?"

"Mother says no. Strong willed. Strong of faith. But not strong enough to persuade the moon not to rise. He would go out at night and swear at it." More pounding.

She came back in. Outside, the sun was rolling below the horizon again to the southwest. Ocean and islands were spread out below a flaming red sky.

"How do you like our cabin?" asked Emma.

"Wow," I said.

"Here we are, all alone, with this sunset all to ourselves! You know what this calls for?"

"..."

"Lunch!" Emma brought out the picnic basket. She handed me food and stuffed her face. The sun slowly set. "You are right," said Emma. "The weather is hard on our little cabin. The most important thing is to build more. Build more than the weather takes away."

Back to the boat. Emma piloted back into the fjord.

Halfway back the motor stopped. Emma was swearing.

"Now what?" I asked. The swells were bigger now, and night was falling.

"Now we row," said Emma. She handed me an oar. Had me sit next to her. Coached me how to paddle. After several attempts we were pulling in sync.

We rowed. The swells were reaching four feet high. The boat rocked crazily. Most of the time you couldn't see the horizon. And I was backwards, looking out to sea. "You're doing fine," said Emma.

It got darker and colder. I just concentrated on the oar: pull, lift, feather, dip, pull. Such a contrast from the morning's easy ride out on a smooth sunlit mirror. It began to rain.

After forever we reached the harbor. Emma tied up the boat. Bicycles ... home was miles uphill and I was beat.

"I'll go ahead and have mother come with the car," said Emma. "You follow. There's just one road. You have to keep moving or you'll freeze." And she shot off.

I tried the bicycle, but uphill was too much. I got off and walked the bicycle up the hill. Sometimes I couldn't see the mountains through the rain. Sometimes the moon peeked through.

Headlights appeared ahead. My relatives tied the bike to the roof of their car and hustled me into the back seat.

"The weather turned awful," I said.

"There is no bad weather," my aunt replied, "only bad clothing! We'll get you home and wrapped up."

Back at great granduncle's, they wrapped me in a blanket in front of a fire and gave me Kvæfjordkake, with slivered almonds, and hot cocoa with a dollop of whipped cream. I watched the flames. Uncle was asleep in his chair. I fell asleep listening to Emma and Will debating what additions they should make to the cabin next.

And Jimmy Carr has entered the stage.

A romantic meet-cute between a store clerk and a costumer that just walked in.

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I felt like a backstabber. A snitch, a treasonist, Benedict Arnold defecting on the outskirts of New York. But I see no 'American side' as an alternative to passing on the mysterious ticket to a victim-to-be. Passing it on to the gods of nature or Oscar the Grouch hasn't worked out. I even went as far as doing the trash collector's job in emptying a garbage bin to make sure it wasn't there, to ensure my mind wasn't playing tricks on me. That, or the trash collector was very fast that day.

All I know about the previous victim is that the mysterious ticket too has preoccupied his mind in his final days. Their spouse described to us a sudden thunk happening behind her back when we came to investigate the death scene. At that time, the note seemed trivial, something the victim simply liked carrying with him, as a sort of lucky number. It definitely was not a lucky number, that's for sure. When I found the ticket back in my coat pocket after returning home from the job, thinking I had left it at the forensic lab under the 'miscellaneous belongings' category, is where I started to contemplate whether the death may not have been so sudden after all. Especially when their spouse told us the next day how the victim had told them on occasion about this ticket.

Passing it on, based on the suspicions I have, feels evil. But no person would ever sensibly and willingly keep it to themselves with the information that I have - at least, that's what I like to make myself believe in order not to feel guilt when situations evolve the way I think they will. The mystery surrounding the inextinguishability of the note will likely concern this new, unsuspecting 'person of interest' as much as it had concerned me, or the previous victim.

I can't recall exactly why I picked him, but I remember that I was looking for someone who was either too superstitious to see this as a sign of prosperity and keep it, or who was too foolish to make any connections between not being able to get rid of the ticket, and coming to the conclusion that their best option is to pass it on to someone else. I want them to keep the ticket in order to have the utmost certainty this note is causing something. At least if it is, it likely won't affect me. Until I'm asked to investigate a new death scene, of course.

​

Note: This is my first time writing a story prompt here. English is not my main language, and I know no theory about the processes of writing a story. Please let me know what you think.

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"Alright...this is definitely strange..." Max muttered while scratching the back of his head.

He was sitting alone in his bedroom, at his desk. It was the middle of the night, so his parents and siblings were asleep. The only source of light was his desk lamp. Th light is shining down on the ticket stub, with the only numbers being 11.

"Thought it was a scam, so I threw it away. It came back. Thought my mind was playing tricks on me, only to find it in my pocket again. I threw it into the river and watched it drift away. Damn thing was in my pocket, strangely dry. Tried burning it, but it defies logic and doesn't burn..." Max muttered, before he palmed his face.

"Either I'm going crazy, or this ticket is just way too strange..." Max muttered with exasperation and frustration. He leaned back on his chair while narrowing his eyes.

"...Just who the hell was that old man? What's his relation with the tickets..." Max muttered to himself. He sighed once more. "Clearly, asking myself 20 questions and not knowing any of the answers is going to get me somewhere..."

Max stood up from his chair. "Screw it, I'll think about it tommorow-"

He was cut off when he heard some kind of space-like distortion behind him, and a bright red light emerging as well.

He quickly turned around and saw some kind of red colored portal you see from those sci-fi movies. And from the portal emerged a figure.

And the figure wore similar clothes to the old man that gave you a ticket. Only this figure appeared to be in his mid-20s, and had slicked back black hair.

Max could only stand there in shock and alarm upon seeing all of this happen, while the well-dressed young man hummed while looking around his surroundings, and fell back onto him.

"Interesting...so you're my contractor..." the young man muttered.

Silence was made.

"...I'm sorry, what?" Max responded with a dumbfounded look.

Hearing this made the young man go into an "oh" expression upon realizing something.

"Oh, right right, my apologies. Quite rude of my to not introduce myself." the young man responded, before he took off his fedora and bowed.

"The name is Guison, a member of the 72 Demons of Ars Goetia. I'm designated as demon #11. And now that you know my name, we can truly get down to business...which is to say, you'll be helping me in the battles against the Zealots."

Silence was made in the room.

Max could only stare at the person before him in silence, his mind trying to process on what the hell is happening.

And in the end, he could only utter out this one word.

"...What?"

10 years later the reincarnated whale is drowned by a group of bored killer whales. The End

A modern world where everything is advanced except in warfare which is still stuck on bronze age.

It was a reference to Mother's Basement mockumentary about magical girls. It was a bit where he made "Public Service Announcements" as if anime tropes existed irl, and he has a video where he explains what to do if your daughter was a magical girl.

In this short story, I imply that Mr Takada saw the video and followed the instructions to a T: Finding Sumineko disguised as a plushie and throwing them into the washing machine as a torture device to make them talk.

The muted patter of rain on the roof filled the vacant house. Its sprawling emptiness amplified the sounds of the storm, sending deep rumbles of thunder along the corridors. A gust of wind fluttered through shreds of the front curtains – once vibrant green, now mothy yellow – as I stepped across the threshold.

The stranger’s words echoed in my head, dulled but not demystified by time. I shook the rain off my shoulders and surveyed the front room, tired eyes scanning over the worn furniture. Broken glass from the chandelier crunched beneath my feet, its majesty now reduced to a tarnished cross of bent metal. Tattered remnants of books littered the floor of the library, its great mahogany shelves waterlogged and broken, rotting into the ruddy maroon carpet. I craned my neck skyward, droplets pooling on my glasses as they fell from the jagged, open ceiling.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, the unmistakable sour smell of mold filling my nostrils as I thought back to that peculiar man in the subway so many years before. The suit wasn’t the peculiar part – most of my days back then were spent dealing with suits – no, it was the shoes. I’d never seen leather polished to quite that shine before, nor had I encountered that level of specific perfection since. The gruff, hurried nature of the words clings vigorously to my mind even now, thirty years removed from their speaker.

“Good luck, kid.”

I remember the feeling of his rough hands on mine as he reached out, hands which had seen far more wear than anyone’s ever should. I remember the weight of his shoulder as he pushed past me into the crowd beyond. I remember the deafening screech of the train And the screams And the thud

The far-off thunder echoed through the house, breaking the silence beneath. I pulled my hand out of my pocket, the worn ticket stub clenched tightly in my fist. It looked the same as it had on that first day – edges faded as if by repeated use, the number eleven written just off-center in neat script – the same as it had looked when the subway crew began to pick up what was left from the tracks. It looked the same as it had when I handed it to the investigating officer as evidence. It looked the same as it had when I awoke the next morning to find Eleven in my jacket pocket. It looked the same as it had when I tried to explain to the sergeant I didn’t know how Eleven ended up in my possession, and when I told the judge that, yes, I did understand that tampering with evidence was a crime but I didn’t know how eleven kept finding its way back to me, and when i tried to burn it but nothing happened and when i hurled it off the bridge strapped to a chuck of concrete and when i was questioned by the men from washington who couldn’t believe that eleven just kept ending up in my pocket and i genuinely didn’t have a clue how eleven happened and no im not crazy and when the nurses held me down to administer another sedative because eleven wasn’t working and when the eleven, coushioned walls soaked up the sounds of my pleas begging for eleven will anyone listen what does it mean eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven

I opened my eyes and cast one last look at my empty house before turning and walking back out the broken front door. There was nothing here for me, not anymore. Eleven had seen to that.

Mmmmm radiation flavored water

"What did you do this time?" I asked, not bothering to look up from my computer as Loki approached my desk, already anticipating the usual verbal dance we engaged in on a regular basis.

"It's not about me." He replied- the words were a slight variation in our routine, but that in itself wasn't uncommon. His tone, however, was different; low and somber, a far cry from the cheerful or sly attitudes he usually had.

"Bullshit." I responded reflexively, still processing this tonal oddity. After a few moments of silence, with no denials or explanations coming from Loki, I finally looked up from my work, eyes widening as I took in the sight before me.

Loki, the trickster extraordinaire, bringer of chaos and mischief and all things that made life difficult for those around him, was staring at me, gaze unwavering, expression entirely serious- no little smirk or raised eyebrow, nothing to suggest any kind of unsavory plans on his part.

Now I was curious. The god of mischief had done plenty during his time working with our company; he'd been an actor, both on stage and the silver screen. He'd modeled, though that had been a rather short-lived gig (after he'd seduced the seventh photographer in a month, among countless others, we had to recommend his move to another career). Politics had suited him for a time, though he grew bored quickly with that one. "Too easy", he'd called it. His current stint in Vegas was his longest by far, even if he did butt heads with Tyche over who's casino was better; a friendly rivalry, really.

Still, this was the first time I had ever seen him look so...serious. "Neith is gone." Loki finally stated, with the same sense of gravity as one pulling back the curtain to reveal the man hiding behind it, pretending to be a wizard.

"Yes," I replied slowly "She retired a while ago, took a break. Wanted to spend some time with her corgis, after being in a human form for so long. Honestly thought she'd just keep going, freak out-"

"No, she's gone." Loki cut me off, "Completely. No one can find her. Athena, Ganesha, Papa Legba- hells, even Frigg admitted she doesn't know where Neith is!" Loki's voice steadily rose, until he was nearly shouting by the end. His expression had changed as well, growing more panicked as he explained the full extent of the situation at hand.

After a few moments, I took my seat once more, typing frantically. "If what you say is true-" I began.

"It is." Loki interjected firmly.

"You know I have to verify this." It was a statement, not a question; I was already reaching for my phone, the contact information for every god of knowledge we had on file pulled up. Loki merely nodded, not even bothering with a perfunctory argument. That, more than anything, told me how serious he was. If one of the gods was missing, truly missing, to the point that even some of the most powerful deities of knowledge and wisdom couldn't find her?

Well. That was worrying, to say the least.

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A guy meeting his online friend for the first time, she's late however

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“You’re a wordsmith and god of lies? Have you considered politics?”

Yes, but it’s in the form of water vapor. Worse, it’s around a quasar, not really the best place to collect water.

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A normal day in track and field.

His own show in Vegas.