Description: A series of individual stories.

Copyright 2023 foxrain4. All rights reserved.

Credits: ian_mcianface (Art)

Morale booster: allyourbasesaregone, Stacks64

Brought to you by the Ridiculous Stories Company.

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1053 words, you may like Red riding hood 2011

It was september, the cumbersome month has arrived, once again.

We complete the tasks of harvesting and storing grains, then head down a spiral earth path until our backs vanished into the fog of the forests.

But you, are not a credulous one, facts can be distorted, rumours can be spreaded and fiction can be inspired from old legends.

Your agrarian family used to your stubborness bids goodbye. It is not that they are not worried about your safety but rather a peasant’s life ain’t worth nothing.

You swing your scythe across the grass blades and moved easily through the dense foliage. Stealthy wolves are already tracking on your footsteps, but even them would not be so silly to fight a human with a weapon.

At the rivercross, your journey met an untimely end. The city beckoned on the other side, its opulent mansion and grapevines silhouetted against the horizon.

Strength in numbers, along the way, more wolves joined in the pack. More than enough to surround you.

Your main journey is more important than fighting against wild animals, and you splashed into the river without a second thought.

But all kinds of dangers lurks under you as you swam across the river.

Wet clothes slows you down but the river’s width is short enough. Your sparkling eyes unveiled marble streets, vibrant flags and brick houses, a stark contrast to your rural huts. Port city of nedelia, the best place to sell your grains.

Your movements became numb as though you are gazed by the eyes of the behemoth. But when you turned your head back, you could only see dogs.

The lonely barks of the tiny dogs is loud against the silence of the empty city. The mystery of the missing citizens challenged your intelligence, but you could not figure out why. Why would anybody abandon such a nice town with solid walls.

The cruel thoughts crept in as though the citizens have met their fate against the werewolves.

Or perhaps, they already knew the incoming raiders, and so, they hid without informing the rural villagers, letting them be the sacrifice instead.

As the days passed without an incident, the initial rumours slowly turned into a joke. You laughed loudly as you gobbled down the grape juice which was not yours. Plates of thick smoked bacon were lying in front of you as you choose which to fork.

What was supposed to be an exciting adventure have turned into boredom, encouraged by the missing citizens, you stole a boat and returned back to the other side of the river.

When you reached land, you could see your scythe still lying there but there were an additional 12 wolf corpses badly damaged. Whatever did this, it wasn’t humans. Rural villagers would pack their meat, citizens would sell their pelt, they wouldn’t just leave these corpses here.

The forest bending against the wind did not looked right but you did not really want to return back to the port city eitherway.

Halfway your forest walk, from the darkness, a voice called out, you couldn’t see anything and wondered if you are hallucinating. But eventually your badly bruised friend uncovered himself from the bushes made dark by the canopy.

Friend b (Hurt): Hey, move no further.

I am the sentry and the werewolves have found our secret hideout. They are going in this path as well, you will need to go up the hills or back to port city….but actually.

You (Fear): What happened to you?

Did you really see the werewolves?

Friend b: I saw the townspeople changing shape.

The worst nightmare have happened, right outside of your detective’s thoughts. But everything makes sense now.

Your short legs are not good for running up the hill and so you dropped off your scythe. You need to warn the villagers before the werewolves reached the den.

The faster your pace, the faster your pulse. Darkness shrouding the edges of your view. At the hilltop, you can see the farming village is being besieged by beastial creatures. When you go close to the secret den, you prowled stealthily and ever slowlily, the secret trick not to leave a footprint behind.

Thank gosh, everyone is safe inside the den, it have not been discovered yet. They started burning leaves and water buckets, creating dense fogs that crawled through the forest.

And you realized some of the people hiding in here are not rural peasants, they are citizens from the port city. Without a scythe, you cannot intervene much, so you just kept an eye on them.

And on one cruel night, the suspicious citizens started to engulf the dark enclosed den with blood. The villagers defended themselves with small food knives, the others ran like rats.

As you went to the entrance, you accidentally tripped on a few dead bodies. When you hear the trapped villagers screaming for help, you bet your courage and did the unthinkable and unbolted the door.

AWOOOOOO!!!!

AWOOOOOO!!!!

The howl for reinforcemnt was answered as a group of werewolves marched towards the secret den despite the huge fog.

The day breaks and the sun cuts the clouds.

You are alone, you left the villagers behind.

With your keen ears, you moved slowly under the cover of rice fields.

With a last, shivering breath, you poured your head onto the soil. But with your ears on the ground, you could hear faraway sound vibrations.

Shadow by shadow, huge figures charged through the rice fields towards you.

When you thought you were doomed, the runners were apparently humans, citizens from port city. They quickly treat your injuries but asked for an explanation. You showed these valiant warriors the path of your secret den, but nobody was there.

And when the group of warriors and you passed by the farming village, you could see peasants working hard on the fields.

Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut.

Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut.

The warriors sighed and realized your words do not carry any weight. They returned to port city without you.

When you continued your ordinary life, cutting weeds. A granny spoke, “Did you tell them anything?”.

Your neural nerves trapped your movements.

Unable to move, you did not even dare face the suspicious granny with huge muscles, long ears and protruding teeths.

Granny: Good, good. Do not talk too much.

1385 words, you may like Unubore deka 2010

It was a dark inky night, but basketball players are still dabbling in their mastery of sports. As night drained out the life from the players, one man did not falter.

Three opponents breathing deeply and standing in his pathway to scoring.

And he stood and held his basketball in his hand, preparing a feint throw, so he could pass.

But he could not see his friend in the darkness and he just jumped so the enemies could not snatch his basketball.

Two opponents flew up like cranes against the tall man, trying to smash away the shooting ball.

This is where skills and timing cannot help you anymore, you are on your own.

And he just let go of it, the ball spiralled towards its destination.

The first blocker missed the ball, the second man pushed down the first man to jump even higher and mysteriously the ball fades underneath his smashing hand as though it seeps into the darkness.

When the ball danced through the net, the teammates cheered as victory was sealed.

“How did I do it?” The strongest player in the court was mystified by his low angle shot which can be easily blocked.

A butterfly picture embossed the back of my shorts, I lifted up my legs and hang up my just washed clothes.

I could easily see the basketball court from here, it is pretty late and you guys are still playing basketball, would that not disturb the neighbours?

Seeing that the neighbours shut their windows tight, they are probably used to it and is using closed windows to insulate the sound.

Drenched in sweat, the basketballers walks towards to each of their houses nearby. Western house are pretty nice because they have a whole front yard of grass and a perimeter of stake walls looking like a castle, however the house I owned is a shared house, meaning I am sharing a house with another resident while the center of the house is cemented with a fake wall.

Thus, whenever my neighbour makes a sound, I could slightly hear it through the center wall. I still remember when you first joined in the residence, trying to maintain good ties with you, I gave you breadrolls and sweeties.

My jaw dropped when you are tall and muscular, the type of healthy guy that I would like to hang out with. But you rejected the small gifts as though you are rejecting me.

I understand that guys are not the best at communicating their feelings, but I swear I could feel your happiness when you looked at me. But I came to my senses, when you are playing basketball whole day and now, even at night. I was never meant to be a part of your life.

Staring at your basketball matches, I know you are a serious man, I looked at your movements like your coach, waiting to find ways that I could help you with.

But, whenever I talked with you, you replied with some mumble speech, are you shy or am I deaf? I must be silly because I want to play basketball, because it seems like that is the only way I could communicate with you.

The sun rise with ambition, it was a great day because I do not have to work on weekends. I pressed my newly bought shoes onto the fresh court. The handsome neighbour finally took noticed of me, he kept passing basketball to me, prompting me to directly flick some shots. I scored 50% of the time, that was much lower than anyone on the court though.

Every time I missed, you went and catch the ball, doing some quick dribbles, then you passed it to me like a slow dart. The sound of my new sneakers is squeaking against the stone floor. Outdoor basketball is a far cry from stadium basketball, a slight wind will change your basketball shooting. If you fall, your knees bleed against the stone floor. And if you do a layout, the momentum will push you to the outside grass fields.

And finally, enough players make a match, but another girl quickly side on your team. You were smiling broadly and was excited to see her. I never knew about her. Now that I see her, I realized why you were always on the ball.

She is taller, bouncier and more energetic than me, I was a self-contented princess, waiting for my prince to fetch me on the gallant horseback. My silliness flew like a tornado, spinning away my happiness and emotions.

I could not speak with you anymore, because my lines have turned into liquid paper. If I want to converse with you more, I have to defeat the girl.

Unforunately my teammates were very strong and scored continuously, giving me no chance to prove my worth. But eventually they passed me the ball, since only a few point is left to win the game. And just as fate decided, Sarah blocked my way.

I did a lightning crossover but Sarah responded as fast. The other guys did not chill, they stood strategically around the court like chess pieces, making it hard to break through the semi-circle.

“Oh no,” my slow-thinking led to my slow actions, Sarah stole the ball and did a quick short jump trying to shoot the ring. It was too late to block and I directly go underneath the ring and succeeded in a rebound, I quickly jogged my way to the other side of the court then I do a high pass to a teammate. I quickly waited underneath the ring to avoid the opponents from getting a rebound, but instead, the nice teammate threw me the ball directly, and I made a clean shot.

We were only a few balls away from winning. But the opponent team started to showcase their teamwork and agility, their quick passes were like flying bats, unable to be caught. They keep scoring and scoring, their movements are like yo-yo, they ran near each other and held the ball with both hand, the ball is as safe as in a tank, then before a third step, they did a quick pass. They basically just zigzagged passed our defense, our weak defense is crushing against my guilt.

And so, I ran to the front of the ring, rather than along the opponents, because they would have to shoot in the end anyway. My handsome neighbour was charging towards me then he slowed down, I tried to pressure him while capturing his ball. With a lightning quick jab step forwards, then he bounced backwards and jumped away to the outer ring as though he was a butterfly, nobody could ever block that shot.

While jumping and falling backwards, shooting a ball is almost impossible and he knew so he pretended to shoot towards the ring but actually he was aiming much lower to Sarah's direction underneath the ring. She then used a monkey arm swing and easily ended the game with victory.

I was thoroughly humiliated, both in romance and in sports. My throat was dry but I was too angry to drink.

Alex: Hey, you were good at the game.

I thanked my teammate with a smile.

“But I need more practice,” I said.

Alex was a fun guy and helped me to hone my skills, one on one.

His wide arms easily block my shots, it was like he is asura. He told me I am good at rebounding and making close shorts, but basketball is a strategic game, if you keep throwing scissors, the enemy will know how to counter it. His suggestion makes sense.

Unlike my usual routine, I started to do feint charge in then do a fast no-aim shoot, finally, I am starting to score some points.

Sarah on the other hand is playing with my handsome prince, she threaded the court like a needle, each step is accurate and closed her distance towards the ring. With a quick tempo, her dribble turns into a shot while her opponent blocks in an uncanny timing.

The ball spinning and spinning, my hate growing and growing along with my skills.

My eyes were on you each time I join a match.

You are right in front of me...

as a basketball opponent.

I hugged you in front of your gal trying to make her upset but she didn't because I was daydreaming.

670 words, you may like The Hangover 2009

At the corridors of the school, rumours were on fire.

As bad as lying is, it happened to be a useful technique to alleviate bad circumstances in the daily life of an adult, also those fond memories of pranking and being pranked gives us giggles when we are in a bad mood.

A piano of teenage chatter springs a life of lies right into the corridors of the school.

A story is more outrageous than the last.

Just when you thought are immune to ficiticious tales, you are trapped in another truth made from lies.

So yeah, we fell for the prank and like losers, we crafted a better lie.

The prank we felled for was quite simple, it is said that the school had bought a human statue and placed it near the school entrance. We were so curious about it, that we head to that direction instead of the usual back gate of the school.

The human sculpture was so realistic and her skin was so white like porcelain. And we actually poked her, to our surprise, she remained still as stone. We wowed at the lifelike statue for a good 5 minutes before she stood up and walked to her mother that had just arrived with a car.

We totally looked like indecent perverts as the other schoolgirls were avoiding our path after seeing us touching the stone girl. Our reputation sunk like titanic and bad names were given to us underneath whispers and metaphors.

Smoke of unfairness and unhappiness burns from our heart. We started to plot our revenge by telling a grander tale, that the boys' restroom had been upgraded with a splashing playground and swimming slides, it was believable because there was a long renovation recently.

Belle: We are like the cream of the crop and we never miss a single class.

Judy: We are in lower grade school, you talk like we are in universities.

Belle have big eyes and shes likes to used it to threaten those who interrupt her stories.

Finally, the school girls had entered the boys' new restroom, but instead of an aquatic paradise, they only found themselves being laughed at by the boys.

The commotion triggered a lot of riots and protests, the discipline master stepped in and quiet down the boisterous students. “No more lies, no more pranks, or we will tell your parents,” the discipline master left, he was always in a hurry, dunno why.

Then a schoolgirl announced we could go home now, and we did.

It was a total truancy, the news spread like wildfire, everyone believed in the outlandish annoucement and went home early. The teachers that arrived later was dumbfounded when nobody is in class, or in school.

And as expected, nobody was caught, nobody was punished the next week, because nobody knows who is the mastermind. A world of lies caught into a world of web spun by tricksters.

But it felt like we were punished unofficially, as all the teachers were late for their classes, their lessons were done fast and unclear, we had no idea that this would be the norm. All that speed teaching allowed the principal to let us leave school early.

When our science teacher was sick and did not came to school, a temporary teacher came into our class and gave us a pet project, we are supposed to catch a pet from the nearby school fields.

The fresh breath of air gives us oxytocin and playing catching with the classmates was very fun. And then the nerds started to find wildlife hotspots, frogs, butterflies, turtles and even chickens.

The nerds was of course grossed out by the idea of touching the animals, so we took the prizeful catch and helped them catch some too. When we look for the teacher to hand in our pet assignment, he was long gone.

And then, the real science teacher finally came in, she was only just late. She laughed at us being dirtied and in sweat. Rather than wasting time gathering everyone back to the classroom, she pretended to continue the lesson plan.

Teacher malisa told us about the rules of observation and taking down notes, through this method, we understand more about the pets, their preferred environment, their diet and habits. She took up a stick insect from a nearby bush, it was so amazing that the leaves stick started to move.

Unforuntately, we had to say goodbye to our nature friends, because we know that they thrive best in their natural environments.

This was a special memory, that I even thought about it till today.

1055 words, you may like The Green Knight 2021

The bonsais are always the one to catches the eyes, not prized for their beauty but its price. Sleeping a shovel into the rustic dirt, I plant another plant, another vine, and another bonsai.

Some leaves are spiky like frog legs, some leaves are thin like noodles, but some have no leaves, making you wonder if it is still alive.

When the autumn comes, the leaves curls and becomes yellowed.

Same for the people, their skin dried out and they stayed indoors.

Natural, vibrant, expensive or shadowy flowers, which one do I like most?

I like bonsais the most, I earned the most with bonsais, so maybe, I love money the most.

Bonsais are actually miniaturized trees, even though they are the tiny versions of the trees, they fetched a much higher prize. Because of its mobility and access to branch shaping.

But bonsais are not on sale anymore, people are struggling to meet end needs.

A dozen of swords are plunged into the bed of soil.

When the night falls, some rare flowers bloomed.

They were too shy to bloom when there are people around, their flower designs are unique, they were in the form of rosy pillows, fluffy clouds and tipsy apples.

When the sun rises, the flowers dies and their powders are scattered through every household, causing flu and organ issues.

The rusty swords are turning into minerals and supporting the growth of the rare flowers.

There were many different designs of swords but they all share the fate of losing their caretaker.

One by one, the knights have fell, they lost their dignity and the right to wield a sword.

They were no longer the symbol of valiant and power.

Some cherish their fate and retire but others?

Not so much.

But such is the fate of the knights, their bloodline is closely tied to the castle's funding.

A war is a terrible drain of finance, some kings had even schemed to go into war, even when they knew they were outnumbered.

Because they did not want their knights to ask for more gold coins and land spots.

Samuel was not a knight but he took the pike, straight in front of his heart.

Wearing an abandoned armour, he swinged his sword like a cyclone.

During war time, the rich die of boredom and the poor die of freedom.

They knew he was no knight, but they accepted his challenge.

The fighting ground was no less of a garden, one that I tend to it meticulously everyday.

A single drop of yellow trumpet flower have to be cleared.

There were only a few audiences, most possibly they are the judges as well.
But there was no rule, for the winners will be the winners.

From the sky, looking downwards to the garden, one could see that the courtyard is shaped in the form of diamond.

The outline is granite walking paths and the insides are fields of flowers.

When the sun starts to shine on the petals, the match starts.

A double upward swing of swords pushed the opponent backwards.

The other knight was surprised but his poise was as stable as a heavy metal.

He retaliated with a giant baseball swing, his sword tearing into the greyish armour.

Just a few seconds in and Samuel was proven to be the tactless fighter.

But he just kept swinging his feeble sword like a falcon striking a rabbit.

The other knight parried it very easily as though it was a practice match.

When pushed too far, the opponent inverted his sword direction making him look like he is losing.

And Samuel fell for it, a tear dripping from his cheek, while realizing a sword has gone through his fragile armour.

Samuel was like a fighting raccoon, he only knew how to attack but not defend.

He thought fighting was a gambling machine, a fifty fifty percent chance.

The opponent kept poking him with his long sword trying to infuriate him.

He is shouting like a crow but sound vibrations does not help in sword fighting.

Gaww Gaww Gaww

Apparently there were crows too viewing the fight.

They stick to the crown of the trees and laughed at the combatants.

Samuel knew the opponent was just trying to make him give up the fight.
There was no need for a valiant death, for an imposter knight like him.

He charged up his last determination, he knew he have no sword skills to compare.

So he will just use his brute strength instead, he clashed his heavy sword onto the enemy's blade.

Every hit deals an earthquake, the opponent's face was tightened.

He was more scared of breaking his ancestor's sword than losing the fight.

The opponent backed off and made a feinting sword skill.

But the dummy knight did not knew of what feinting is, he just quickly stabbed into the opponent's chest.

The cracked sound of armour against steel vibrates the courtyard of tranquility.

The crows flew away and the audience paused their breaths.

Even being stabbed, the opponent did a reversal, he moved backwards and the victorious knight followed suit towards him.

But his arm was overstretched and the opponent took that chance to slash his arm.

Samuel walked back from the collision, he looked at his bleeding arm, if only for a moment.

But within that moment, the enemy took three steps, fast as a lightning, impactful as a machine.

He pierced his sword towards his chest.

Both man had a sword wound in their chests, but they stood like a statue, unwilling to give up.

But when the blood keeps drinking the air, they lost control of their body motions, they knelt down like before the king.

They striked their metallic swords into the dirty soil like a sheath, to tell their families, they had fought here. They wished their families would be reminded of this tragedy whenever they think about becoming a knight to escape poverty.

The garden of swords had claimed the collection of two more knight swords.

786 words, you may like Reign of Fire 2002

It was an unforgiving winter, the snow buried the corn fields and the grape vines. Winterhall is nevermore.

Everyone runs out to seek for a better harvest, but all eventually succumbed to the illness.

With hunger, bacterias and viruses proliferates much faster and digests the body cells and organs from within. It looked like the farmers have turned zombies as their bodies were black.

I am a doctor and I am here to save the world.

But I was in touch with something more than what my medical profession can assist in. The whole bioform of the landscape and grasses all seems to lose their shape and colours.

I used a fire and warm up the fields of harvest and it helped. My conclusion is the strong coldness have terraform this planet into a cold icy realm.

So I went to the farmers and speak to them the truth.

They listened and did not leave their cave villages anymore, they dug deeper and deeper, the deeper it is, the further away from the coldness they are.

We used lanterns and candles to substitute for natural sunlight and it worked, all our corns, potatoes and grapes started growing again.

But people are impatient, they dug even deeper and deeper, eventually we accidentally triggered a sinkhole, and all is lost.

Everyone and everything is thrown inside this deep natural hole of 2.4 km. The heat is intense in here, it was like the opposite of the realm up there.

We split into teams to salvage our supplies and explore the mystery caverns. We found ancient carvings and ancient straw beds. We are not the first ones here.

The cave paintings showed vividly a legend, humans slained all the dragons that were flying around to wreck farms and houses.

A hero named VAGFSDGd, bring out his fork and stabbed into the last of the dragon. The villages celebrated for days and for weeks.

But something strange happened after months and years passed by, the sun grows weaker and weaker. And the clouds became less and less.

The last few cave sculptures showed the reason why, the dragons have helped breathe heat and warmth into the realm and their wings helped the wind to continue to blow.

Without the dragons, the planet turned into a dying stone where nothing can grow on it and nobody have any food or rations.

They decided to proceed forwards and find the eggs of the dragon, it is said that they had stockpile them in case humanity forgets their lesson again.

I as a doctor concludes this giant fiery eggs are dead, no movements or heartbeats can be felt. They thew it away to the nearby hot boiling river.

Interestingly, the eggs start to float and crack, it was a rebirth of the legendary dragons. Their beaks were full of flames and they blaze the whole cavern into a fire mess.

We hatched the wrong eggs, these are the pheonix eggs. But nevertheless, the pheonix flew up the sinkhole and transformed the planet into a better place.

I am still stuck in here, my rations are running thin. We started quarelling and fighting. There is no way to climb up 2.4 km. And one day, after half of us are gone, the phoenixes returned.

They decay into rotting flesh and skeletons. Inside their body are a few more eggs. We hid the eggs and ate their flesh.

We used their skeletons to create ladders and ladders, eventually we reached the top.

We are safe. But our humanity have descended, we sacrificed others to save our skin. We are no longer humans. Our rage and guilt turns into fire and we started breathing fire at each other.

Our thickened skin started to flap through the skies and we see pictures of farms, villages and castles. Our eyes turned black and we see nothing but enemies waiting to be destroyed.

We kept hunting down more and more victims and burn down more and more villages. Eventually, the extinction of dragons is no more.

The people gathered in armours and forks to slay and hunt us again.

Our reptilian behaviours suddenly diminished and we realized we transformed into dragons. We need to transform back or we be hunted down or that we hunt them down.

And, we realized the cause of the transformation, we ate the forbidden flesh of the phoenix and our comrades. That is what had led to our descend.

Our brains lit up and we became monsters again and fuel enmity the war between the dragons and the humans.

We are the masters of the skies and the humans are the protectors of the earth, but the world cannot do without either of us.

1107 words, you may like A Tale of Two Sisters 2003

The snow falling on my face, it felt cooling as it melts.

A sparkle of power brings light into the shadowy realm.

Large, round stones decorates the river park.

There were visitors, young and old.

Dining on a sandwich, I reboots my energy.

My swollen leg dragging me as I walk.

Shame creeps on me as I am a young man.

But I would like to take a view of the gushing river.

The tree tall wooden bridge brings fear to anyone who walks the board.

But it offers the best view from top to bottom of the river.

The river looks dirty as it is headed towards a drainage cave.

The darkness consumes all insiders.

Creatures became boisterious in the dark realm.

Weird giant fishes fly out of the river and devours the thirsty bats.

It was then, then I realized why the bridge was so tall.

I was so afraid of falling off, but now it becomes the metal wall protecting my sanity.

The pathway gets narrower and narrower, the bridge gets lower and lower.

It represents the lesser of the funding as the construction goes on.

Some visitors were lost in the maze, while others are running backwards of the pathway.

I was curious as to why there were no security guard, but the answer came to me in the form of a bloody crocodile crawling towards me.

I panicked and lost my sense of control, I tried putting my hands onto the floor, and kept climbing.

But I moved so slow like a tortoise.

The crocodile moved slowly too, its eyes looks impatient and its teeths is dangerous.

Announcement: Everyone, please leave the park, this is not an emergency exercise.

Finally, I pulled myself up again and walked heavily.

A security guard saw me and ran passed me.

Me: Wait, wait...

But he was long gone.

The tall bridge started moving haphazardly.

The wooden legs eroding under the water influence.

My back moved diagonally and I realized it was not me but the bridge.

I held onto the bridge fence but it was mostly a wooden frame.

Luckily the crocodile got pushed by the falling bridge into the river.

It kept on struggling and splashing onto the river until it stopped moving.

A giant shark is feasting on the meat of the crocodile.

It was then, that I could see crocodiles at far away attacking the other visitors.

The bats started appearing and bit my hair.

I reached to the top of the broken wooden bridge, and then I realized the pathway is already split into half.

I had to make a jump, if I fall, I land directly into the river full of monsters.

I heaved and landed across.

I kept walking and walking, I know I sprained my legs, but I had to keep on going before my body reacts to the pain and makes me immobile.

The cries of the visitors echoed out of the drainage cave.

I pretended that I did not heard it, and I never looked back.

A running man, a pale girl and a fisherman hold onto my arms and pulled me out of the park faster.

Tick tack tock
Silence

Blum blum blum blum blum.

The lights appeared, and a group of people are sitting inside a white room.

Emma: What is your name?

David: David.

They both looked at me as I replied my name.

Sarah keeps trying to find something from the drawers and cupboard.

When she closed the metallic cupboard, the sound startled Michael.

Lily walks towards you and asked where is the restroom?

Thomas walked around the room and reorganized the chairs into a circle, where people can sit and face each other.

Lily: Let me guess, nobody knows why we are here?

David: We are probably being punished.

I am confused as I did nothing wrong, and who the heck have such strong power to confine a group of people into a basement.

Sarah (Bites onto biscuits): Found it!

Emma: A lot of things keeps happening outside, wars, viruses, bullies. Maybe this is a safehouse.

Me: But should we not be asked for permission to be sent into a safehouse?

I sounded confident but I am quite aware of the troubles that is actually brewing outside.

Michael started screaming gibberish at a camera hiding at the ceiling.

The group first looked at Michael and then at the red light camera.

Thomas: If this is a safehouse, then there must be an exit door. I found none.

David: Probably a jail for life.

Emma (Scared): Why are you saying that? What crime have you done?

Sarah (Drinking): I sure as heck did not commit any crime, and he looks too skinny to be able to do any violent crime.

Me: Where did you get the water?

Sarah points towards the open kitchen.

Lily: I remembered. We are all asleep, trapped in a dream.

Snap snap snap snap

Snap snap snap snap

Camera shots blinding my view.

I am posing as a model towards a group of fans and a cameraman.

The shifting curtains and furnitures represents different scenarios and timeline.

I am acting as a confident person, advertising for yet another product.

First scene had desert sand on the floor.

Second scene had a cgi which is replaced with a flowing river.

Third scene had me rigging a giant clock, its arms were as big as my own.

Last scene was when I “wake up” and realized I am a cyborg.

The camera studio spiralled into one hundred spirals.

My body got pressed into the snail frame.

My brain is pressing against my shoulders.

I tried to let loose of myself like a balloon but I got stuck, and I kept on trying to breathe.

March! March! March!

Here you go, again!

Scream louder!

Tapping my arms front and back, I walked like a screwed up toy.

My legs red, my face red but my uniform were green and black.

The hat always feel like dropping down against the movement.

A group of soldiers walked beside, they held onto rifles and a large bag.

The soldier beside me: Where is your bag?

Me: I forgot my locker code number.

I was in an unescapable military institute.

Everyone must serve for 2 years or until you die, whichever comes first.

I left the group and ran towards a door, and pushed it open.

But it was nothing, just plain darkness.

The soldier marching away: Come back.

Me: Not anymore.

The realm closed.

I broke like a malfunction machine.

The heat erasing my memory.

And I woke up on my army bed again.

1194 words, you may like Alchemy of Souls 2022

A disheveled knight walks into the dense forest for hiding. But the relentless lightning and flashes still chase after him. "I should not have killed him." Gepa repents for his sin.

He followed his king's order to kill an assassin, it turned up to be an innocent merchant. The king most likely had plundered the merchant's goods and did not bothered about Gepa the knight.

But Gepa kept running, his sins is melting inside of his heart, blending him with darkness.

The fast wind breaks the branches and the leaves fell like snow. There was no light, not even dim radiance from the moon, it was pitched black that night.

All he could see was sounds, the loud sounds of his metallic shoes clanky and bonking the dirt path.

He gets more and more tired, but he could not remove his armour, he is aware that there are animals living in this dense forest, some of which that can incapacitate him without his armour.

Every echo he makes, the weaker his body. He fell into his knees.

When you thought lord would grant him a break, shadows started loomping at the ends of his vision, pinching in closer and closer.

He knows he is not alone but a faint sound sends shiver down his spine, it was the rhythm of a piano and the pitch of a chair being dragged across the floor.

What gives? He decides to step forward into the sound and face the eyes of a demon for once and for all.

But the sounds was not nearby at all, he keeps dragging his feet onwards until the air turns into ice. The trees grew ever taller but is devoid of leaves and vitality.

The shadows of the trees looks like dancing witches but there were no flying brooms or magical aura.

As he breached through the final inch, he stands in front of an ancient gnarled tree, its branches weeping like a woman's hair.

Finally, he finds the source of the otherworldly energy, it is coming from this very tree itself. The forcefield is propelling all of life and death away from this perimeter.

He thrusts his iron gauntlets into the tree and is getting sucked into it. He went into the distant pasts and possible paths.

When he awoke, he realized he had made a contract with a devil. His fate of bringing good and justice to people is now not needed of his service.

The tree was the dying form of a fallen foe, a devil battled against angels or such, then he was petrified until a tree took over his source of life.

But by harbouring the devil's core, he abandoned his goodwill and innocence to the demonic realm as well.

An ethereal figure got pulled apart from his body and walked away, possibly his good aura.

Not sure was it the sleep or the newfound mystical energy, the knight Gepa surged through the forest dwelling and reached to his familiar place. He was back at the castle.

His heartbeat beating slowly but powerful. Memories of a holy knight have turned into vengeance of a black demon.

Voices keeps speaking into his head, his feet turning towards the forest trying to runaway but couldn't. He was trapped inside of a body that is not of his own anymore.

His veins is crawling with purple centipedes and darkness is oozing out of his armpits.

He had pledged allegiance to the otherworldly and if he breaks his bond, he becomes a zombie, a mindless one.

The castle standing ever tall and its banners ever long.

One flick of the knight's fingers send the gravity out of the forkman, they flew off the walls, making the castle's wall defenseless.

Gepa jumped up with unnatural power as the wind sides with him, the trees turning into a greenish blur.

But now, the castle's gates have 20 maceman protecting the towering spires and holy church behind.

As imposing as it is, Gepa flew in like a dracula and started pommeling the valiant guards.

Two flanks of crossbow archers step out from hidden veins of the castle and started surprise attacking the knight.

Gepa's bloodflow have turned into tragedy, as powerful as he might be, how could he battle against 60 man?

Just when he is about to lose, demonic minions have arrived and scratched the powerful guardsmen. "Get into the castle hall!" screamed a witch, whom had brought the minions here.

He broke open the gleaming gates, a banshee and a cerberus follows behind him.

Gepa points his knight sword against the throne and speak, "I challenge your authority, you are not fit to be a king anymore."

The king smirked and slouched lazily at his square chair, "And it is your right to do so, the governance of this land has always been given to the one with the most power and not the one with the most rights. You had sold your soul to the devil, if I perished, do you think a demon like you would be the better king?"

Gepa got confused by the profound situation, "I am here to claim your head, not your throne.".

He did not cared about what happens to the kingdom, he just need to repent for his sins and then he will let the demon inside of him do whatever he wishes to do.

Blue assembled knights and red snipers blocked the view of the king.

Gepa is aligned with a banshee and a cerberus. It is hard to imagine that three can defeat 40 elite soldiers.

The air crackles with tension and everyone started punching and kicking for their lives. Gepa self-immolate as his aura turns into fire itself, he torches any knight that dares to come near him.

When the knights perished, the banshee resurrect them into skeletal minions fighting against the king's men.

The cerberus had bad luck and got its foot slain, without legs, even with three heads, it could hardly fend off the enemies, and died tragically.

There was a loud gong on the castle's gate, the remaining macemen and crossbow archers squeeze into the grand hall, scaring the courage out of Gepa.

Gepa's fire aura is now nothing but a matchstick's power.

The king fearlessly descends down the long stairs and head straight to Gepa, "Kill me." The king dared Gepa the knight.

And so he did, the metal blade thrust through the royal clothes and blood squirts onto the colorful carpets.

Gepa managed to turn his pitfall into a completed quest for redemption, the demon with fiery eyes took over his body and ascended the throne.

"You fool, I was the real king all along, the king you slain is just a possessed human, something just like you. I have finally switched from an old and frail human body into a young and powerful human body. Your contract is released in good favour."

With a nod from the new king, the gruesome knights and soldiers started advancing back to their old positions and defend the castle.

Demonic minions, witch, banshee and cerberus all worked for the king.

Gepa the knight is now Gepa the king.

1580 words, you may like Death note 2006

Your friend hurried you, "You need to go now.". You gave him an empty stare, trying to make this situation a stupid one. Your friend pestered you again, "They are coming for you.", and the thought of that puts you up to your feet. When you left your house and parents, zombies crawled towards your direction as well but they were not your source of fear.

You have stolen something precious from the graveyard of the Neverending and the vampires will chase after you and kill you to bring that artifact back.

You peered at the blue moon before going underneath an underground passage. You thought this prized item would render the vampire blood inside of you useless, turning you back into a human.

However, the pages in this book were filled with unknown graphs.

The elders leapt into fear, and worried you might be using the relic to turn all the vampires into humans instead or perhaps to return the zombies to permanent rest.

The scent of blood and evil splatters the courtyard, the elders announced your threachery and every single vampire is now tracking you down.

You are still being pursued by the energetic zombies, your heart pounding as though it is made of heavy metal.

You finally reached a clearing, your breath stilled and body slumped, this is a good place to bring down the zombies.

Channeling the power within another spell book, you shouted fire bolts and lightning bolts towards the undead, they got engulfed into a wave of elements and shrieked in agony.

Their bodies turned into a solid wall blocking the rest of the zombie army.

You casted another invisible spell on yourself and walked out of the cavern on the other side.

You still have vampire friends in this village but you dared not risk it, you decided to head towards the cathedral iron wounded gates.

You already knew vampires gather here often, so you were not surprised when many vampires started flying out like flying squirrels.

You entered the forbidden chamber which the vampires dared not enter. You spoke to a hidden entity whom seems to disdain you.

The candles stars to flicker and the ornate stained glass windows starts to fade into blackness.

The hidden entity were the master of all vampires but somehow concealed himself for unknown reasons. It is the first time anyone seen his face, and his face is half zombified and half vampire.

He sensed your fear and guides you into feeling secured. Even though vampires here have the power to reanimate dead but zombies will eat the vampires whenever given the chance.

And at this point, you cannot tell whether the master vampire is a zombie or not.

"The Grimoire book is not from the mortal land. It looks like a powerful artifact but is actually a curse brought in from the abyss. The very fact that you are chased by both the zombies and vampires are a testament to how unholy this thing is." His gigantic vampire wings flapped loudly inside the forbidden chamber.

You held tightly onto the unholy book, realizing its existence may disrupt the balance between the realms, far beyond the casualty that anyone can restore back.

"Can you save me from this curse?" You begged.

But the master vampire reluctantly replied, "Since you wanted to be a mere human, you shall pay with the price of your life."

You sensed a threat and self-crashed through the windows, the other vampires started to chased after you, eager to rip you apart.

You tried to throw the book into a river but it reappeared in your arms. You tried to burn it into ashes and it reappeared flying motionless in front of you.

The only way to end this conflict is to kill the other vampires. But they are your relatives or distant cousins. Vampires are often related to one another.

And if you did killed them, your parents will be hung as punishment. So there was no choice but to keep on running.

The more you exercise, you more resilient you became. Your althetic abilities far surpassed the old you. You actually reached a land devoid of vampires and zombies.

It is so peaceful in here, that you finally became lazy and settle in.

There were human gangsters here collecting free money from everybody. Eventually they caught onto you, failing to pay any coins, you bring out your fangs and turn them into slices of red meat.

The passerbys gaped at you and started packing up their belongings. You noticed that unnatural decay followed in your footsteps, possibly an aftereffect of the grimoire book.

You got rid of the gangsters in the village and yet the village holds you in contempt, they bring spears and fireworks to dispel you as though you are a vampire, oh wait, you are.

You brandished your jaws towards them and half of them fell onto the ground. Before you lost your logic and eradicate each of them, a portal beams out.

Gargoyles and ravens flew through the portal and started attacking everyone.

As long as the portal is opened, any demons can stepped through in and you can no longer sleep in peace. You entered the portal in an unwise manner.

But you thought to yourself, "Maybe this is the key to unlocking the secrets to the book of grimoire."

But a world of damnation appears before your very eyes. A scourge of imps escorted you to King Yama across the burning lake and firefall.

The ruler of this realm and the arbiter of souls greets you, his breath of words are as ghostly as it can be. The shadowy guards standing in lanes, their eerie gazes fixate upon you.

King Yama reveals that the grimoire is, in fact, his creation. Anyone whose name is written within its pages will be chased by spirits and demons of all kinds.

You started to flip the book impatiently and found out your very name is written on it at an obscure page.

The book is a conduit to the realm of death, it brings the cycle of life back into balance.

You realized your very identity of vampire have defied the logic of death for many years and you are merely returning to what you are supposed to be.

You offered to return the book of grimoire, but he shows you a desktop of books, "I have plenty of it and even ones with different effects.

Usually I am here to judge your sins and reincarnate you, but I shall let you go since you have trespassed onto one of my mistake.

Do me a favour and cleanup the other vampires and zombies you knew of.".

You returned back to the desolated village through the portal, it had already turned into ruins.

To kill all of your vampire kins would be so immoral that you wondered whether it is actually easier for you to have died at the master vampire's hands previously instead.

Then you thought that if you were to become human, vampires and zombies will chase after you endlessly. And you began to write down every single name you knew of.

You went back to your hometown and found out news of mass deaths to vampires and zombies.

All but one, the master vampire.

As you approached the forbidden chamber, you could hear echoes, "Ahhhh, a bringer of death. But does your actions shapes a better world?"

It is time to fight your vampire master, but those few words are enough to make you feel like a lost kid.

The air inside the chamber is covered in smokes of incense. The foul smell stopping you from detecting the master vampire's aura.

With a sudden burst of movement, both you and the master vampire locked into each other with full might, the snarls of fangs brutalize the shadowy night.

You dodged all of his attacks and you pressed him into a corner. He reveals a blast of power as though he was not an old elderly.

A whirlwind of strikes and bursts of magic hammered down your spirit. You could no longer parry anymore hits. It looks like your view is fading away.

Then you hold onto your book of grimoire, trying to scare the ghostly vampire away. The walls tremble and the air is flushed with vibrations of punching and kicking.

Your determination has run into an end.

You taunted the winner, "I am the wielder of the grimoire and is the strongest in this land."

The winner snaps back at you, "I am alukah, the most pure-blooded vampire, granting me the strongest power anyone has ever known.

I was only foul by a zombie bite and you dared to challenge my might, it was me whom taught you to suck blood."

You quickly wrote down his name and an ethereal iron maiden coffin appeared, locks and chains flung outside and captured the master vampire.

He was stunned, trying to understand what ghostly attack is this but it is too late, he was buried inside the iron maiden, his body is struck with metal spears inside of the coffin.

The master vampire's threat has been extinguished and you are the last vampire known, you wrote down your name but realized the book cannot kill its owner or writer.

You are left as a prisoner to your bloodlust and vampric powers for many centuries to come while hoping for some knight or wizard to bring you down.

Eliana is a knowledgeable relic
explorer, his granddad had shared his mastery of the Ancients' lore
with her.

In fact, his granddad owns a whole
observatory at the peak of the mountain, peering through that lens is
a wide view of vast lands and shadowy caverns.

Eliana was a charismatic girl, she made
friends with a trio of companions in school, they all shared the same
interests in unknown tales and treasures.

They are a scholar, a rogue and a
giant.

Along the far journey, the scholar
managed to pour out Eliana's true goal.

She wanted to bring her granddad back
to life, his sudden death had stopped his wisdom of adventuring as
well.

If someone like granddad were to lead
the way, half of Eliana's adventures into finding relics can be
considered half-accomplished already.

The companions gave a vague expression
as though they disliked that idea.

During the steep hills and sprawling
canyons, their expedition slowed to a halt.

Everyone is mindful of each other, this
is the best time to get intentionally "lost" and ownself
find the treasures and keep it all to oneself.

Before long, Eliana realized a
different plot, they planted her death by pointing her the path
forward which was a dangerous cliff instead, and she felled.

Her body hurts as much as the betrayal
did because she could not comprehend why.

Four years of classmates is no match
for a pile of treasures.

Luckily she wore a rope jacket, those
ropes tying all over her body was not for decoration, it is made of
rubber and plant fibers, allowing the wearer to bounce off dangerous
falls.

But a bigger twist had appeared, a fair
looking horse appeared and lick her wounds.

She rode onto it and it brought her to
a secretive cove, a room once owned by her granddad.

All of the Ancients treasures are
apparently moved here, there is a whole background map of the entire
area.

Eliana knew the group of betrayers will
be stopped at the Maze of the Edge.

She fed the horse and left it behind,
for where she is going, dangers lurks.

Giant accidentally triggered a pitfall
trap at the maze, the bottom trapdoor revealed many spikes, Giant
used both of his shoulders to stop the fall.

The scholar and the rogue hesitated for
a moment before pulling the Giant out.

The lack of drinking water slowed the
group down heavily and then they met Eliana, "I got into a fall
when I was trying to relieve myself."

The companions were surprised at her
healthy appearance and welcomed her back.

Eliana knew the mystery of the lost
drinking water pool and kept misdirecting the group into other
directions inside that big green maze.

The rogue went crazy and bashed through
the green walls, but eventually returned with a greater thirst.

Scholar thought about waiting for the
rainwater and then realized how are all the plants growing without
rainfall, there must be a river or pool nearby, using his knowledge
of plants, he leads the group to the plants that required more and
more water in order to grow bigger.

Eventually, the rogue pulled open the
green walls, "Hey, the fressh looking pond of drinking water."

Everyone relished themselves.

Eliana smiled with sadness, her plot to
dehydrate her teammates were foiled, a silly plan but dehydration is
one of the fastest way to die.

A vicious chimera with multiple scaly
lizardy heads looked towards the drinking pool and goes into a
stampede like an elephant.

Holy moly, that huge lizard was not
written inside granddad's note at his secret cove.

Multiple spits turns out to be venomous
needles shot towards Eliana and the rogue, the Giant dashed in and
blocked those hits.

The group quickly went into a great
distance before finding themselves standing on a huge wide canyon
that you cannot even see the bottom, it is just pitched-black down
there.

This place is so scary, it almost looks
like the wind is trying to push you down into the abyss.

Eliana thought of another plan and
started throwing rocks down the canyon, she kept spamming rocks until
the group looks at her suspiciously, "I am just seeing how deep
the hole is, since we are not hearing any sounds, it is too deep for
us, perhaps our journey has ended prematurely."

Then many deep howls travelled from the
deep bottom of the canyon.

It almost sounded like a rock avalanche
except that piles of rocks are climbing upwards towards the
expedition team, as unbelievable as it were, a group of stone golems
started appearing in far sight.

They were colossal and they were not
happy.

The rogue started taking his ropes and
tied everyone together and onto a tree.

"I am already poisoned, so let me
be the bed." Giant was the first to jump.

When he jumped, the rope tied to the
other companions pushed them down too.

But they did not landed onto the sharp
ground, they landed onto big webs of white strands instead.

The cute spiders happily greets their
meal and started stapling the group of travellers.

Eliana knew that struggling and rolling
around will loosen the stickiness of the web, so she calmed down and
told everyone not to make noise or sudden movements or the terrifying
queen spider will appear.

They silently took the impales of the
tiny spiders until their faces squeezed like lemons.

Interestingly, the spiders got full and
left, everyone thanked Eliana for her deep knowledge.

Eliana is now crying with sadness, not
sure whether from the bites or the lost chance of killing her
teammates.

The giant was the first to got down
from the web as he was too heavy and he plucked the rest of the team
from the spiders' web.

"Unfortunately this is where I
stay," the Giant moaned with his bad english but everyone knew
he was poisoned and could no longer move.

The rogue took out his clothings and
bind onto the Giant's body and started pulling him along the journey.

The scholar is skinny and have no
muscles, but he did helped pulled too.

It was a team effort came true.

The strangest part of this deep cavern
is that they can see, and soon enough, they knew why, there were many
minerals that were illuminating.

Eliana danced upon the starry wide
cave, the shines seems to flow like a river underneath their
footsteps bringing them to a half done chapel. "Another chance,"
Eliana thought to herself.

Eliana went missing halfway the walk
and burned down the chapel which the wraiths cherished.

Spectral wraiths started looming out
everywhere, flying as though they did not have a home to return to.

The group met up with Eliana and
everyone brings out their weaponry to defend against the unknown.

However the group of undying wraiths
appeared before them humbly and thanks them for destroying their
chapel.

They could not move on to their next
life as they needed to protect the chapel from dangerous monsters
here, but they just realized how stupid that is because nobody have
been visiting this chapel except for these new adventurers in a
decade.

The ghosts turns into oxygen and splits
up into the air.

Everyone thanks Eliana again for her
wise decision to burn down the chapel.

Eliana is now brooding with deep
confusion.

Eventually, they found the treasure
spot of the Ancients.

There were chests but they were already
looted.

Everyone sighed, but Giant sighed the
heaviest.

The scholar shared everyone his food,
the rogue shared everyone his drinking water.

Eliana finally took out some medicines
and gave it to Giant and he immediately turned better.

Eliana woke up early in the morning and
glided passed a titanic wooden bridge, she started to spin the wheel
so the bridge goes up and split apart.

The group of companions are on the
other side of the bridge, "We are still here, Eliana!"

Eliana knew this bridge is a shortcut
back home and otherwise it will be almost impossible to go back up
the deep canyon.

Eliana climbed the ladders that were
old but steady.

As she climbed higher and higher, she
remembered that the Giant blocked the Chimera's attack towards her
and that everyone helped pulled the Giant across the journey except
for her.

She had irreputable proof that they
killed her granddad because they tried to silenced her too, but was
it all her imagination?

The image of the ghosts from the
previous chapel appeared in her mind, thanking her.

Eliana realized that maybe this world
is not about herself only, she slid back down the staircase and
unwheeled the bridge.

Everyone came along and thanks her as
though she was helping to scout out for an ambush before letting them
pass through.

Finally, Eliana admitted the truth that
she tried to abandoned them, she knew they tried to kill her.

It was a pivoting moment and everyone
cried too.

They told her, they stole items from
granddad's observatory and was caught, they ranaway and granddad
slipped while chasing after them.

If Eliana was to revive granddad,
things will get complicated as though they are the murderers because
they did not brought the injured granddad to a doctor,

they had to end Eliana's life too to
keep things quiet.

They apologized heavily towards Eliana.

But Eliana realized the very truth that
her granddad's death was indeed an accident and that she had been
chasing after her own imagination, a chase after the shining light
that can make her world whole again.

The group became more matured, they
grew up and became responsible adults, they occasionally set out to
more adventures with Eliana.

And Eliana finally smiled.

The author was waiting for his food
delivery which comprised of hawaiian pizza, spicy tomato spaghetti
and the new spiced drumlets.

The wait turned into a time dilation,
and before he noticed it happening, his brain have already entered a
new realm which seems to be dredging out his moral compass.

A 10-year-old boy named Adam, looking
awkwardly similar to the author was playing computer games non-stop.

His hobby has turned into an endless
obsession, he plays all kinds of computer games; Free 2D racing car
games, paid 3D fantasy rpg games, and the popular subscription-based
3D mmo games.

As the advertisements rage through the
internet, he found himself downloading and playing the "free to
play" anime mmorpgs.

This wrongful decision has burned the
back of his pockets, leaving him penniless.

He was addicted to computer gaming and
the scientists were worried for his mental wellbeing.

Year 2300 is a time when humanity had
begun to regress.

Mankind unlocked the recipes of
technology and automation but that had led to the devolution of
mankind.

Humans now looked round and fat like
gym weights.

Society has diverted its attention from
wealth and health to sleeping and eating.

It is not allowed to, but people
continued to sleep in public spaces like bus stops, parks and cars.

The notions of wealth, fame and
relationships are all thrown out of the windows.

This laziness spreads like a virus
making everyone looks like homeless people.

No matter how much the government tried
to intervene, the lack of enthusiastic response only led to a further
crumbling of the economy.

The leaders have no choice but to shift
their focus towards meeting the basic needs of everyone, which only
helped the system to spiral down further.

A group of university graduates has
convinced the government to conduct an experiment of a kind, the
details were kept secret but generally, it is about cloning humans
with human dna in year 2020, which was thought to be when humans were
at their most industrious and resilient age.

Adam was one of these clones and to
prevent his mental health from further deterioration, the scientists
confiscated his computer and games, causing him to rage.

He was so angry that he exchanged a few
arguments against his "father", but upon remembering his
"father" is just a scientist and not his real father, he
believed that this "father" is unable to care for or
understand him.

He was able to plot all kinds of
vengeance towards the scientists, but calculated that his actions
might hurt the other "kids" too and so he aborted his
plans.

The transformation of anger to calmness
surprised the other scientists, they noted that the clones are
already more mature than the real humans outside of the laboratory.

Yes, Adam lives in a laboratory and
with the other "kids" as well.

Most of the time, the scientists are
cowering behind a sheet of safety glass, monitoring and educating
them from a safe area.

Adam was supposed to live a beneficial
routine until the age of 20, however, as the scientists see his
spirit dwindled heavily, losing interest in various activities like
gym exercises, playing with stuffed toys and engaging in friendly
board game competitions with the other "kids".

The father reluctantly returned Adam
his precious computer and games.

Adam's eyes flickered with happiness,
his energetic body had returned and he played computer games all
night.

Soon, Adam and the "kids"
became 20 and is required to step out of the laboratory's walls to
prove their worth.

They are the secret weapon to
humanity's decline.

But when they left the compound, they
saw the truth outside the world and their morale plummeted.

The skies were black, the lights have
turned red from radiation, and the streets were filled with
empty-headed humans that stared at phones.

Some vehicles drove by and accidentally
hit one of the idling humans sitting on the car road, but Adam felt
nothing in his heart.

A chill sense of ideology that the
idling humans are already dead was forged into his head.

Adam and the "kids" rode on
the bus that floats with magnetic levitation, heading towards the
outskirts of the metropolitan city, away from the city's radiation,
and getting closer to the green and clean nature.

They are given all kinds of tools and
instructions to restart humanity, and they worked hard to build a new
beginning, believing that they are the humans' last hope.

Every few months, the scientists will
meet up with the strong humans and interact with them without the
sheet of safety glass in between.

However, the scientists stop visiting
them, and their progression of civilization stops.

They did not own a floating bus, so
they built and rode on bicycles instead.

The long and arduous journey did not
tire their muscular bodies at all, in fact, their faces are still
beaming with excitement.

They entered the laboratory but found
that the scientists have passed away, red with radiation.

The "kids" were distraught
and perplexed, there are nobody to guide them forwards now.

The girl named Gem was flipping the
documents hastily and announced to everyone.

Gem: (Sorrowful) "These documents
have the dna of the scientists and us and it showed that they are in
fact, our parents."

Adam: (Astonished) "What!"

As the city towers collapses under its
own weight, the city radiation starts spreading further.

The boy named Cage took thumb drives
containing information about the world, hoping it would increase
their technological knowledge.

Adam retrieved his computer and gifted
it to Cage.

Cage was confused but realized that
Adam was not coming along with them.

99.9% of humans moved to cities for the
convenience of technology and automated machines.

But most of them had devolved as a
result, their bodies inexplicably lost the motivation to produce
offspring.

The lack of new generations and the
spread of radiation currents led to the impending extinction of
humanity.

The group of kids traveled like nomads,
honing their robust bodies and sharpening their instincts along the
way.

Eventually, they met up with the other
nomads from other countries and they learned to communicate with a
globalized language; the sign language.

They exchanged tools and knowledge and
charted towards the Far Point.

However, they found out that the Far
Point is in the middle of the frozen sea, so their journey got
halted, and now they race against time to find a reactive substance
to neutralize the dangers of radiation currents.

As the author's thoughts returned to
the present, he realized that his long-awaited pizza had yet to
arrive.

The doorbell remained ominously silent,
but he already knew that nobody is coming anymore.

His flesh is as skinny as a rat, but he
walked spiritfully everywhere in the laboratory, reminiscing of his
parents, regretting how he wasted his life on computer games.

He has successfully isolated himself
physically, mentally and emotionally.

In the realm of frigid air, the vast
terrain trembles, and the howl of the wind echoes through the
desolate landscape.

Enigmatic creatures, their forms
obscured by the swirling mist, move with elusive grace, their
presence felt but never fully seen.

Ethereal clouds, wisps of silver and
gray, persist in their graceful drift, casting shifting shadows on
the frozen ground.

Descending into the depths of the
earth, a staggering 10 kilometers--or should we measure it as 56179
bananas--beneath the verdant grass, an imposing monolith emerges,
defying comprehension.

Wrapped in a labyrinth of coiled
cables, pulsating with otherworldly energy, the colossal rock stands
as a testament to enigma, an ancient artifact of unknown origin.

Before it, two rows of cerulean
capsules stand sentinel, their sleek surfaces reflecting the pale
light, each cradling adult human curled in fetal positions.

Though their bodies appear alive,
darkness and desolation shroud the surroundings, a haunting reminder
of a world left behind.

Indulging in a slice of pepperoni
pizza, a woman with tousled hair savors the symphony of explosive
flavors that dance upon her palate.

The tangy tomato sauce, the zing of the
pepperoni, and the perfect blend of herbs and spices create a
harmonious melody of taste.

The fiery spices ignite the senses,
searing the lungs, while the golden cheese cascades and melds,
crafting a molten masterpiece that journeys from mouth to stomach,
satisfying both hunger and soul.

But in an unexpected twist of fate, an
otherworldly delivery of ice cream plunges Minari into a sudden and
disorienting unconsciousness.

The fabric sensation of her clothes on
the sofa makes it feels like a bed.

Upon awakening, the weight of a year
descends upon her consciousness, pressing heavily on her mind.

Perplexity ensues, for indeed, a year
has truly passed, a span of time lost in the depths of her slumber.

No familiar faces wake her up, no
family, pets, or alarms disrupt her solitary hibernation.

The absence of socialization leaves her
uninspired and tired despite having just woken up.

Then, a new connection charged up her
physical body and metabolic energy, and her mind races with an
adrenaline-fueled surge.

Childhood memories unfurl, starting
anew and expanding with heightened detail as if the sands of time
have shifted and revealed hidden treasures.

Her mind becomes a vast archive, a
repository of experiences and emotions, it was like someone had
equipped her with an upgraded graphics card--or perhaps a CPU--that
allows for the vivid replay of the tapestry of youth.

Wandering through bustling streets,
Minari witnesses the rising prices but did not feel its impact.

When hibernation possesses the power to
reduce material needs, monetary concerns fade into insignificance.

Yet, an ache permeates her solitary
heart, a whisper of desolation, as she finds herself detached from
society, contributing nothing but consumption, trapped in an
existence devoid of purpose.

In essence, Minari is jobless, or
should I say, does not want to work.

Her world was turned upside down by her
choice, and still, the elixir of motivation eludes her grasp.

She yearns for a sense of belonging,
for a purpose that transcends the mere act of survival.

Her mind embark on a quest to
understand the meaning of life, while her steps carried her through
the labyrinth of neon signs and towering screens that adorn bustling
shopping centers.

Yet, with every passing moment, the sky
gets greyer while her question is left unanswered, she was left with
but one choice, to return home.

Nightfall ushers in the familiar
routine, the memorized set of numbers, 6848 8034, ringing in her
ears. "May I have your pizza order?"

Her anticipation grows as she awaits
the arrival.

But her anxiety makes her go to the
fridge like a zombie, she savor the branded chocolates and sweets she
just bought.

While nibbling, she was reminded of the
cold reminders of her school days.

Even though she was an innocent and
youthful schoolgirl, nobody did hang out with her.

Instead, the other students were
treating her as a courier of love.

Many entrusted Minari with tokens of
affection, candies, and chocolates meant for their clandestine
paramours, eventually, her jealousy seeps in and she started to enjoy
the sweet forbidden delicacies, all by herself, the taste of revenge
being sweeter than the commodity itself.

Within the confines of a chilly room,
dim lights casting feeble illumination, a computer boot up.

A blue hologram materializes into a
computer mouse.

Sinewy tentacles grab the mouse and
stop the test. "Test termination denied." "Error 500."
"Please initiate manual shutdown."

The towering entity, resembling an
octopus in form, releases a sigh of resignation, a bitter lament for
the fate that lies ahead.

As the entity contemplates the choice
to manually shut down and potentially lose all his work and progress,
a glimmer of determination shines in his cephalopod eyes.

He realizes that sometimes, to find
meaning in life, one must be willing to risk everything and embrace
the unknown.

She wore plain white clothes as she
playfully threw ice cream sticks onto castles made of erasers.

Each eraser had a different country's
flag as its theme.

With determination in her eyes, she
threw the first stick, but it barely made a dent in the fortified
castle.

Undeterred, she gathered her strength
and hurled another stick with even greater force.

This time, the castle walls crumbled,
creating a shower of gigantic erasers.

Though she emerged victorious, a sense
of dissatisfaction engulfed her.

She yearned to not only demolish the
castle but also the towering structure standing beside it.

The tower, designed with erasers facing
downward in stacked layers, had unintentionally transformed into an
indestructible formation, shattering the game's balance.

The towering structure presented an
irresistible challenge, tempting her to concoct a meticulous plan,
especially since she had a meager three ice cream sticks to bring
down both the fortress and the tower.

The task seemed impossible, but she
triumphed.

The castle fell first, triggering a
domino effect that destabilized the walls, ultimately causing the
tall tower to lose its equilibrium.

With a final stick, she tipped the
balance, and the tower descended like a falling apple from a tree.

The elation of her victory soured when
her father arrived home and discovered the chaotic room.

"What are you doing? There's a
mess everywhere,"

he admonished her, urging her not to
burden her mother with constant cleanup.

Her father, convinced she was a spoiled
child, was taken aback when she burst into tears.

He tried to assure her that he wasn't
scolding her, knowing that if her mother found out, he would be the
one in trouble.

As the sun began its descent, an
ordinary person walked into the bustling barber shop, a familiar
routine.

The hair cutter, a seasoned old man
with decades of experience, greeted the customer warmly. Taking a
seat, the customer whispered, "Cut it short."

With skilled hands, the old man set to
work, using his scissors to cut large triangles at the front of the
customer's hair.

The shaver glided along the edges,
emitting the nostalgic hum of an old machine, occasionally causing a
slight startle.

The experience was a moment of
rejuvenation, surpassing the comfort of a simple massage.

The customer's hair seemed to grow
unusually fast, necessitating frequent visits to the barber.

He willingly invested in twice-monthly
haircuts from monthly haircuts, considering them a worthwhile
purchase for comfort.

The hair cutter switched to bigger
scissors, deftly trimming the top of the customer's head.

Despite the significant hair reduction,
the customer did not appear bald or unattractive; the layered haircut
created an illusion of fullness.

It was this attention to detail that
kept him loyal to this particular barbershop.

Yet, a nagging thought lingered in the
customer's mind.

How long would this old hair cutter
live?

Who would skillfully tend to his hair
when he passed away?

The hair cutter reached for a mirror
and showed the customer the back of his head, expertly trimmed with
care.

With precision, he performed a final
shave, reducing volume but maintaining the same stylish hairstyle.

Then, with meticulous precision, he
used a sharp razor to clean up the sideburns and the back of the
head, eliminating even the tiniest stray hairs that scissors and
shavers couldn't capture.

The session concluded swiftly, and the
customer gratefully paid the hair cutter in full.

Regaining her composure, the tearful
girl picked up her remote control and aimed it at her father.

As she pressed a button, an
extraordinary event unfolded.

Her father began to move backward, and
the hands of the clock reversed their direction.

A familiar ding-dong bell resonated,
signaling the return of her parents.

Curiosity piqued, her father glanced
into her toy room, only to discover it meticulously clean and tidy,
to an almost unsettling extent.

He asked if Blame, his child, was
feeling unwell.

Blame shook her head, and her father
kindly lifted her, his touch as gentle as a feather.

"Did you stop playing with the
castle and erasers because you were afraid of me scolding you?"
he inquired, his tone softening.

"I don't think it's good to waste
your entire day doing nothing."

He smiled warmly.

"Come on, we're going to a roller
coaster theme park."

Overwhelmed with joy, Blame playfully
kicked her legs, prompting her father to gently place her back on the
floor.

Blame's face beamed with affection.

"I love you, Dad," she
exclaimed, wrapping her tiny arms around him in a tight embrace.

True happiness transcends material
wealth;

it thrives in the simplest of joys.

"Amitabha Amitabha

Amitabha Amitabha

Amitabha Amitabha

Amitabha Amitabha"

In the tranquil ambiance of the Asian
temple, a desperate man finds solace in the presence of the towering
Guan Xi statue.

Her bronze skin wearing flowing robes,
standing patiently to listen to her devotees.

The scent of incense fouls the air,
awakening the spirit of the man.

Above, the temple's lofty ceiling is as
vast as the sky, while the bamboo walls blocked the natural sunlight,
creating a soothing dimly lit shrine.

Lingering in this wooden temple are
bronze statues and revered beings, their skin showing off a glow
rarely seen elsewhere.

Flashback in 5 years, a disheveled
father, his face marked by worry, chants a plea,

"I seek remedies to free the world
from illnesses."

Mother Red: "Who is sick now? Who
is sick now?"

The son peered at his father with a
guilty conscience.

His father was searching desperately
for oriental herbs and wildlife essences in the kitchen cupboard.

Father: (annoyed) "Where are my
medicines?"

Mother Red: "Maybe you used them
already?"

The son continues eating a plain bowl
of rice.

Father: (concerned) "Son, why are
you only eating plain rice? Are you sick?"

Son: (courageous) "Pa, I realized
it is my mistake, I should have insisted your medicines were not
effective on me when I was young."

Father: (self-confident) "Foolish
son, you became healthier when you ate my medicines."

Lost in his thoughts, the father paces
around the house, still finding his medicines.

Son: (courageous) "I lied to you
that I became better, pa. Otherwise, you would just continue to feed
me ineffective medicines."

Father: (obnoxious) "Oh, I worry
that you might have some memory issues, but fear not, I have just the
right medicine for that."

The father walked on all fours and
starts searching for herbs underneath the sofa, underneath the bed,
and underneath the dining table.

Mother Red: "Are you not hungry?
You could always search for your medicines after you have eaten."

Flashback in 10 years, a deadly illness
has emerged and persisted for a couple of years, forcing many people
to face the ramifications of it.

The ill lie on hospital beds, but they
claim not for a cure, rather they would prefer visitations from
friends and relatives to warm up this cold, bleak world.

In this ant-like world, one has to keep
on working until he dies.

Socializing and making new friends
becomes a thing of the past.

Footsteps never entering the public
park, library, or zoo.

But during tumultuous events, one can
apply for a job absence to let the government directly cover up for
the company's loss.

Relatives gather around the ill uncle
and aunt, offering them support like money, fruits, and positive
messages.

The day grew and became night, the
light fades as their pulses stopped.

The doctor can resuscitate the
patients, however, they would remain in a coma state.

This would create extravagant medical
bills that would bankrupt ordinary people, the doctor, upon checking
their financial status, had to pretend that there was no way to save
the elderly patients.

The nurse helped the doctor to prepare
the document of death, which surprisingly showed the possibility of
powerful Chinese medicines meddling with the effects of Western
medicines.

This abnormal data have various impacts
and the doctor has to announce it to the relatives.

Doctor: (stern) "Do you know that
it is illegal to give powerful medicines if you are not a doctor?
Because of the abnormal data, it is now difficult to claim monetary
benefits from their life insurance."

This news was a huge setback for
everyone, the payback from the insurance could have relieved half the
burden of the hospital bills that almost everyone pitched in, and it
is now gone.

Everyone avoids looking at the father,
the father was the one who kept advising his relatives on what
medicines are good for what illnesses.

They took his advice seriously even
though everyone knew he is just a medicine delivery man without any
medical credentials.

Many people blamed him mentally but
could not voiced it out because it was his sole passion, medicine has
always been the only topic of discussion whenever he chit-chat.

Flashback in 15 years, the father is
pacing anxiously, his breath heavy.

His young son was struck by an illness,
his father immediately hurried home to take care of him.

Father: (nervous) "This is not
good, I will brew a solution for you."

Son: (frowns) "It is bitter. I
don't want it."

Undeterred, he tries again the next
day, this time blending herbs with noodles, hoping to change his
son's mind.

Father: (encouraging) "Try this
tasty noodles."

The son adamantly refuses upon tasting
the hidden herb.

Thus, the father feeds his son medicine
directly again.

The next day, the father continued to
force-feed his son more medicines.

Son: (stressful) "I do not feel
better after your medicines."

The father was unwilling to give up and
got enlightened.

He prepared a different type of
medicine on the next day. The son drank it once again.

Son: (lethargic) "I feel better,
dad."

But the son lay on his bed until his
school holidays ends.

He couldn't hear his teachers talk.

He couldn't see the whiteboard
writings.

His brain has shut down temporarily
until his immune system self-repairs on its own in a couple of
months.

"Amitabha Amitabha

Amitabha Amitabha

Amitabha Amitabha

Amitabha Amitabha"

The angry man sitting in front of the
statue has become a gold statue himself.

The stressed man now has a face of
calmness and serenity.

The sorrowful man now has let go of his
pleading hands and is just putting both of his hands clasped together
solemnly.

The tall statue of Guan Xi still did
not move.

Guan Xi is still looking at her devotee
patiently.

Guan Xi is still waiting for more
devotees.

His request did not make him rich or
obtain godly powers.

His gold skin has become a symbol of a
regret of a lifetime.

Just like many other gold statues
sitting in the room along with him.

The curious man walks into the tall
office, he was looking for a part time job.

Another man quickly let him inside the
recruitment office.

The recruiter fires questions at him
rapidly and he was quite impressed at the answers.

But the intervieweeeee firmly expressed
his desire for a part time job.

The conversation ended with,

"We are only looking full timers,
this job is so important that we cannot just change to another part
timer."

The intervieweeeee left the office with
hope, because he still have other job offers.

But this event really changed his mind,
maybe, he should just go all out and have fun, then he would be ready
to accept a full time job.

So, the next day, before the ravens
wake up, he was buying a lottery ticket.

The ticket queue is always so long when
the sun breaks the clouds.

Then, he treated all of his friends to
an arcade gaming session.

"Ping! Ping!" They played the
space ping pongs.

"Bom, Bom"

They played the soccer kick, all the
friends celebrated Pear for getting the top score of the day.

Pear did not felt sastified, he invited
his friends to a beach resort next week, they could go to the beach
and swim all day long.

His friends declined, as much as they
loved an outing, they could not resort to emptying their best
friend's wallet.

Pear did not understood their decline,
but anyway, he travelled to many european countries instead.

He looked at castles and scenic rivers.

He rode gallant horses, he wores
medieval armours and took selfies at popular places that have been on
medieval war movies.

Then, a mysterious call made him took
an early flight back to his home country.

All of his prepaid travelling packages
are forfeited and he have to pay additional flight fares to change to
an earlier flight date.

Now, what could be so important to
Pear?

On the crowded booth, there are many
circus dancers and lion dancers.

Pear with a mask walked quickly and
redeemed his prize of $2 million dollars.

All the cameras kept flashing at the
disguised Pear.

"Last year, nobody won the grand
prize, so the prize have been forwarded to this year. 1+1= $2 million
dollars."

The emcee made the crowd excited but
Pear was nowhere to be seen.

At the nearby carpark, Pear was wearing
the lion costume, he then thew away into the bin.

He bought the lion costume from the
lion dancers for 1 gold bar.

Ah, yes.

His $2 million dollars was in the form
of gold bars, he bagged them in the convenience store, using those
big black plastic bags that are sold for $1.

Phew, the bag weights 39 KG and he
traded away 1 KG.

He is walking discreetly like a conman,
he kept looking at the suspicious passerbys.

Even the security guards found him to
be behaving so awkwardly.

Due to security reasons, all big bags
will be checked before allowed to enter the public transport.

Pear have no choice but to take a taxi.

It was afternoon time at 3pm but there
was no sight of taxi.

He kept walking down the main road,
getting closer to his house, 100 meters by 100 meters.

His hands is unfortunately getting
bruised and his feets is burning hot.

He is drinking his sweat but he had no
choice but to continue on his endeavour.

"Take a photo of me,"

Jisoo asked her boyfriend.

Parker knelt on the floor and quickly
take a good shot, folded dress and delightful smile filled the
screen.

They went into a coffee bar to take a
short break.

The aroma of the cappucino whets one's
appetite.

Coupled with a strawberry brioche,
their lunch is sastified.

Then, Jisoo requested for another
photo.

Parker bend his body forward for a
close-up shot, he didn't want to take a photo of the lunch plate with
messy bread crumps.

Other couples looked at them, the girl
was jealous and hit her boyfriend in a jokingly manner, insinulating
why can't he be romantic like that.

But for Parker, he have been taking
photos of Jisoo everytime they go on a date.

He was more like a personal cameraman,

these type of relationship are commonly
known as selfie "boyfriend".

Even Parker's friend warned him,

"Does she like you or does she
loves herself?"

Ditching the negative thought, they
went to a movie theater.

And once again, there was a sculpture
of a famous movie star, Jack, Parker was already standing in place
for the camera shot.

No doubt, Jisoo stood elegantly and
posed with her head looking upwards instead of the famous movie star,
it was a for fun camera shot.

2 hours of movie, Jisoo did not speak a
single word to Parker.

Parker felt unstable, but he knew he
cannot expose his insecurity and make Jisoo uncomfortable.

Then, they went to an amusement park.

Oh, it was more beautiful at night, the
colorful lanterns make the whole park looks like a disco and a kids'
playground integrated together.

Definitely, Parker will have to take a
lot more photo shots tonight and indeed he did.

They went to the roller coaster ride
and screamed their lungs out.

They went to the haunted room and got
bored of the cartoony ghosts.

They went to the toilet and waited for
each other,

they are probably tired at this point
since it was really late at night.

They decided to take a last ride, the
ferris wheel ride.

The ferris wheel ride was just beside
the koi pond capturing tent.

Many kids were trying to capture the
big kois with their tiny nets,

it was obviously a money scam booth.

But, who is to be blamed, when the kids
were having so much fun disturbing the colorful kois.

As they finally reached their queue
turn, they aboard the slow and gentle ferris wheel.

It was the biggest ferris wheel in the
country.

Parker tried to talk about school days
and the meals in the amusement park but Jisoo gave a nonchalant reply
to most of them.

Then Parker tried to bring back the
happy mood with his KonKon 2000 limited edition camera gifted by
Jisoo.

And, indeed Jisoo smiled happily while
posing with the beautiful night scene outside of the windows.

One could see the entire forest, the
high rising office buildings, the scary dark sea and the whole of the
amusement park.

When, at the the peak of the ferris
wheel,

the machine malfunctioned, it literally
grinded to a stop.

They looked at each other, surprised at
what to do,

but their simplistic discussion was
never going to solve anything.

It actually felt more like Jisoo was
complaining, Parker sighed.

But emotions cannot fill the bottle.
Jisoo finally started a chat,

"Why do you always come on a date
with me?"

It was like a question to fill the
boredom but it is hidden with a lethal intention.

Parker raised his camera again and took
photo of his girlfriend,

"So, I could be your cameraman."

The anxious girl asked again,

"What do you like about me?"

Parker finally was appeased,

"I like that you are being just
yourself and not pretending to be someone else."

The shyly girl finally gathered her
courage and leaned in for a kiss.

When the lips pressed together, the
ferris wheel suddenly moves again.

They were bouncing at the momentum and
laughed at the situation.

The girl finally explained,

"I do not know why, but this only
happens with you. For some reason, I always get shy when I am with
you, so I literally do not know what to do except for asking for more
camera shots."

Parker hugged Jisoo and calmed her
down.

But Parker could not find the words for
for he is bewitched by her beautiful floral dress, dazzling eyes and
slim arms.

Pear was dragging his gold bars hidden
inconspicuously in a black bag along the dirty floor.

His shoulders slouched against the
heavy weight and his motivations bends underneath his pride.

He grips his teeth and irons through
his will, he forces himself to walk another 100 meters.

He could have called upon his family to
fetch him back home, but if his family ever found his fortune, he
would have to share.

If he does not share, his relationship
with his family would sour to the point of staying away from each
other, living at two different houses.

His ambition to carry through this
hardship is powerful enough to make him walk further and further.

He realized that there were no taxis
because the government recently allowed private taxis,

therefore, many company based taxi
drivers hopped onto the private taxi drivers trend in order to avoid
the company tax and fees,

earning them an extra 15% more salary
per month.

But for Pear, carrying 38 KG of gold
bars into a private taxi is as risky as it sounds,

if he got kidnapped or robbed, nobody
would ever know,

there are no company security cameras
and no GPS records for the police to track any criminal activities.

So, Pear stopped and rest.

He swings his bag of gold backwards and
fowards to throw it.

Pear walks towards the bag, and then
stops for a break.

He then swings his bag of gold
backwards and forwards to throw it again.

Amused bypassers then tried to help out
Pear, they offered to carry the bag on a bicycle.

Pear was left confused when the
bypasser directly helped without asking,

so after some distance, he quickly said
he is going in another direction and took his gold bag back

but he was surprised at the good
samaritan, he smiled and thanked him.

After some time, more bypassers then
tried to carried the bag together with Pear,

Pear then quickly declined and showed
his confidence in carrying the oversized bag.

Perhaps, he should stop throwing the
bag, it attracts attention and the bottom of the bag is starting to
break,

leaving a hole big enough for the gold
bar to slip through or be seen by others.

The night descends but the victor
smiles, he was only 100 meters away from his home.

He knows his shoulders and his legs
have been tortured,

but his sweet prize pot of a whooping
$2 million dollars was pushing him forwards.

His family just arrived back at the
house at the same time.

they tried to help Pear but Pear
declined as though it was something precious.

"These are my friends' wine, I
take it myself."

Pear explained with a shrewd face.

The next 10 years,

Pear enjoyed overseas travelling,
properties purchasing and reselling,

he was like playing monopoly in real
life.

Pear went to a high end restaurant, the
restaurant happens to be celebrating an event, and Pear got to dine
for free.

Pear went to university, his school
fees are apparently paid already,

someone donated to the school and the
school transferred the money to the current students to pay for their
school fees instead.

Pear gave money to his friends to open
up buisnesses,

and they all succeeded and became
bosses of their life,

they started to repay all the money
given to them with an additional 10% interest and 10% inflation extra
fee.

Pear started to invest in random shares
and stocks, but this time round, he incurred huge losses.

It was a sad day for Pear, it felt like
he had achieved almost everything in life but yet, he did not worked
for a single day.

He went back to his old full time job
interview and funnily, the job is still looking for a conscient
worker.

It was the same recruiter, the same
questions and he got the job.

But it was weird because he does not
know what he would be doing on his full time job.

The recruiter said,

"You will become a deity of luck,
you will help all those who worked hard but was not paid fairly,

you will help people that have nobody
to ask for help,

you will help people to protect their
own money for their own expenses and luxuries."

The little kid rumbles down the
staircase, heads into the kitchen, with a terrifying fright, he heard
human voices.

The voices stops and the footsteps
moves away from the little kid.

The little kid hurried into the toilet
and locked it.

In about 3 hours, the little kid puts
his ear onto the wooden door, he heard no more sound.

He is ready to open it, but then, bam!
bam!

Someone knocked on the door, who could
it be?

"Gem, it is mommy."

Gem unlocked the door and told his
mother what had happened but his mother seems to misinterpret it as a
ghost encounter.

Gem became a very quiet kid in school,
at home and during family outings.

Jenny discussed about the kid's quiet
behaviour in school with her husband, danny.

Her husband was complacent and said,

"Dear, I was like that when I was
a school boy back then."

Jenny tried to capture her husband's
concern,

"Today is the graduation day,
there was a carnival but Gem was just standing at the canteen,

he only watches the other kids playing
around at the carnival."

Danny retorted,

"I did not even have a carnival
back in my days..."

Jenny said,

"That is not the point, alright,
nevermind."

Danny turned off the lights, he went to
Gem's room so his wife would not have to over worry about it.

Danny asked,"What story do you
want me to read today?"

Gem said no politely.

Danny insist,

"The three little piggies? The
tortoise and the hare?"

Gem explained,

"I read every single one of the
books on the shelf, dad."

Danny curls his son's hair and stayed
until the candle weathers away.

In the morning, the chirping birds were
singing at the huge backyard.

The backyard was filled with a water
fountain, tea bonsais, flower bushes and coconut trees.

The aroma of the fried eggs zoom
through the air, Jenny was both the mom and the maid of the house.

Grandpa and grandma walked slowly down
the staircase and reached for their morning deluxe.

Jenny walked up the stairs but could
not find her husband, but at the windows, she saw Danny digging the
soil with a hoe.

Jenny knocked on her son's room, then
entered but she found no one.

She wrapped up the blanket and tidied
the room.

The computer was still on and Jenny's
curiousity caught onto her.

Click, click, click and click.

She found nothing, then Gem entered the
room.

"Breakfast is ready." said
Jenny.

"I have eaten with grandparents,
they are now watching television."

said Gem.

The grandmother have painful knees,
even just walking down the stairs pains her terribly,

she is definitely not walking up until
night falls.

The grandfather walked out to the
backyard and see what Danny is doing.

Danny was roughing out the soil so the
plants' roots can grow better but grandfather could never understand
such tedious methods.

Grandmother sitting on her big
comfortable chair peered out through the big windowed door.

She was more interested in what they
were doing rather than what was showing on the television.

She grumbles and walks up to the center
of the mansion, there was a statue of a deity, she burns some joss
sticks and offers her prayers to her grandparents, and then, the
deity of luck.

The whole family appeared soon enough,
everyone take turns to keep their eyes closed and bow at their
ancestors and the deity.

There is a big clock guarding the
doorway, the bird came out and "koo koo".

The grandmother asked the grandfather,
is he going out today when she already knows the answer.

Grandmother walked him to the door and
waved a big goodbye.

The grandfather said,"I will buy
something nice for you."

Despite the mansion having two
well-polished cars, the grandfather walked on foot instead.

Despite there is a bus stop nearby the
pathway, he walked on foot instead.

Despite there is a shortcut of the car
road side path, he walked through the nature park instead.

He bids good morning to the big eyed
flying creature on the tree.

He bids good morning to the crowd of
monkeys snatching from each other, from what seems to be a soft drink
bottle.

He bids good morning to the early park
visitors.

Then, he reached his destination, right
beside the church, there are many coffeshops and merchant shops lined
up side by side.

It was a crowded day as usual, for the
freshest fishes and meat are sold in the morning.

But, he was not here for the market, he
went to the coffee shop instead.

The son, Gem, groaned,"Why do I
have to pray to the deity?"

His mother said,"Even if you do
not want to pray for yourself, you should help your ancestors to pray
for the deity of luck."

This confuses Gem even more.

His mother then said,"The deity of
luck blessed your ancestors, so they were able to buy this mansion
and the land we are standing on."

Gem wowed,"Even the land belongs
to us? Well, if I am staying in this house, it means I am blessed
too."

The father, Danny, told them to bath,
as they are going for a shopping trip, he was excited to buy home a
gaming console at the pretense of buying for Gem.

But when they drove their car there,
Gem looks uninterested in anything.

The parents sat down and rest, then
suddenly, Gem went to a shop, the parents later came along.

It was newly opened, hamsters riding
wheels and birds boasting their colorful feathers.

The father decided to buy his son a
hamster but he said no.

He likes the tiny puppy even more, its
golden ears flapped down, its round, beady eyes, his short body, it
almost looked like a soft cushion animal toy.

But, it moved and it eyed at Gem whom
stared back at it even more.

Gem begged for his parents to buy it.

His parents was at lost at what to do,
will the dog bite them?

How big will the dog grow?

What if the dog mate with other dogs?

The father, Danny in his tiny office
room inside a very tall office building.

He opens the app, paint and keep
drawing stickmans, coloring the background.

Then he opens the video app and watched
other artists drawing natural landscape and house designs.

He tried to imitate all that on a free
app using an unreliable drawing tool and a computer mouse as brush.

He found a trick and is able to clear
up mushes by scrolling in, then he could see the pixels and remove
any offending drawn pixels, one by one.

Now, he drew a beautiful tree, the tree
have branches growing in diagonals, overlapping each other.

The leaves were shaped in spade with
many tiny lines crossing each other.

Then, he looked at the online reviews
of art tutorial books, drawing magazines and the price of gaming
consoles.

The time flies and it was already time
to return home.

He knocked on the boss's office,"I
am going home, I have already completed half the task."

The boss smiled and bids goodbye,"Keep
up the good work."

Danny was always lazing around in the
office but he was no fool, he had already completed all of his tasks,

he have even done tasks that his boss
had not given him yet because he could already predicts what tasks
his boss would give him later on,

because all the tasks are like chapters
within a project, and from the office computer's history, he could
see all the projects done in the past, he would copy and rephrased
it,

he was quite surprised when he found
those project files too.

The mother, Jenny works in the engineer
department.

But she was not just an engineer, she
considered herself an inventor, a designer and an engineer.

This time round, she was tasked to make
a fan for the gundam board room.

The gundam board room is where the
pilot drives the gundam and shoot missiles, but it is undeniably
small and crampy.

That tininess of the room makes the
heat grows rapidly, there was nothing to cool it down, there was no
air vent because the entire room is fully covered, because if the
gundam ever reaches space,

the lack of oxygen would kill the pilot
if there was an air vent.

Jenny complained about the dynamics of
air flow to his colleague, Tam.

Tam agreed in all,"This is mission
impossible."

Jenny then said,"If there is no
air flow for the heat to leave the board room, it will never be able
to cool down efficiently."

Tam, then showed Jenny his board room's
chair prototype, it was so tiny, that no human could ever sit on it
while not falling down.

"Like, who are they designing
these gundams for? Tiny dwarfs? Kids?"

Jenny laughed but later they both
suffer in pain at their impossible task.

Grandmother wanted to take a stroll but
she was tired, she kept thinking about where did grandfather went to.

Grandmother turned on the television
but she was not interested in the drama, it is the same old drama
that have been replaying for ages, families quarrelling each other,

solving the problems and loving each
other again. Different actors, same story, different background, same
ending.

Her legs keep shriveling, her arms
becomes droopy, she wishes to eat the breadcrumbs from the kitchen
but is too lazy to walk there.

Anyway, grandfather will bring home
some better treats anyway.

She remembered back when she was young,
she would go outing with grandfather every weekend, like today.

They watched so many movies that she
lost count of how many movies they have watched.

They have travelled to many countries,
walked for long distances, they visited snake temples, golden
buildings, river village and a skiing resort.

But, now she is confined to this chair,
it feels very painful to move. In order to fix the muscles, the
doctor said she needs to exercise.

It was no solution but endless pain for
grandmother, then she fell asleep on her big and comfortable chair.

The grandfather bought his coconut rice
and chicken wings, bamboo rolls and fish soup for $22, he gave $50
and received $28 change for it.

He sat down and took a break but
something caught his attention, someone else paid $50 but received a
$65 change, he told the customer,"You have earned it."

The customer was in denial, he
said,"This is not $50."

The grandfather looked at the $50, it
featured a squid face and was mostly blue in colour.

The customer explained,"This is
$100, if you fold the dollar note and it have two perfect squid face,
it will double in value."

No way! The grandfather was so
surprised at this big news, he immediately tried the method by buying
more food and it worked, the coffeeshop seller gave him much more
change for his folded $50.

The customer then explained,"The
more you fold, the more value it will have."

The customer then do a trick and showed
it to the grandpa step by step,"Now this is worth $2500."

The grandfather almost fainted in a
dramatic way, he tried to do it so despite the customer discouraging
him to do so.

The customer then lamented,"See,
there is a small tear here, the squid's face here is bigger than the
squid's face there."

The grandfather then asked a curious
question,"Then how much is it worth now?"

The customer expressed sadly,"It
is now worth $0, it is now just garbage, but I was the one that
entices you to do this trick so I can buy it from you as it is my
fault."

The grandfather then traded his $50
folded like a durian with a brand new $50 from the customer's wallet.

Then the customer went to a nearby
vendor, the man with a mysterious hat that was helping to exchange
money from different countries.

The customer gave the $50 that was
folded heavily and unfolds it, the man with the mysterious hat traded
$5000 for it.

The grandfather angrily approached
him,"Hey! You cheated me out of my money."

The customer then tried to prove that
he is not the scammer and asked the money exchanger how much is the
folded $50 worth?

The money exchanger said,"Exactly
$0."

The grandfather argued,"Then, why
did you gave him $5000?"

Then, the money exchanger
explained,"Because he unfolded the dollar note and it showed a
serial number 777 7777."

The grandfather realized his mistake
and then apologized for his rashful behaviour.

It seemed like the money exchange rate
have a lot more things he did not knew of.

The son, Gem played with the puppy
until it became a large sized dog.

He have to remove the dog's waste,
bathe it everyday, bring it out for walk, mop away the furs dropping
on the mansion's floor.

Coupled with his high school homework,
he was crushed like underneath a rock.

He tried to shove his pet to his
mother, but his mother was busy at work, same for his father.

He tried to shove his pet to his
grandmother, but she was always just sitting in the same old chair
and not moving.

He tried to shove his pet to his
grandfather, but he was always going out to nowhere.

His near coming exam is driving him to
an edge.

If he fails this, he will not be able
to enter the college that everyone is going to, he will be sent to a
private school instead,

that will not look good on you when you
go for a job interview, and this might means the end of his career.

Right now, he have to make a choice, or
rather, he have already made it, he just needs to wait for the right
time to do it.

Late at night, he thought he heard some
voices, but it was nobody, he opened the gates and let out the dog,
he ran along the neighbourhood, so did the dog followed.

It was weird to see a teenager and a
dog running late at night with only the street lamps glowing.

But the dog lost his owner, or rather,
he was abandoned.

Gem took a bus back home, alone.

Soon, the exams came, he didn't scored
well as he was still distracted by his abandoned dog, but the free
time he gained helped him a lot, he managed to get into college with
a decent score.

The father, Danny woke up in the
morning and kept searching for the dog.

Because he had to work monday to
friday, he tried to ask his family to help search for the missing
dog.

Gem found the dog, he looked around and
saw that his family was not nearby.

He pretended he did not knew the dog
and slid through the lift and escaped away.

The dog also noticed Gem, but it did
not recognized its owner anymore.

When the dog was a puppy, his owner
looked at it with loving eyes, this person was not the same person he
met long ago.

The dog understood and ran faraway, to
the grass plains, to underneath the benches of the park, to the
bushes beside the playground.

Its stomach was growling, the night was
falling and it does not know what future is holding for it.

Danny tried to celebrate Gem's exam
passes and reduce the sadness of the missing dog by buying a gaming
console for him, okay, alright, it was more like, for himself.

The game art was fanciful and gripped
everyone's attention, the whole family kept playing it but within a
week, they got bored of it.

Danny realized he loved the game art
and not the gameplay itself.

As the rain pour and pour endlessly,
the forgotten dog walks up to a small roof, the rain stopped within
the circular roof and he smelled a familiar scent.

The dog's eyes looked up and widen, it
pulls out its tongue and started panting and wagging its tail.

The mother, Jenny was holding an
umbrella for the wild dog.

She took the dog to an abandoned pets
facility named pets' paradise and abandoned it there.

The dog was left confused, why again?

The dog played with the other dogs,
chinchillas and birds of paradise but when it thought about its
original owner, Gem that played with him from young till adult,

it was a memory that could never be
erased from its mind.

So sometimes, it sits on the long
cushion and looked out the metal grills, waiting for someone to come
for it.

And, someone did came, the mother,
Jenny always came, donated some money and played with it along with
the other dogs.

Jenny shuffled the dog's head and the
dog smiled.

The grandmother was excited at the new
gaming console but she was so bad at technology.

Today, the grandfather took a break and
kept chatting with the grandmother.

He realized the grandmother do not know
how to start up the gaming console and asked the father, Danny for
help.

Danny, easily flipped on the switches
and showed them an example on how to click the settings.

It turned out that the sedentary
grandma started jumping up and down, and then bend her upper body to
the left and right.

On the tv screen, there is a rowing
boat cruising down the river with many obstacles.

The gaming console was capturing the
grandma's position and interacting with the gameplay itself.

The grandfather was amused at the sight
and joined in the game.

They now shared many more moments in
life together.

The grandmother's muscles started to
become healthier and her vitality slowly returned, redness started to
return to her face.

Seeing that grandmother is now active
again, grandfather asked mother to plan for a family outing again.

They went to a bird park, the path
slope was steep like a mountain and there were many animal
enclosures.

The vibrant birds flew through the
shoulders of the visitors.

The sneaky cranes walks past the behind
of visitors.

The little monkeys climb the top vines
where nobody is looking at.

The ostrich stared at Gem and Gem
stared right back at it, it looks so majestic and dinosaur alike.

The family outing ended with a parrot
flight show, where the parrots flew through hula hoops placed at the
corners of the arena.

Mother, Jenny said,"This bird park
is newly opened. Is it fun?"

Gem, looking at the white tiger
enclosure said,"This is much easier than having a pet, there is
no need to feed, bathe, clean and walk it."

Father, Danny said,"True, we can
come here anytime you want to."

Grandmother said,"Well, you could
always donate at the animal shelter and play with the abandoned pets
there."

Grandfather said,"Or, you could be
a zookeeper."

Gem shook his head,"You guys think
too highly of me.", then he realized he told nobody about the
truth of his missing pet.

Mother, Jenny, her colleague, Tam and
many other engineers and staffs stood in rows in front of the
gundams.

A horde of dogs entered through the
grand hall protected by an electronic device that requires the
correct bark.

The dogs marched in line and turned
towards the gundams, each of them have their own gundam and beside
each gundam have an engineer or staff.

A black dog with long legs walked
towards Tam, then Tam pets the intimidating dog.

A chihuahua walked towards to Jenny and
waited.

"Pet the dog."Whispered Tam.

Jenny felt so weird, she had no
connection with this dog but she have to pet it but it actually looks
like it was waiting for it.

Jenny pet the chihuahua's head and it
was smooth and soft.

The MC walked up the royal stage and
made an announcement.

It seems like all the gundam human
pilots are now exchanged to dogs because of suitability and
loyalness.

But it is important for the dog pilot's
caretakers to take care of them too.

Tam nods his head in disagreement,"I
have no idea how to handle pets."

Jenny comforts him,"Dun worry, my
family owns a pet dog before, I can help you."

The MC and an alone dog walks down the
stage and leaving the grand hall.

As the alone dog walks pass Jenny, she
pets the dog's head and the dog growls furiously.

Everyone in the grand hall holds their
breath.

Tam started to pull Jenny back,"That
is general McKrazy, you do not pet general McKrazy."

Jenny realized her stupidity and the MC
warned without using his speaker,"You really should read your
emails, lieutenant Jenny."

Grandfather passed away peacefully, it
was treated as an ordinary death as he was already near 90 years old.

Father, Danny finally took his
childhood hobby seriously and redecorated one of the mansion's room
into a painting room.

Son, Gem found many friends in computer
online games, but they all left sooner or later, but even if he felt
lonely inside,

he is not going to buy another pet
anymore because he knows it is wrong if you are unable to take care
of them.

Grandmother asked mother, Jenny to
visit the animal shelter and handed her donation money discreetly.

Jenny was curious and asked,"Back
then, how did you knew about Gem abandoning the dog."

Grandmother said plainly,"Sometimes,
I fell asleep on this chair, and that night I saw Gem leaving the
house with the dog. But how did you find the dog?"

Jenny responded,"I checked his bus
card records and searched around those places."

Grandmother said,"Shouldn't we
bring back the dog and just pretend we found the dog and take care of
it ourselves?"

Jenny said in a serious tone,"The
dog will be more happy with its other dog friends there."

Grandmother nags,"Even if I "go",
you still must make sure the clock is not spoiled, repair it when
broken.

And everyday, never fail to pray for
our ancestors and the deity of luck, place food and gifts on it,
alright?"

Jenny asked,"Gem had a trauma when
he was kid, was it you who was in the kitchen?"

Grandmother explained,"It was not
me, I was always sitting on the chair, you need to know we are not
the only ones living in this mansion."

And the grandmother hands Jenny a
platinum key.

The girl with flushed red face wearing
a proper school uniform jumped over the fences, then ran like an
athlete.

She was travelling on the side of the
car road, it was dangerous because you cannot see the cars driving
towards you as they appear from behind your back.

Another boy was instead calm. He also
wore school uniform and a black tie with diamond designs and rode on
a bicycle, he was moving at the same speed as the schoolgirl even
without pedaling hard.

There were some cats fighting along the
street when one of them suddenly pounced into the air.

A nearby kid got surprised and fell
down.

The kid slammed so hard onto the hard
floor that his arms became bruised but all he does was look around
nervously.

The schoolgirl with a nice heart help
the injured kid back on his feet.

Then she brought him back to his
parents which was at a nearby house with opened gates.

The parents wanted to thank the
schoolgirl with expensive fruits but she was long gone.

Today is examination day and she is not
going to make it at this rate.

The corner of her sight irritates her
more than ever.

A schoolboy was riding a bicycle on the
other side of the car road without breaking a sweat.

If only, she too knows how to ride a
bike.

At the car road section layered with
traffic lights, the schoolgirl had a chance to outrun the schoolboy.

The schoolboy was patiently waiting for
the traffic light before passing.

Many parents were fetching their kids
to school as well, causing a huge jam.

But that was not the whole reason for
the traffic, a bundle of old pots and debris were blocking half of
the road.

Even when it was none of her business,
she continued to help removing the wreckage.

The school boy went past her like a
fly.

She can only sigh.

What frustrates her more was that the
school boy did not help her to remove the debris even though he had
more muscles than her.

Her shoe laces got untangled and
disrupted her run.

She did a quick fix by pushing the
laces into the shoes but it just kept coming out whenever she lifts
her legs high up to run.

The sun have just risen showing that it
is 7 am.

She already could not make it on time
for her 7 am examinations.

For every examination, there is a 5
minutes preparation and 10 minutes of pre-reading the questions
before the test actually starts.

Even though this means she could still
make it on time, this means she would have lost 15 minutes of time
advantage.

For a weak student like her, this is
very useful.

The cyclist pedalled so hard, the
school girl could no longer see his back.

But when almost at the school gates,
she saw an elderly with weak eye sight getting lost.

The old man was always looking for the
food shop but his feeble sight always trick him to go to the food
shop at the school instead.

This is usually not a problem, since he
can just eat there but today is school examination day, the shop will
be closed today and the old man does not know anything about it.

The school girl explained to the old
man and showed him the correct path to walk in the direction towards
a mega mart.

The school girl is now very angry at
herself for being so late.

Interestingly, she caught with the
cyclist because the cyclist still have to park and lock his bicycle
at a safe area.

She shouted at the schoolboy, "Hurry
up."

When they entered the examination hall,
the teacher stopped the both of them.

The teacher realised it was the school
role model, Timmy.

She quickly make up some excuses
saying, "You were helping the other students, were you? You can
go in."

But the same teacher stopped the school
girl, "Oh no, you are very late, we cannot just let you into the
hall and disrupt the examination process."

"You do recall that we had already
told everyone that latecomers will not be able to enter the hall,
right?"

The schoolgirl was angry but helpless.

She tried to explain what had happened
along the way but the teacher did not even looked interested.

The school boy, Timmy brought out his
phone and showed videos of the schoolgirl helping out to the teacher.

The teacher was moved and had to let
the school girl take the examinations as well.

But it was a redundant move because
when the exam results came out, the school girl had failed in all of
her exams.

Timmy had gotten straight A like
always, he was made the school's role model again.

The school role model system was an
effort to motivate the other students to study well too.

Real life: Damn, the pizza delivery man
came faster this time, I am going to rush up the story.

While the school girl was dining in the
canteen hall with her classmates.

Timmy noticed the school girl and asked
if she needed help with her studies.

The other schoolgirls were giggling as
though they are eyeballing a school romance.

The schoolgirl, however, was not
smiling. She asked why did Timmy not help her along the route to
examination day.

It feels like he has another agenda to
help her with her studies now.

Timmy then explained simply, "Because
that is not what I am good. I am better at studying."

The schoolgirl was not sastified with
answer but she needed the help and started to discuss about the
curriculum.

The giggling died down as everything
becomes official business only.

At night, I was faced with a chilling
nightmare about chameleons that moved like dinosaurs.

Memories years ago flooded back in
making it feel like it had only just happened yesterday.

When the mothership paused on top of central district.

We could see a wasted land, buildings
are turned into chips, pathways have turned into rivers.

There are no more signs of human activity.

A professional team dropped down from
the sentry helicopters.

The ropes automatically released the
occupants without fear.

And they slid into the burnout city state.
From there, they travelled northwards into the heart of Nirvana.

Nirvana is a natural preservation,
untouched by modern buildings and technology.

As the trees touches the sky, its
shadows protected the animals living underneath.

Deers feeding on luscious plants
growing besides the bush of flowers which had an unique structure.

Optimism about the radiation levels
were why the scientists had planned a trip here.

But further investigations are required
to assess the area's suitability to be inhabited by humans.

When we trekked through the jungles, we
saw many unnatural phenomenon.

Tall stones plated on top of each
other. They looked eerily like a hybrid of a monster and a chameleon.

The most creepy part were that they
were scattered everywhere throughout the lush jungle.

These statues had marble eyes that
followed your every movement.

It is like a well-crafted illusion and
the prove that they are not made by nature.

But the illusion turned into reality.
They started walking inconspicuously with us as we ventured into the
Solace pathway.

The large statue of stones pulsates
with rhythm, jaws were unhinged, revealing scrolls of spiny teeth.

Their once meditative faces turned into
contorted faces of nightmarish quality.

There comes a hesitation when our
patrol guard refused to move forward.

As expected, an animal leapt from the
bush and sink its teeth into the legs of a human agent.

But it was not a natural animal. It is
as large as a human but with a chameleon face.

Chaos settled before we could swiftly
dispatched it.

One by one, giant lizards jumped from
nowhere and we end up fighting against them.

Those whom handbrawl ended badly, the
others used guns that fired photon bullets.

These bullets defy gravity and make the
monsters bleed.

We know the guns have a critical
weakness, it needed sunlight to recharge.

Even though it is day time, it will
eventually be night time and we will be left with nothing except our
fists.

We battled our way through the deep
jungle, mud on our faces, blood on our legs.

We cannot tell who is who, we just
stick together.

Countless of lizard kills produced food
aroma that aroused the nearby chameleons to head out for a meal.

Downslope, it is a funny sight to see a
group of inexperienced soldiers shooting against a ton of troops.

Soldiers that fall down are left behind.

Soldiers that tried to help the fallen
soldiers end up getting surrounded as well.

Along with the chaos, a big fat lizard
charged towards me.

It had a grotesquely buldging eye that
gazed upon my movements.

In a threatening move, it opened its
triangular mouth with bone-chilling intensity.

The lizard spits a demonic tongue at my
direction, I evaded it.

To my surprise, that tongue that looked
soft completely destroyed a boulder besides me.

In that moment, a lot of questions came
into my mind, wondering about the true nature of our mission.

It was supposed to be a simple couting
expedition. How could it have snowballed into a fight for our last
breath?

Everything seems so set up, I was a
pawn in a perilous game without knowing it.

I was gripped with fear but I did not
sweat my pants. I somersaulted into a hole.

The hole happened to be a snake tunnel
but as I clawed my way in, I triggered a switch knob by accident.

I was then tossed into a nice airy
cavern that connected sanctuaries of religious writings and tools.

The immediate contrast between the
world above was apparent.

The serenity I felt was like winning a
game machine.

Meanwhile, at above.

A senior soldier flung taser machines
that springs lightning to nearby victims.

Some
soldiers enjoyed the view of the powerful shocks of electricity that
plummeted the lizards like flies.

The flashing sequences stalled the
gruesome battle temporarily.

On the next hour of tactic, the lizards
turned missing.

The human scouts suspects they were
simply camouflaging and they had to keep moving fast.

Whispers of walk were amidst the dense
foliage of the jungle, following the foot tracks of its preys.

Senior Patterson took out a laser
compass and moved the team in unison, and they reached a beautiful
white templed enclosed within massive walls with broken holes.

They hurried to fix the walls without
realizing the beauty of it.

The walls were plain white and had
drawings of the progress of civilizations.

The many vases attached to pillars were
empty as nobody were there to water it.

When the scouts hover their feet into
the dark pit hole, a whirring of noise and their shoes lighted up
with bright blue.

They descended slowly into the hole as
they could not see far with just the light from their shoes.

Unfortunately, they face their fears
again.

Critters hanging onto the crescent wall
leapt adjacent until they could scratch the hanging pinatas.

The humans started firing photon gun
bullets in all directions, turning the heat up.

The scouts could not fire anymore as
they are too far away from the sunlight.

They let go of the ropes and jumped
straight down. Luckily, the bottom was a pool. Or perhaps, someone
made a clever guess and did the first jump.

Tossing the guns, they made a final
march in the underground labyrinth.

The chameleons were not willing to give
up and kept chasing.

The clumsy humans started to collide
into each other in the darkful area while the chameleons had night
vision.

Exhaustion took placed, the humans
slowed down to a wall.

Pink tongues started wrapping around
the slower soldiers and dragged them like dumbbells back into the
lizards' embrace.

As they gorged on their food, the floor
is made wet with saliva.

The remaining half of the troops took
the opportunity to make their escape in a different direction.

Underneath the depths of the ancient
temple, I kept walking till I saw the familiar faces of my comrades.

Better to be in a group than to be
alone.

The chambers led to a puzzle waiting to
be solved.

Each door were made of a different
coloured material.

However, we could not open it. Senior
Patterson took my gun away from me and fired directly at the door
knobs.

It opened but I felt uncomfortable
having my item snatched away without asking.

I voluntarily chose the white door to
explore while the others volunteered for the other coloured doors.

But how is it called volunteer?When
each one of us must choose a door.

The white room was a mystery to me. It
had signs of human activities like food bags, crude weapons, old maps
and beds.

"Knock knock"

But it was not the door.

I twisted my neck and saw someone
hiding up in the ventilation hole.

She gestured me to hide in there too.

Of course, I did.

I did not liked my team.

I do not feel safe without my gun.

I am forced to volunteer whatever that
actually means.

I scurried up and crawled into the
concealed chamber. Then I sealed the ventilation hole with bricks.

When I lied down on the cold, hard
floor. I realized just how tired I am.

I tried not to fall asleep but to no
avail.

My last vision was the slender woman
squatting like a man at the opposite corner.

My hands limbered on the floor and my
body relax despite the scratchy stone floor.

When the night is inked with a thousand
paint, the chameleon army launched a final strike.

Their primal instincts fighting within
their hearts, but they could not outbeat their hunger and the
temptation of a wildly combat.

I am enclosed within four walls.

"Help me, help me." was all I
could hear.

The sound gets fader and fader. I could
not see anything but I pretty much understood what had happened.

The lizards climbing all over the
temple structure and ravaging the site.

It was as if they are proclaiming their
dominance over this forsaken world.

The creepy silence was ironically loud
as I could hear my heartbeat bang.

Because I know I would be next.

As the air blew through the chambers, a
candle of light comes back to life.

The darkness got pushed back and the
fire becomes ever stronger.

Human voices everywhere.

Did they finally won the battle?

It might be a trick or my mind playing
tricks on me, because the soldiers did not even have anymore
firearms.

Photon guns without sunlight are just
toys.

I felt like a dimwit, I was most likely
a foolish pawn in a battleground.

But even then, I still felt bad for my
teammates that I left behind.

The sound of wind cuts brought in a
hundred more recruits.

The sentry helicopters dropped ropes
right at the temple, and the fighters charged in like a warzone.

But their enthusiasm was met with
pauses when they saw bloodstains and damage everywhere.

The senior, Voyal kept his cool and
marched the troops like in basic training.

Chameleons rolled in like bowling balls
crushing the poor victims like cheese.

Their exploration turned into
desperation.

Chameleons were secretly hiding from
the ceilings of the temple, their skin is white matching the colour
of the ruin.

Their slashes from above sliced apart
their foes like bacons.

The recruits are definitely overwhelmed
with their senior being useless.

The ones that escaped into the center
hole found the many coloured doors.

They did found the correct pathway. But
unfortunately the chameleons were doing a stakeout here.

They pounced at the soldiers like
rabbits from the narrow corridors.

Sweet juice dripped onto the marble
floors like pouring grape wine.

A nasty grip of terror catches anyone
who enters the room.

Failing to walk any further, some
pretended to be dead.

Interestingly the chameleons are more
interested in moving baits.

The human team moved in unison and
found the correct exit as there was some left behind signs from an
earlier team.

I could hear sounds of someone removing
debris, probably from the ventilation hole.

I do not know how many hours have
passed, but the new influx of air makes it easier to breathe and calm
down.

Mysteries swirling in my head. Why was
I really sent here? Why are they keeping the truth from me?

And why are humans returning to Earth,
could the federation be finally running out of supplies?

The sharp sound of growling snapped at
me. I thought it was my tummy but a pair of white eyes were staring
at me.

The woman whom stayed with me is
turning forest green and mutating into somewhat not.

Not a human, not a chameleon. The
hybrid creature lashes at me.

But untransformed fully, she is bearing
some weaknesses.

The monster is dizzy and tired.
Changing forms requires lots of energy expenditure and it does not
looks like she is a willing one.

I am not going to wait to see she is
friendly or not.

I hopped towards the ventilation hole,
but strangely, there is now a metal gate at the very end of the
tunnel.

I could not move any further. Her
transformation scares the spirit out of me.

I cried and cried, but nobody could
hear my pleas for help.

The long hallways were dreadfully
silent.

And a powerful hand trapped my feet but
I did not want to leave, so I grappled onto the metal gate.

I used up all my strength to hold onto
the steel bar but the noxious enemy keeps on tugging on my feet.

I was pulled back into the room, the
powerful force caused the metal gate to break apart and I took it
like a shield.

My body slithered from the tunnel back
into the room like a snake.

I see that the metal gate is broken
with sharp edges. An inspiration comes into my mind.

The hybrid woman looked at me. Her face
were like two distinct-parts, one human, one chameleon.

She did not transformed properly and
that makes her even scarier.

Her head were uneven, her hands were
chameleon, her legs were spiral.

But her strength is unmatched.

When the hybrid gasped for air,
exhausted from pulling me.

I leapt up like a butterfly and smashed
the sharp metal gate at her stomach, at her head and repeat.

The creature broke into a warcry but
soon defeated.

My lethargic body slammed onto floor.

My vision catch onto the ghastly
creature, I looked at her and see whether there are sudden movements.

This was the only time that I actually
saw unnatural scratching and walking on the sandstone walls.

These are all danger signs.

A wave of energy tremored through the
underground of labyrinth.

The recruits who had entered were
finally leaving, they have accomplished their mission, whatever that
may be.

I yearned to remain in my safe haven,
but if the team is leaving, I could not possibly stay at here.

I need to go back to the safe
mothership.

I dug through ventilation hole and I
grouped up with the recruits.

They were heavily armed but their hands
are occupied.

They were holding onto a big sack, the
contents are possibly an artifact from the temple's treaure room.

Both the chameleons and me could sense
that these recruits are strong and well-trained.

Going into battle is not going to be a
one-sided victory. The chameleons bide their time for an easier meal.

Even though the chameleons were
camouflaging, I could strangely sense their presence and see the
sudden movements of their eyes that is hidden as ordinary stones.

The loud whirring machines hovered over
us, trying to attract our attention.

I have never felt so much hope and
despair at the same time.

As a person of no status, I will never
find out the true meaning of this excavation and what was inside that
burly sack.

The irony is that the radiation is
within the same levels as in space, mild and safe.

But what was all that mutants and
chameleons?

That damnation of a memory is cast away
long ago.

But tonight, it reappeared as a
nightmare, shivering me to my bones.

I do not know many things, but one
thing I do know is that I do not want to return there again.

I had applied to other motherships, but
it seems like there were no replies.

Unimportant people have the least say
in this modern era.

My mind slipped away and was induced
with another consciousness.

The sensation of evil washed through my
body, my body shook unbearably and I slowly turned green.

I climbed onto the edges of the ceiling
like a lizard.

With quick movements, I opened my
bedroom's door in upside down.

The cells of my skin transformed from
green to grey, eerily matching the colour of the mothership.

I caught onto some human sounds and
went in that direction.

I slowly opened the control room's door
in upside down.

A human could not see me hanging up
from the ceiling, he saw the door moved on its own.

He will be scolded if the door is left
opened, so he had to close it.

And I took my chance, I snapped onto
his whole head.

While exploring the dormitory, I found
several video clips, parachute and coffee.

I jumped off the mothership and burned
through the ozone layer. The lack of oxygen turns me inside out.

Like a frozen frog,

I glared at the million stars,

accompanied by the thousand suns, along
with the hundred constellations.

I have lost my head but somehow my eyes
stayed opened as if this was everything that I have ever wanted, a
view of the galaxy.

My colleague shook me as agreed.

I wake up from inside the mothership.

Everything felt so surreal at this
point that I am still having motion sickness.

Before he gets angry, I am going to do
my cleaning duty.

The machines zoomed up and down the
mothership.

It spun out mopping sticks and gloss
the entire floor.

I just kept on pressing the buttons and
awakening the other slave machines.

Inside the white pallid world, the
water move motionlessly.

The air is cooling but you could feel no breeze.

I am here every month like a faithful pilgrim.

And every month, at this path section,
I get to see a bird cage.

It was colossal and suspended in the
sky as if tied with unseen ropes.

A symphony of life thrived within this enclosure.

Vibrant as the colors of a dream,
the birds dwelled in this aviary clutched to the sky.

Their colorful plumage was a sign of
healthiness and they danced in the air as if they were swimming.

Without noticing my presence, they
flaunted their resplendent feathers comically.

But, with a second look, you could see
that the cage is mostly a barren wireframe exposed to the elements.

It was a world that needs its occupants to adapt to it.

Nervous birds continued to judge the other birds.

Charismatic birds continued to sing like idols.

They could be friends or enemies in this tiny world.

And the choice was obvious.

Below my knee, emerald grasses swayed
and rippled like cascading curtains, a vibrant tapestry in a
forgotten theater.

But you could see nobody watering it or appreciating it.

One day, a pigeon pilfered a
breadcrumb, and got revenged, its bone got broken by another.

It marked the arrival of violence in
the heavenly tableau.

This utopia, like many before it,
tiptoed towards inevitable tragedy.

It was the way of beings, to forever
yearn for more.

The skirmish ignited a quest for
alliances among the avian residents.

Strength emerged in numbers, and unity
was their fortress.

Feathers ruffled and tempers flared,
their captivating display resembled a broken society.

An awestruck witness with eyes aglow
like a child, stood captivated by their drama.

Soon, the injured and the aggressor
found themselves ostracized, making their minds run with anxiety.

The isolation proved too much to bear,
pushing the aggressor to strike again, this time with fatal
consequences.

The fallen bird lay lifeless,
breadcrumbs spilling from its beak like a silent elegy.

The menacing bird placed a claw atop
the fallen.

In a profound turn of events, other
birds began to bow to their unspoken ruler.

They bowed, and bowed, and bowed again.

But none dared to approach the enigmatic ruler.

Though the cage will become dirty, it was not mine,
yet I still felt a responsibility to tend to the fallen bird.

How could I do so without inadvertently
setting all the birds free?

My eyes fell upon a golden key, the key
to their prison.

Tentatively, I unlocked the cage, a
surge of emotion compelling me to set them free.

Yet, not one dared to venture beyond
the threshold.

The mockingbird's violent gaze
paralyzed me, deterring any interference.

I yearned to give the fallen bird a
proper farewell, but my hand remained tied.

With a heavy heart, I sealed the cage,
my silent plea that the owner would return, hoping he would bring a
resolution to this poignant riddle suspended in the sky.

Butterflies flew in the church's
backyard.

A loving couple walked into the stage.

They proclaimed their love amidst a sea
of spiraling confetti.

The guests clapped their hands as
though they had won a lottery.

The butterflies flew away like a gust
of wind.

The bride stopped smiling as she
experienced her tummy getting squeezed by the dress.

The groom took a sharp look at the
crowd to see if there is any unwelcomed guests.

A camera shot light up the scene and
everyone smiled again.

A wedding is but the beginning of an
arduous journey.

This life commitment tests the couple's
endurance and intelligence.

Statistically, not many couples pass
the test.

And when they are surprised with two
sets of twins, their relationship is going up a cliff.

The parents are in pursuit of their
dream job and to feed their dream family.

That very commitment sprinkled little
attention to the little dwarfs in the family.

The younger twins fought for control
over the tv game console.

The older twins stayed in school and
played rugby till the school closed.

The hardworking parents fell sick and
slept like pigs.

The children complained about having
plain bread for lunch and that nobody was boiling drinking water.

The younger twins ditched their house
and enjoyed a fun stay at their friends' house while entertaining
themselves with computer games.

The older twins ditched their house and
ate outside, they played rugby at a public yard and slept at there
too.

Under the starry night sky, the young
couple reflect on their decisions.

They interlock their fingers in a
casual way.

"We have did everything we
promised in our wedding's vow." said the wife.

"But our family is like a broken
one." continued the husband.

"What are we working so hard for?"
asked the wife.

"So that we can build our dreams."
answered the husband.

But the missing kids ruin the vibe.

The temporary guests in the friends'
house finally faced mockery.

Because they were not helping with any
housework and dining for free.

The park sleepers are annoyed by the
local police, the police shooed them away.

The twins had no idea why, but they had
no choice.

When the four idiots returned home,
their parents smiled like it was a christmas gift.

The mum opened her arms and embraced
all of them.

The dad hurried to fry some eggs and
hams.

The mum cleaned the house and make
their beds.

The dad washed the plates and dry the
clothes.

The kids are happily playing console
games and watching rugby tv competitions.

They were in their own world, they felt
safe and joyful.

While the parents toiled hard, the kids
gets more comfortable.

The parents did everything they could
to ensure the kids will not want to leave the house again.

Someone say this is a dysfunctional
family.

Someone say this is a pointless family.

But only when you are part of it, then
could you feel it.

The tiny little warmness inside your
heart that keeps you going.

Maybe they are a misguided family.

Maybe they are loving in the wrong way.

But they have loved.

Maybe the kids are lacking in
discipline.

Maybe the kids needs some help.

Or maybe they are just kids, seeds of
happiness waiting to be sprout.

I went to school but I failed all my
tests.

I entered an university but I did not
graduate.

I am smartest amongst all, among the
idiots I meant.

Flair in my presence, so bright and
keen,

Overcoming challenges, I am a resilient
man,

Xeroxing wisdom and dreams into the
air,

Radiating warmth with a spirit so
serene,

Ambitious and creative, a force always
seen,

Inspiring others with a better drive,
not so green,

Navigating life's journey, like a
fearless marine,

4 represents all that I knew of, so
pristine.

I was a fool.

When I asked to be the smartest person
alive.

My desires grew numb, for I sought
knowledge above all else.

Refusing to work, my income was none.

My family was burdened with my foolish
plight.

But the society kept on continue
running like a car engine.

I was absorbed in my own brilliance and
could not cared for mundane tasks.

I have the solutions to society
problems,

but I could not solve the problem from
my own.

I was like gollum from the lord of the
ring,

I hoarded my wisdom like an ignorant
fool.

To be the wisest, I believed, no other
could surpass.

As striving for the best devoured my
soul.

I became a mere husk of my former self.

I finally tried to set my knowledge
free.

In the form of stories and poetries.

I hope my creations could help heal
wounds' deep bends.

And entertain those who cannot sleep.

I do not want to be a fragment in
space,

floating endlessly and aimlessly.

A masterless samurai hones his sword
skill amongst the tranquil bamboo hill.

His sword skills moves like butterfly
that sprays the enemies with red ink.

He was known as the Crimson tempest.

He enters fight regularly, and he
hopped like a bird, then evaded enemies' hits like a fly.

He slowly closed the distance towards
his targets.

Then he stabbed them twice, as precise
as possible.

Once an arena, the bamboo hill turns
back into a quiet hill.

As the war clouds darkened the horizon.

He became interested of all the
possible challengers.

In preparation for his battle, he ate
simple tofu served by a beautiful maiden.

He released his sword from the
scabbard.

An aura of power sends lightning to the
battlefield.

The fighting samurais and archers were
confused.

As there was someone killing soldiers
from both sides of the faction.

The general sends in the shuriken
throwers.

Shurikens chased after the Crimson
tempest but he just dodged it like a mole.

Hugging onto an archer, he lifted him
upside down.

He stole his bow and fired arrows to
pin down the shuriken throwers.

He charged like a war horse, through
the grass of enemies.

Using his ultimate technique, he
exploded many slashes to the enemies.

His power and range was incredible.

And the general flee like a rabbit.

As the sakura blossoms fall, the
ministers revealed that the recent wars had only brought losses.

Capturing territories becomes a risky
buisness, so the shoguns sought for a better path.

A peaceful river brought in many
herons.

The Crimson tempest reminisce of the
tofu maiden.

The little tavern became a house for
the pair.

One sword to rule them all.

Dumber than dumb, he was not.

He was just foolish, the foolishest in
the village.

He carried buckets of water, but went
to the wrong village.

He preserved salted lamb, but there

was no snowfall in the desert.

Even as people mocked and laughed at
him, nobody would ever correct him.

So, he carried on with his foolish
ways, like a ballad, like a joke, sang by old, sang by kids.

When the morning ray hits his face, he
stood up with a sudden mare.

Controlling his urge to sleep more, he
crawled into the deepest pit, collecting trays of minerals.

He believed what his father had told
him, to build a wealth of a life time.

But what he did not know, was that he
had already earned enough for several life times.

He believed he was the most hardworking but what

he did not knew was that he was also the foolishest.

Upon a serene sight, his concentration
took a crash.

Ray, ray, what have you done?

Your foolishness, it blinded the sun~

How could you ever leave your pick axe
behind?

How could you ever ditched your crew
mates behind?

"Hello! Hello!"

cried the other diggers trapped inside
the dungeon.

But nowhere, was foolish ray to be
found.

A beautiful one entrancing him, from
tip to toe.

Calling him sweetie and want his money.

"Oh oh, I have plenty of it, take
what you want, for you will be mine."

Ray, ray, what have you done?

You handed your gold coins but had
taken none in return.

Oh sad, sad~

the other diggers, what fate is
lying in stall for them?

Walking into the desert, searching for
his jewel.

The sun scorching on his legs, turning
red and turning sore.

Ray, ray, what have you done?

Your path of distance is too far away
from home.

The sun crash, and the dark sleeps,
ray, ray, you have nowhere to go.

Under the starlit heavens, ray was lost
in the sandy, windy, desert.

He was lost in life, his shadows fickle
like a firefly.

Ray, ray, why are you following me?

Peeking at you, lost in the stars.

I wonder, if I should just leave you
behind...

A clothed mysterious woman camped in
the cold desert.

Another day, another determination.

He braved through the sand storm and
got away with another.

Ray, ray, why are you so foolish?

You have been forsaken, why are you so
dumb?

Ray, ray, covered in blanket of sand.

He thought to himself, maybe he was not
as rich as he thought.

Blinded by his foolishness, he thought
he could not even afford another star.

"Ray, ray - -"

"- - Ray! Ray!"

The kiss of life brought him back.

Never did he expected, the last one he
did seen,

was the one always on his mind.

The beautiful maiden as bright as the
sun.

Her long black hair swindled down like
tree vines.

Ray, ray, what have you done.

Your foolishness, it blinded yourself.

Never did he expect, what he saw was an
illusion coming from his mind.

Chamber of walls, shadows growing upon
each.

As solitude eatens the heart, the cold
hard ice begins to thaw.

I lay on the bed, begin to reminsce,
begin to hate and begin to weep.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the
prettiest of them all?

Once you said it was me but now it is
she.

How could things change?

When I never change.

A poisonous snake slithered across the
window's arm.

A spirit peeking behind a door.

My face was black, blue and full of
resentment.

No one dared to come near me.

Like a beautiful rose with thorns.

My eyes were round, my lips looks nice
and I walk with grace.

But like a witch, I walked into a
storm.

Thinking I have control over things.

When I was forsaken, my hatred grew and
never stop.

I became the real me.

I wish I am a fool, drowning in my
sweetest memory.

But like the rose petals, you pulled it
off one by one.

All I want in life is another me.

Not you.

Give me another chance to relive my
youth.

Gift myself to another man.

During scenes of happiness, there
should only be love and harmony.

Paper getting crushed.

Ink getting smirked.

Wishing getting ignored.

Ice getting break.

Mindy: Study, study and more study.
When is it my break time?

Juliet: The teacher is slacking and is
not teaching the class anything. Am I going to fail my exams?

Suzy: The discipline master keeps
getting on my nerves. I am getting punished for every single thing
that I do.

The three girls complained about their
school lives while walking into their classroom.

Teacher law entered the classroom, the
students stood up while screeching the chairs across the concrete
floor.

Law: Hey! Do you know how noisy this
is?

Our neighbours from beside the school
are complaining about the noise coming from this class.

A lonesome student walks into the
classroom but was stopped.

Law: Can't you see I am teaching the
class?

Where are your manners?

Step back out of the classroom until I
am not busy talking.

She took out a bunch of papers written
to the principal.

Law: I know what you all had wrote
behind my back, everything you told about me are lies.

She walked around the classroom glaring
every student up close.

Law: The principal had told me to leave
my position, but where do you think you are getting another english
teacher at this time of the year?

We only have half a year left before
your graduation exams. This is the most critical moment of your life
and you are ruining it for yourselves.

You must learn to be patient and bear
with me.

All I want to do is help you all become
a better person, when you all are a better person, you will be able
to understand why I am scolding you all everyday.

It is for your own good.

Juliet: But you only gave us one
english homework.

Law: Silence! When did I give you the
permission to talk?

Don't you know you have to raise your
hand for permission to talk, how can you just talk whenever you feel
like it.

There are 40 students in this
classroom, if everyone just speaks whenever he wants to, it would be
like a noisy vegetable market.

Is that what you are trying to do?

The students in the classroom are still
standing because they have not do the class greeting yet.

Teacher law sneered at the late student
outside the classroom and let him walk in.

Student Suzy sit down, and students
nearby followed suit.

Law: Hey! We have not greet each other
yet, everyone will keep on standing until the sitting students stand
up and we all do a proper greeting.

The students stood up and everyone did
a short bow and said "Good morning teacher".

Mindy: You guys don't know what you all
are missing, vocabulary, grammar, letter writing, speech and
conversational skills.

The tution outside of school is
teaching all these, but we are doing nothing here except being
scolded.

Juliet and Suzy nods, but paying for
tuition fees is going to be a big matter as it requires their
parents' funding.

Law: I am returning all of your
homework since I will be leaving the school.

When students took a look at their
papers, they were shocked, it was just marked with a "seen".

There were no helpful corrections or
advises.

All they did in six months was writing
a survival story that is one page long and their papers are not even
getting reviewed.

This is way too much.

The three girls tried to go the toilet.

Law: Where are you all going?

If something were to happen to you
girls, who is going to answer for that? Me.

At least tell me where you are going.

Girls (frustrated): Toilet.

But they never returned.

These clever girls knew something fishy
was up, the other teachers were bad but they are at least doing
something like reading aloud from the textbook.

They started to form a self-study
group.

Their friendship bloomed and their
grades soared, they make homework and tests for themselves as though
they are the teachers themselves.

When unshackled from the suspicious
teacher's grip, they found out that what they had been missing was an
ocean of knowledge, captured within a tiny textbook.

1 year ago, Mindy, Juliet and Suzy
decided to hang out after school. Mindy's parents were rich and she
can easily afford a taxi, but after 30 seconds, a wild woman stopped
the moving taxi.

Law: How dare you? I stood here for
hours and you girls tried to steal my taxi, I am going to tell this
to everyone, I know you are from this school, oh, I know your
discipline master, you girls will get it from me.

The taxi driver drove the taxi away.

Taxi driver: I am sorry, I thought she
was your mother or something like that.

Wearing a female suit, Law entered the
school.

With a big smile, she showed her
overqualified certifications to be a teacher.

The principal welcomed her without a
second thought.

Grey white beard flowing down his chin,
he sees that someone have manipulated a planet.

Mercedes: The growth of this planet is
too slow, lets pump in more living beings.

Deers, humans, dragons and fishes
sprouts out of nowhere.

But it seems like these animals cannot
co-exist in peace with each other.

Putting in living beings is easy, but
taking them out is the hard part, you have to know each of their
locations.

The humans keeps on hunting deers and
fishes, while the dragons snacks on the humans.

Asta: Need some help?

Mercedes pouted, his sister comes to
make fun of him again.

Asta looked at his creations and rolled
her eyes up, it is not the first time she sees these living beings.

Mercedes: If you can help, help me,
otherwise, leave me alone.

Asta: Alright, alright.

The world breaks into seven parts, soon
the living beings forms their territories and begin a long lasting
peace.

Asta: Wo...

The planet tilted, as if from the
impact of Asta's burst.

The season of four begins, living
beings that could not handle the cold or heat suffered heavily.

Mercedes: Good plan, but not perfect.

Asta: Well, curating a planet needs
time.

Both of them knew it is an excuse as
the four seasons is not going anywhere.

Nahida teleported in, with seeds
scattered on the floor.

Nahida: I have seen what father have
did, let me emulate him.

Big forests grows, wide swamps spread,
many caves excavated.

Everyone was amazed at the automated
creation.

The living beings thrive as they now
have a refuge to hide from the elements and each other.

Both Mercedes and Asta knew Nahida
solved the problem, but their ego could not let them say even a
thanks.

A blue laser portal opens up, and the
father walks in.

Everyone got a little bit scared.

God and father charcoal: Did I not told
you not to interfere with the planets.

Gods: Yes, but look, it is working and
they are living well.

Charcoal sighed and took away their
powers.

Gods: What is happening? I am feeling
weak.

When the gods woke up, they are living
on the planet Dirt as humans.

Nahida: I could not cast any of my
spells anymore.

Asta: It is all your fault, you pulled
me into this.

Mercedes got angry and left his two
sisters behind.

Between the rolling hills of vendora
nests a crawling village.

The gardens and fields of rice are
stacked on top of each other like a rolling fountain.

But this village with a majestic view
of the skyline is abandoned.

Its citizens are walking like zombies
for days.

A drop of cure revitalizes a sick
patient.

But these citizens are not sick, they
are gone.

Like a scenery painting, the zombies
walks towards the tallest peak in the area.

Their spirits are attached to them but
their eyes are dead.

They are looking for something,
something not even me could explain it very well.

So let me continue on the story of what
they are walking towards to.

A realm of binding clouds and scattered
suns changes the days and nights.

The dragging of feet sounds brings a
chilly vibe to the remote mountain paths.

When a golden shine tries to distract
the campers, they were not distracted.

For their eyes were white and their
movements were zombie-like.

However, the distance was so long that
even the zombies tired down their pacing.

A normal human can only walk for 4
hours, so for these extraordinary beings,

it is quite a feat to walk for 4 days
before slowing their feet down.

As the air gets lighter and lighter,
these poor walkers could not breathe properly,

but they kept on marching pompously.

And a bigger challenge appears, the
night curtain draws in and the nocturnal animals makes their
presence.

But the travellers did not stop, they
just kept on walking and walking as though they can see in the thick
blanket of darkness.

There were rustling of leaves,
whimpering of trees and shallow breaths of animals. Finally, they
walked too high up, the natural vegetation gets sparse and the
animals are changed from four feets to winged creatures. Bats, owls,
eagles and vultures peered at the strange visitors. What are they
coming here for?

Some traders wearing masks visited the
abandoned village in the rolling hills but are terrified when they
could find no one in.

The sun eats the flesh of the walkers,
their bones making popping sounds and their muscles getting red. The
cliff gets ever vertical, no sane person would walk further.

But they did, just like mindless
zombies.

The wind turns into cold icy ice, and
their determination runs dry.

Their suffering is cooled by the icy
vapours.

And they finally reached a no man
destination.

Wild herbs, rare flowers and thousand
old trees welcomes the passengers.

Finally, they gained their intelligence
and starts eating the medicinal herbs in raw form.

Then, they slowly turned into one of
them.

No more humans were spotted.

The lonely gust of wind splatters
against nothing.

The faces of people have turned into
contorted tree stumps.

The birds quiet down and the bees makes
no sound.

In a strange town called Willow Wool,
there is a strange ghost who has itchy armpits, he keeps scratching
armpits but he could not scratch away the itch, so he decided to
scratch the armpits of living people.

Grumble tale is a rich noble, he is
rich and cared not for his appearance, so his armpit hair grew very
long and voluminous, eventually the armpit hair ghost scouted him and
rested in his mansion. Every time, Grumble tale stays at home lazily,
the ghost would come towards him and scratch his armpit hair, forcing
him to cut it or shave it, but he would not do so, he would rather
leave the house and let the sun dry out his armpit hair, hoping to
kill any germs on it that was causing the itch.

But he did not go very far, he just
went to his nearby garden, and there was a mossy tombstone, his
parents were doctors and were famed for their expert medicinal
skills. He went back inside the mansion, and took some of the
anti-itch bottles and applied to his armpit hair. Even though the
itch stopped temporarily, the itch eventually came back.

Finally he stared into the mirror and
started to shave.

But the armpit hair avoided the shaver
and attacked the man instead.

The ghost's image was reflected in the
mirror, it was angry and determined to kill him instead.

Grumble: Maid! Maid!

But when the maid came in, she shrieked
in terror, as his dead master laid on the floor with flocks of shaved
armpit hair, as though he did a deadly battle with it.

The director liked this ancient tale
very much and decided to make it into a modern ghost movie for
teenagers.

Director: Start!

Rachel was ill and sick, she keeps
scratching her armpit and the classmates chuckled.

Rachel: Stop laughing.

But she kept scratching more and more
violently until it starts to scare the classmates.

A classmate decided to comfort her and
told her to stop scratching.

But mysteriously, the classmate started
to scratch her armpits too.

It was a strange sight to see two
pretty students scratching their armpits in the middle of the
classroom. But it gets even worst, rachel started to bleed and cough,
her long and black armpit hair starts to fell out. And scarily, it
started to move towards the classmates.

The male students shouted, “Ahhhh!”
and ran out of the classroom.

The female students started to move
backwards from the moving armpit hair and grouped together like a
flock of sheeps.

A male student, daniel, gave a red face
towards the camera, “What is going on?”. He had both of his hands
shuddering in dramatic expression. “No! Do not attack me!”.

Director: Cut!

The director directly cut the movie
because of daniel, he did not like how the acting was becoming
overdramatic, he liked a hint of authenticity. His assistants
listened to him and and group up all the actors and re-explained the
whole scene again.

Head assistant: The woman inflicted
with the armpit hair ghost is the main character, the rest of you
should move away from the camera and away from that woman, stop
blocking the camera.

Director: Start!

The scene quickly reset and rachel was
sobbing pitifully, her armpit hair began to swirl and fly, the classmates
screamed and ranaway, the other half of the classmates took out
tables and chairs to defend themselves.

Daniel, the troublemaker started to
repeat a long chain of unknown words as though he was possessed. “Oh
no! The armpit hair ghost has gotten into me.” He started to
scratched his armpit continously and thoroughly.

The director got sick and realized
Daniel was away from Rachel anyway, he can just do a close-up shot to
rachel's face and call it a day.

The scene reset and the camera roll.

But then, the director heard some
choking noises and aimed the camera to the extra actor, and it was
daniel again, he was spitting out white foam, his eyes were tired, he
dragged his hands and feets towards outside of the classroom, but
after crawling 3 steps, he pretended to faint while still inside the
main camera's shot.

The director tried not to angry, or
everyone will leave their job, it is actually time to stop shooting.
He explained to everyone, there is overtime salary, and everyone
agreed to continue filming.

This time round, the director faced
almost all the cameras towards rachel.

The pale woman in white student
uniform keeps panicking for no reason, she started to bit her finger
nails, and then unlike of a lady, she started to scratch her armpit
hair vicarously, but the more she scratched, the more the armpit hair
grew, it grew long and voluminously as though it was expanding in
size.

And then, the armpit hair dropped off
and started to chase after the other classmates.

The male classmates says, “No way, I
am out!”.

The female classmates stepped on each
other in fear, trying to avoid becoming the victim of the armpit hair
ghost.

Daniel stood at the corner of the
classroom like a chinese zombie, he just stood there motionlessly as
though he was stunned, his eyes fixated on the supernatural event,
looking at Rachel collapsing and the armpit hair running everywhere.
And, he just stood there.

2 months later, the director got the
best new director award.

He was so happy about the acknowledgement and that he received free
restaurant meals and free overseas sightseeing tickets to be shared
with his employees. As the free tickets are bound to identification
number, only the person with that ID could use the coupon.

Director: Where is daniel? His tickets
are still with me.

The assistant prowled inside the free
banquet restaurant and brought the manager to Director.

Manager: We do not have an actor named
daniel.

Director (Insisting): Daniel is the guy
that caused trouble that day, his face was chubby and have many
wrinkles, strange for his age. When he becomes emotional, trying to
steal the limelight, his face turned shiny red.

The manager shook his head and could
not offered any help.

The assistant played the movie in his
phone.

Director: Yes, this guy.

Manager: I did not hire him. You told
me to find all the handsome guys and pretty girls to make a movie
that teenagers wanted to watch.

Director: Then who is he?

120km per hour, 4 hours = 480 km.

Every day, the passengers took a long
ride in order to curb global warming.

But the 4km x 2 trips hours journey
front and back makes the sitters grumble with unhappiness.

If only the government could build up
factories and work centers beside the residential area.

But when you get close enough to the
work district, you can see why the government had not done so.

The weather is putrid black and the
land is void of vegetation, it was as if pollution had spread their
fingers outside of the work district.

I am a train conductor, but rather than
collecting tickets, I ensure the happiness of the riders. It is a
difficult job because I am a robot.

I have no feelings, emotions or
empathy, I can only ask them what do they want, what complaints do
they have? And using the AI database, I will be given a adlib
solution to ease their journey.

The sun have already risen and shone
towards the metallic sky tracks, but some insiders within the fine
comfort of moving rails are still sleeping.

Carriage 1 – 8 people sleeping in
vertically stacked beds, checked.

The train swerves like an anaconda, but
it have extender arms that makes the train moves like frictionless
bullet going only straight. Sounds like advanced technology, but the
truth is the extender arms always break, requiring often repairs,
hopefully, someone can invent a more economical solution for it.

When the train leaves the tall
skyscrapers of newcity, we can see tonnes of man-made gardens and
pathways circling the perimeter of the led glowing city.

Carriage 2 – 5 people eating and
drinking at the coffee clubhouse, checked.

The aromatic smell of the coffee awakes
those who stepped in here, once a private location for first class
passengers, it is now allowed for all kinds of visitors into this
vicinity.

One can zoom in the glass wall of this
particular train carriage, it zooms towards faraway areas and
locations.

At the very end of the horizon, you can
see walls and outposts, a deep line of barrier to divide between the
territories of countries. All the exotic plants and animals resides
here. People that lives here are mostly ecologists and soldiers. Not
that great of a place to live in, as there is no train to fetch you
back to main city at the end of the day, but then again, some people
hate taking the trains.

Carriage 3 – 20 people at the family
unit, checked.

Kids are drawing and painting, it is
quite a noisy market in here, but there are no shops here, only
families.

One painting showed a swimming pool
resort, quite the imagination as there are no such facility in
newcity. Another painting showed a train towering above the grass
fields, zigzagging towards the working district, quite realistic for
a child's drawing, then I saw that he was copying a photo from a
newspaper. Third drawing are made with crayons, showing their parents
and child smiling while holding hands.

Robot: 3 more hours before reaching to
destination.

I automatically announce the time at
this location because the families always ask this question.

Realistically
it is mentally unhealthy for the patrons to take long rides to and fro the
main city and work center, especially everyday, this is why such a
carriage unit was designed, to simulate a healthy lifestyle of a
family, otherwise, who would still want to have a family?

Carriage 4 – 8 people, socializing
area, nicknamed blind-dating area, checked.

Humans are flexible animals, when they
do not have time to do meetups and dating, they turned towards the
most unexpected dating area, having a romance in the train. There was
a magazine dedicated to finding love on train, the magazine was
called Train of lines.

The term “lines” have multiple
meanings, it symbolizes the physical train routes, the friendships,
the relationships and family bonds within the compulsory train route
that humans have to take every day.

Every minute goes a new train, once you
leave a train station, you might never see the other passenger again. The
author had once of this experience, but flirting with a stranger at
public area is embarrassing, but indeed, he never saw her again.

In order to console his loss of
possible romance, he draws out a character, Red.

Red saw a girl with brilliantly
coloured hair, he walks towards her and asked questions about her job
and hobby.

It was obvious that anyone trying to
talk in this area is most likely trying to get a significant one, so
Orange did not want to waste his time and said, “I prefer girls.”.

Unabased, Red decided to head towards
another girl, stylished short bob hair with wide spectacles. The
conversations lasted a bit longer but still ended.

Lena said, “I want a rich husband so
I do not have to ride on this long and boring train anymore.”.

Near to the next train carriage, Mindy
dropped her books, uncombed and without makeup, she looks ordinary,
Red went ahead to help her carry her books without special thoughts.

But she responded quietly, “I am
trying to attract that bookworm's attention over there, next time, just leave me
alone, thanks.”.

Over 2 hours of rejection, Red finally
stood still. But during this period of time, the orange girl was
witnessing the whole epic row of getting rejected over and over
again. Red caught that Orange was looking at her, but he knew she did
not like him.

I finally came in to do the routine,
clearing glasses of water and sweeping the dust. The whole dirty work
made the group of youngsters squeeze into the corner of the train
carriage.

Red did not want to make the group
feels uncomfortable so he stepped out to the dusty area voluntarily,
but strangely a femine hand grabbed his arm, it was Orange, he was
delighted that such a beautiful girl touched him, he now feels more
comfortable standing at the corner of the train carriage.

Interestingly, Orange girl admitted her
interest in Red which left Red bizzarely confused and asked why.
Orange explained, “I have a fear of being cheated on but it looks
like you have a hard time getting a girl.”. Red laughed but he
wished he had not asked that question, he wanted an answer like he
was handsome or something like that.

Lena looking for a rich guy was instead
flirting with an office worker that did not looked rich. Somehow
falling in love, makes the train ride more pleasurable, perhaps.

Mindy finally gets to talk with the
handsome guy reading magazines. “What are you reading?” asked the
timid Mindy. Handsome guy responded, “Nothing important.”. When
Mindy peeked at the magazine's content, it was unforunately full of
muscular guys doing poses and she lost interest in him.

Just 5 minutes of cleaning, I seems to
have changed the dynamic of this carriage area.

Carriage 5 – 12 people, cooking and
showering area, checked.

This is the only area that have water
supply, which is why two different compartments are placed together.
All the water and rubbish goes downwards into a drone train
underneath the main train, when it is full, the drone train descends
to the ground and slowly release the liquid and disposal into
prearranged locations.

There is a 1 minute cooking example
showing repeatedly on the TV screen, but it showed how to steam
dolphin buns, cute but tasteless.

The occupants instead started frying
sweet and sour cabbage fried rice and olive dishes.

Carriage 6 – Control area, checked.

I made an annoucement, 1 hour left to
arrive to destination, hope you have a good journey.

“Aye ya,” a short captain commanded
his crew to keep sailing at max knots. “Rats,” muttered his
crewmates as though they were greeting him. Captain rats is a famous
pirate, eh... famous for running away. And today, a batch of royal
navy ships is seeking the vulnerable back of his pirate ship.

The wind slowed down as though it was
letting captain rats to be caught. Rats stood lonely at the helm of
his big bad ship, also known as the black serpent.

Even though it sounds like a cool name,
it actually meant that he is a notorious pirate, ones that even goes
after the other pirates, whom have been assaulted by the navy guards.
So, buying rations and materials is absolutely difficult for him
because nobody trust him enough to do a fair trade. Sometimes, they
have to kidnap a merchant ship just to do trading, the merchants were
surprised when they were not looted, but it was because they are
holding mostly fishes and seafood, which would just rot at the black
serpent's belly.

The crew of 10 are capable and
all-rounder, but they are deaf against the captain's orders. There is
some sort of wind noise and sea crashing wave sounds, which might
have caused their bad listening.

“Navy!” screamed the singular guy
right at the peak of black serpent's eyes.

A huge momentum bumped the majestic
ship, the captain wheeled 180 degrees to everyone's surprise. “If I
can't run, I must fight.” battle roared the captain.

These days, the royal navy moves in
group of 4 ships, it would be pretty stupid to fight against them.
The crew moaned, “We have not stolen anything this week yet, why
are they on our tail?”. But captain rats knew this year, he
plundered an ultra expensive merchant ship, he hid away the treasures
in his private cabin, unbeknownst to his members.

The black serpent flew like a raven and
the navy frigate speeds up as well, the sea becomes a knight jousting
course.

Boosh! Boosh! Boosh!

The endless cannonball firing launched
water tornadoes and windy rain.

Captain rats' face was drenched but he
eyed towards his opponent at the other ship, interestingly, the other
captain was in drenched clothes, staring right back at him.

Under rats' order, the crew fired less
cannon balls and tried to ram their ship into the navy instead, this
way, enemy cannonball might misfire into their own ships.

Like a madmen, the pirates jumped over
the sea, into the enemy's frigate. Pistols kept on firing, as strange
as it looks, the pirates looks like they are winning, they do have
much more real combat experience than the navy to be fair. But then,
the enemies started firing cannon balls, into their other ships where
the pirates have boarded.

That insane move blasted many lives and
wood away.

The wind blows against their mummified
faces as though taunting them.

But the victims finally looked at ease.

After the serene sightseeing, they
drown into the deep sea.

And they slowly withered into
skeletons.

Captain rats started to bring his
remaining crew to pilot the enemy's frigate and started loading lead
balls and gunpowder, Boom! Boom! Boom!

The enemies' firepowder they hijacked
was much more frightening than their own arsenal.

The second navy frigate roasted into
fire, smoke blew upwards from the punished wreckage.

“Did we won?” questioned the crew
humbly.

Captain blade stood on his big white
ship beside his other brown frigate.

His painful look showed that his two
ships was indeed lost, if he returns back, he will be demoted, fined
or sold as slave. In other ways, there is no way back. Blade wheeled
his ship away from the burning ships into the main sea and continued the
line of merchant ship pathways, waiting to get another chance to hit
the rat.

“Moy moy moy, Ah!”

“Moy moy moy, Ah!”

“Moy moy moy, Ah!” the chant gets
louder and louder, then they thew precious sparkling apple juice into
the air as celebratory action.

A few days later,

drips of rainwater turned into pouring
water.

The pirate crew became wet dog and they
could not see their route.

A lightning bashed through the ship's
above, they got frightened as though they are bombarded by the navy
once again.

“Ahh!” a pirate crew cried out.

A tentacle fulled of sucking plates
juiced the pirate and dragged him into the deep ocean.

Pirate rats just realized that the wind
was always blowing, but the ship moved slowly because a monster was
clutching onto their ship underneath. A big eye ball rose up from the
sea, the rain poured and poured, the eye looked at the crew members
as though it was counting them.

“I will become legendary if I slay
the kraken.” Captain rats swinged his sabre and flinged towards the
big eye ball, but the eyelid closed instantly. While 3 more tentacles rose from
the sea from the other three directions of the ship, each of them took a
victim, and captain rats was left with less than 5 crew members, as
good as not a captain anymore.

“Stop fighting! Hide into the
cabins,” Captain rats realized the futility of combat.

But some of the crew members kept on
shooting bullets, it made the tentacle bleed with blue blood, but
more and more tentacles came up, the huge tentacles mopped the ship's
deck, breaking everything in its path including two cannons and two
pirates.

Captain rats with his 3 crew members
hid in the captain's cabin, but then the members found out the
captain's hoard that he had not shared or even announced of these
treasures. One of the tallest crew member started to challenge
captain rats inside that small cabin.

A few shadows striking each other and
the tall shadow got limped, the captain quickly explained the
situation. “One of us is a spy, he was trying to steal this
treasure, I was keeping it safe for us, but now that so many pirates
are gone, the spy is probably dead too.”. No match for his
captain's sword skills, the tall member accepted that horribly bad
explanation.

A loomping shadow swam through the
underneath the sea wave and the rainwater stopped.

Spotting the chance, the two navy
frigates reappeared.

Captain blade laughed at the smithereen
pirate ship.

Captain rats threw a life saving boat,
with his crew members, quickly paddling to safety to a nearby island.
It was a mysterious island not drawn on any map, but then again, it
was smol.

But captain blade did not chased them,
they went to the ship and plundered the secret treasure and burned
down the broken pirate ship. Finally he is saved, he will probably be
promoted, given a pay raise or be married to a wealthy merchant.
Nobody cares about captain rats now and that is really bad, because
he have no more ship except for a tiny paddling rowboat stuck in a
mysterious island at the center of the deep ocean. In other words, he
was lost.

Captain rats cried and the crew members
knew that things were going south. After walking for hours, they
started to chart a map which navigates around the island's important
places like food and drinking water.

They survived for a few years without
nothing, but they are reaching their limit, this is their last chance
to save themselves, they have to ride the rowboat. They carried all
their rations and coconuts of drinking water into the boat while
ensuring it would not sink.

Finally they left the island, but it
felt weird, because nobody was paddling. Apparently the island was
moving, not them. The island bursted giant waterfalls into the clouds
and four legs ascended from the sea, his head was a demonic flat head
tortoise. The leviathan kept on gliding the sea, moving at a fast
speed akin to a navy frigate.

Captain rats rowed the boat with
everyone, trying to get aboard the leviathan, but alas, they missed
their bus. Now they are stranded in the middle of the sea with a tiny
rowboat.

Captain rats and his crew members
groaned, “Rats.”

People dancing like fireflies in the
festival of the cosmos.

Our hearts taking a flight through the
serene carnival.

Why could I always find myself in your
dreamlike eyes?

Was it love or an accident?

Thundering on the beachy sand, we
chased each other backs.

The night covered us in blanket and we
could only hear the ocean's whispers.

Why does the sea rises and the sun
sets?

Is it physics or a phenomenon?

Youuuuu arrrrrrrre al-ways in my
eyesssss ~

I couldn't believe it, when you said
you love me,

because I felt the ~ Same ~ too.

Youuuuu begiiiiin to raiiiise like the
beautiful sunshin ~

Your true glamor radiates on my skin.

~ Some ocarina music ~

As soft as a pillow, as huggy as a
bear.

The taste so sweet and the edges so
clean.

River flowing into my heart.

I could catch a fishes or two ~

But a hand grabbed me into the depths.

Savouring
in the view of the corals and tropical fishes.

Every time, you touches my heart.

I could feel it, the rhythm of our
heartbeat.

Whether it is rain or shine,

I would never bear to be apart from
you.

~ Soft piano instrumental ~

Golden liquid dripping like syrup.

Basking in the heat, taking in all of
the sun's energy.

Feeling the wave of the gentle ocean.

Cool and clear, just like you.

Never forgetting the pain, you taught
me how to be stronger.

Laughing at the sea, forgetting the
sick.

You brought me up, from the deepest
depths of the sea.

I will always be your sun-kissed
orange.

~ I will always be your sun-kissed
orange. ~

In this maze of humans, we'll find our
way, our paths and our homes.

So please, do not forget me, wherever you
may go.

~ City noise and cars rumbling ~

Beating, beating, as soft as a feather.

As tender as an egg.

Flying from the symphony.

We make it this far.

But what is well never lasts.

I will hold you in my deepest
memory.

Just like when you held me when we were
diving into the beautiful sea.

Many multiverses exists, but none is as
shiny as planet dirt. This was the place where all kinds of creatures
flourish and flowers bloom. As the bee zapped across the space, the
satellites receives a drone bee signal, it reads: The impending doom
is coming, Vorgrath's Blade have been found. It was a legacy, a sword
that splits the planet dirt apart into two. Scientists have feared
that one day these rotating planets might collide into each other,
but they are talking about ten thousands of years later. While
fantasy warriors are more afraid of legacy weapons like this being
found and abused.

People busy in the market, marching in
the symphony of life and riddles. They bought lanterns and ate fish
biscuits. It was the annual festival, they dance with their lovers or
their families, hoping to use up their time to the most efficiency.

Two golden souls locked their eyes into
each other, they found their lips on each other. No need to talk,
just swing under the moonlight, no need to be embarrased, there are
many other couples too. But heaven cries and sky falls, the party
were drenched in blackness. The buses could not carry too much
passengers, and so, they stood under the rainfall. The biscuits
melted, the dancing stopped and people started chatting.

The rain never stopped, prompting
curiousity and understanding. Creatures of all kinds swam from the
sea up to the beach, frightening the partygoers. They were nagas,
lizardmen, starfisher and etc. But they came in reinforcement. They
received an ocarina message that the Vorgrath's Blade have been
found, it was a weapon that not only destroy the life of people on
land but creatures in sea as well. Romance was short making life
unfair, but these people were not cowards, they bring in their
swords, bows and guns, in preparation for whatever is to come.

A loud echo of siren boomed the cities,
people are waking up in the middle of the night, but to whose
attention, it was the king of atlantis. At a futuristic age, you
would have thought the world is governed by the government. It is
governed by the government until it became corrupted and bankrupted,
and so the new age of monarchy existed for the past 200 years.

The ash exploded, the lightning splits,
rumours spreads like fire and chaos descended upon the realm. Some
people could not care for it, some people are still playing computer
games and some people are just watching TV waiting for the calamity
to calm down.

The fire golem roasts itself in fire, I
have come to claim my treasure. It holds the power of might in his
stone hands, the cut is bleeding into the fabric of existence itself.
As strange of a creature it is, it is also scared of hurting of
itself in confusion. The realm of shadows rise a new hero (No name),
he was a lone figure, but he brought plenty of arrows. Rushing up and
down the tranquil landscape, he was prepared for a fight to the
death.

A tree protecting its sanctuary for a
millenium have finally let go of its roots and stood up like a
walking giant (No name). The branches breaks and cracks, it moans but
continues to moves forward. All the smaller trees started to move
away to let the giant walking tree pass through.

The fire golem walks into a desolate
port city, attempting to sharpen his treasure. The ghostly silence of
the city showed that the citizens is aware of the news and had ran
away. The sword punished rows of farmlands and multi-story stone
houses, it was just one swing, and one kilometer square of
destruction spews forward. The fire golem caught a deadly arrow
towards him, the arrow was spiralling and fast, it is almost
impossible to catch it but the aura of the sword slows everything
that comes nears it, it was a cheating advantage.

The arrow combusted in the golem's
hands. It fire teleported 1 kilometer away and landed near the
nameless archer, the slow motion archer was trying to acrobatics away
but the golem just stuck the fire sword into his chest, downing his
legacy.

Tonnes of werewolves spotted the
unnatural, rather than running in fear, they all came forward and bid
to join in the gang and admitted the golem as their new alpha. But
the golem is not from this planet, it needs no allies or families,
after the destruction, it will return back to its secret hideout,
somewhere in the universe. The werewolves kept on walking the magma
floors till they become handicapped and dies off to the heat.

Once the government, now the rebels,
these foolish humans are trying to take advantage of the crisis and
turn over the monarchy, the battle of castle kept flowing like
endless sand warriors. The gigantic tree have already stood hold at
here, waiting for the arrival of its nemesis. And indeed, the demonic
golem have arrived to the most populated place on planet dirt, the
unfolding castle. Vampires dashed across the skies and striking the
gun soldiers, while giant trebuchets threw 1000 kilogram of white
stone onto the castle. The castle breaks like ice cream sticks. The
king of atlantis was enraged and saddened at the same time.

As the inner conflict heats up, the
fire golem charged up his Vorgrath's Blade: Death to all weaklings!

A shockwave of lava and sound
vibrations clashed the scene, it was as if a nuclear bomb have
erupted and shredded the land into bits and pieces. 80% of the castle
disappeared, what was left of it looks like a volcano now. The
fighting warriors and siege machines got turned into black charcoal
and smeared onto the battlefield like crayons.

In a surprise turn of events, the king
of atlantis is riding on the shoulder of the giant walking tree, it
marched pompously towards the nightmarish shadow. The fog of war
keeps rising and concealed everyone's position. The king of atlantis
turns up to be a mage rather than a fighter, he opens the chakra from
his body and released more water vapours and misted the entire
battlefield. All the blindness is slowing down the devastator.

Alukah was a cursed vampire, he was
always looking for someone to end his life and it looks like today is
the day. Eliana is a human treasure hunter, she gave a legendary
necklace to Alukah, an unlikely ally, since vampires do feast on
human's blood to survive.

Behind a wide computer screen, Adam, a
computer gamer and Minari a human cyborg was watching the fight
unfolding. They seems to be messing with some code, preparing to
launch a program far away from the battlefield.

Alukah danced like a spiralling
boomerang, he did many strikes towards the fire golem, bits of pieces
of rocks fell off from its body. It looks like Alukah has the upper
hand, so he kept continue to dig the golem bit by bit and finally
the golem was no more. The mist ended and there were no terrible
warlord anymore. A line cracks from the universe behind Alukah and a
final plunge of the Vorgrath's Blade sinks into the back of Alukah.
Alukah smiled as his body collapsed onto the corpse field.

The fire golem flew towards the king of
atlantis and did a uppercut with his Vorgrath's Blade. The king of
atlantis shielded himself with a simple spell, but that pulse of
forcefield pushed him far up to the sky to the space where he could
not breathe any oxygem. The giant tree brings out all its branches
and roots and tied down the fire golem in place. The fire golem sinks
into the ground as if it were trapped in quicksand.

Eliana triggered her legendary necklace
given to Alukah and the sucidal vampire was reborn. In exchange,
Eliana became a spirit destined to roam the world until her spirit
breaks. Although unhappy of his resurrection, he is now twice the
wiser, he knows the fire golem can teleport with the power of
Vorgrath's Blade, so his target is now that unholy weapon, he keeps
on zapping like a ping pong ball, clawing the blade again and again
but to no avail, his hands got torched instead, so he used his teeth
to break the blade but his head got torched into flames instead.

The fire golem was still sinking deep
into planet dirt, it seems the further he goes down, the hotter it
gets, it was as if he reaching the planet's core, a ball of flames
destined to consumes all that comes. Alukah's strikes did pushed the
blade away from the golem making the golem immobile against the
gigantic tree root wrestling, but his inner fire was slowly breaking
the tree roots apart, as the ropes breaks apart, he reached towards
the blade and teleported away.

Adam and Minari took the chance and
pressed the simulation world button. The whole world got saved into a
time slot. The sea creatures also configured their time space anomaly
cyberspace and stopped the time permanently. Now the human scientists
from space and land grouped together and play the simulation world
repeatedly trying to figure out which is the plan to bring down this
evil overlord. But during a few of these scenes, it showed that the
fire golem was the creators of the legacy of weapons, Vorgrath's
Blade is but one of twelve of them.

Despite the temporal unity of humans,
sea creatures, trees, vampire and etc, the races got greedy over the
legacy weapons and starts treasure hunting for them. Eliana is now on
a quest to destroy each and every one of these cursed weapons. The
gigantic tree bestowed a luminescent deer to Eliana and wished her
luck. Eliana is a spirit and cannot interact with worldly objects,
thus she needs to convince would be heroes to do her bidding instead.
The luminescent deer is named white deer akin to the light deer
religion, when people sees this mystical creature, they are more
likely to obey instructions from the deer rider, Eliana.

In a wide underwater world with boxes of transparent glass, there are a few fishes. These captivating fishes are called bettas, normally you would want to keep them in separate fish tanks, but this pet owner is experimenting with them. And as in natural order, the bettas started fighting, ending with a loser fish having to submit to their superiority, this fish have a distinct pale ocean blue fins and scales.

But the relentless strife was reduced when a bunch of fish flakes were dripped into the fish tank surface, the alpha bettas started gulping all that delicacies.

After the fishes were full, another hand drops in spherical balls of fish food. The weak blue finned fish was finally able to dine without being pushed away. When weeks have passed, the feeble blue fish transformed into a powerful fish with openly flared fins.

The once-bullied blue finned fish started to bash the other fishes in the aquarium, which is actually a common occurence with fishes. Fishes are not friends like humans, if they can eat each other, they would. But this blue fish is even stranger, after it was full from eating, another hand drops more fish food but this blue fish continued to block the other fishes from eating.

The other fishes started to lose colour and turned into brown and black from their red and purple fancy colours.

A school kid, Graves started to walk into the school premise, he turned back and thought of escaping but his parents were staring straight at him, urging him to enter school. Very soon, the larger students in the classroom started to intimidate and test him, realizing that he is weak, they started to toss his schoolbag aside callously. Then the school bullies started to spread malicious rumours about his character and that he was transferred to this school because of committing horrible acts.

Finally, Graves could not withstand the pressure anymore and he reached the school teacher for help, but the school teacher gave him a cold response.

Teacher: Then you should not have disturbed those kids in the first place.

Why would they harrass you if you did not bother them in the first place?

So tell me, why did you toss their schoolbags away?

Graves was dumbfounded, it was as if he is the school bully, he did not know about the rumours behind his back, he had no allies in this white dormitory because he is new.

He walks away with sadness, the parents became concerned and sent him to a mental health clinic. In this era, physical health clinic are more popular because doctors can issue medical letters allowing students to skip school days. Graves was frustrated and complained that he wanted to go to a physical health clinic instead because then, he is able to avoid school altogether.

Upon inquires, the doctor prescribed sleeping pills to the innocent kid but he gave no medical letter to Graves because a pyschiatrist do not have that power within this country. But, mysteriously when the doctor fills in the medicine bag, his slippery hands swapped the pills with a different one.

For many days, the school kid took his medicine, and it was as though he had metamorphosed. He started to wake up very early, he brushed his teeth thened floss his teeth. He started to do ten push-ups and various stretches daily. He prepared breakfast and even started to sweep his bedroom floor.

His sudden change of routine was being carefully reviewed by his parents. But since he did nothing bad, they call it a good sign.

But an unforeseen twist occurs for the unprepared parents when the discipline master had suspended Graves from school for 1 week. The details were vague as the discipline master knew the victims were troublemakers too as he had connections with whistleblowers.

But frighteningly, videos of Graves being bullied in school went viral from social media and news report. And the latest video was a shocking revelation for what had truly happened that had made Graves got suspended from school.

In the video, Graves whacked and kicked and punched the taunting school bullies. Their glasses got smashed, their bones looks twisted and there were heavy cuts from all over their bodies.

There were many video comments, asking how the school kid had became so strong in such a short period of time. Other comments were scrutinizing the school teachers' lack of interference.

When the parents kept asking about the incident, the once weak boy, now have the expression of a nonchalant gangster, he just said,“The mental health clinic will treat me, alright.”.

As strange as it is, a few men started to followed Graves. And then, they realized Graves have been visiting this mental health clinic routinely.

Soon enough, a police officer started to visit the psychiatrist’s clinic, instilling fear in Dr. Leonard as though he is in deep trouble.

Police: We know you are involved in a very special treatment, one that makes people angry and uncontrollable.

The police shared photos of a few school kids being badly beaten up.

Dr. Leonard acted surprised but claimed,“I have mostly gave counselling and sleeping pills to my patients, I am not involved in these incidents. Just take a look at the security camera and you will see that I am in the clinic all day long.”

Police: I know you have been giving secret medicines to your patients, tell me what you gave to Graves, and I will leave immediately.

Dr. Leonard: According to law, I am not allowed to reveal my patients’ details and medical history.

But the police officer did not gave up, he waited outside clinic, concealed within a parked car. When Graves and other school kids started exiting from the clinic, the policeman approaches them, offering $50 for their pills.

In a highly confidential military institute, a group of scientists conducts experiments all day long. Because the lights are always on, you could not tell whether it is day or night, this helps the scientists to be awake and do deep experiments.

A military general, Vince entered the compounds and asked about the task he had given to the scientists 1 week ago. The researchers stated that the pills are simply multi-vitamins.

General: So the psychiatrist was lying all along, these aren’t sleeping pills.

Researchers: Well, when there are enough vitamins, it helps the patient’s body to function properly and this includes being able to sleep well.

The general that was unconvinced that these are just ordinary multi-vitamins started to analyse the composition and had factories to mass-reproduce these pills.

When the soldiers walked into the food canteen, they started seeing a tray of free multi-vitamins besides the trays of food. They took it and ate them, thinking it would be healthy to do so.

But the general was frustrated by the outcome, more and more soldiers started to become drowsy and sleep longer.

General Vince stomped into the psychiatrist’ clinic and wanting answers. Being shocked by a military general’s appearance, Dr. Leonard finally revealed that all his medicines are placebos, because psychiatrists do not have the power to distribute or sell powerful medicines unlike physical health doctors.

Dr. Leonard: What is so miraculous that a bullied school kid finally fights back?

What is so surprising that overexerted soldiers started to feel sleepy?

Normal humans need to sleep 8 hours a day, you think your intense army schedule of 4 hours sleep a day is normal?

General Vince were speechless and left the man in peace.

1454 words, you may like Arakawa under the bridge 2010.

So, there were castles of villages atop a river hill. It looks formidable, one would muster a giant army before one dares to take it down. But when a traveller steps a foot in, he could see those walls are actually made of slim tree logs. The “castles” are an illusion with the hill raising up the vertical height of the villages’ buildings. And the tallest buildings have fake and unsteady rooms at the highest storey levels, although archers can temporarily stand on top on it to defend their village.

As enchanting as this village is, it does have its plague of problems. The civilians are most obssessed with these four hazards: Miscarriages, fast-ageing, sickness and random deaths. Even though these events are common occurences in other parts of the world, the difference is this medieval village have no hospitals, no king to redevelop this village, no priests to give them hope. When one is sick, one can only wait for death.

Rather than stressing their loved ones, the sick patients starts travelling to faraway into the woods in between the two tall mountains to live out the rest of their tragic lives.

But, mysteriously, after a few months, they returned in great health. The great news spread like a great celebration, the tale is distorted further and further from the truth. Finally a mom brings great news to her beloved son, a middle-aged business man lying on his bed all year round.

Mom: They have found the fountain of youth!

Sa Ke: And you believe in that?

Despite unbelieving in it, the frail man lifts himself up off the expensive bed and stared into the news article.

The mom quickly fetch a premium coffee for Sa Ke. But Sa Ke have already finished reading the newspaper.

Sa Ke: Mom, call a horse.

The old mom with happy tears bids farewell to his only son. Sa Ke sat on the horse carriage with his muscular cousin as his bodyguard. The three horses and the carriage rider starts riding off into the distance.

Along the way, Sa Ke kept having to stop the carriage for nature’s call, when Sa Ke is faraway, his cousin and also his bodyguard, Be Gu starts grumbling, soon, the carriage rider starts complaining together. However, they tolerate the big boss, because they would only be paid their second large fee when Sa Ke is safely sent forth and back.

The trees are old and straight, there were no signs of human activities or residences. Soon enough they saw another carriage coming in the opposite way, they stopped for a while and chatted a little bit.

New mom: Look at my baby, so healthy and happy.

The baby just looked at her mom ignoring the new visitors.

Carriage rider 1: So the rumours were real, there is a doctor in the woods.

Carriage rider 2: Not really, he doesn’t behave like a human, he just look like one, perhaps a shapeshifter.

Sa Ke: If he can heals my illness, I dun really give a care what he is.

Be Gu: He could be dangerous.

Carriage rider 2: That is the strange part, he does not collect a fee, one could not figure out his intention. When we leave the area, it felt like we had lost something, but we could not tell what we have lost.

The two carriages continued their separate ways with happier faces.

Akio was a young man living in the woods, he loved swimming and mingling with humans. But when cornered about his parents’ whereabouts, Akio goes into hiding. Eventually, people just stopped asking the sensitive question. When everyone was leaving this river canyon tiny village into the giant villages that looked like a castle, they invited Akio to tag along.

Akio: Have a safe journey.

Friends: Why are you not coming along?

Akio: I am bound to this place.

Friends: That does not makes sense.

Akio: It does not makes sense why you all have to leave either.

Unable to understand each other, they just gave each other a farewell hug.

Mysteriously, the friends’ injured arms are healed instantly. Everyone knows Akio can heal others but they thought that it was just a normal thing. Until when they reached unto the giant villages where they was no doctors, and some of them passed away due to sicknesses. The clever ones starts to return back to their birth place to find Akio.

Akio had a strange ability to absorb illnesses from anyone who sought his help. But only Akio knows the opposite of the coin. Every time Akio heals another, his own sickness gets doubled. Sooner or later, it would be he whom needs help.

Sa Ke and his crew reached the abandoned village. Akio let them into a comfortable straw house while he walks away. Vigilant Be Gu followed Akio steathily and saw that Akio was just preparing dinner for the night.

Akio directly jumped into the deep river grabbing seaweed and fishes. Akio prepared a nest of branches and set fire to it. Everyone mingled around it. The fishes were wrapped inside the seaweed and cooked with perfection. The delicate taste of fresh fish with the unami taste of seaweed can already make one forget one’s suffering for the night.

But it is only when they are inside the same room, then they realized Akio is not like who they imagined, this Akio was very, very old, his muscles were fragile and there were some scars here and there. Also his skin have a strange green tinge to it. How could such a weak person be the famously known doctor?

Sa Ke kept coughing while trying to explain his condition.

Akio: Actually, you do not need to explain anything, I will heal you tomorrow before you guys set off. But, you need to tell everyone that Akio will not be able to heal anyone anymore.

The carriage rider listened to the conversation but was even more puzzled, how could one heal another without knowing about the symptoms?

The next day, the crickets wake up the deep sleepers. Akio was wearing a white robe covering up his skeleton-like body.

And the treatment was simply Akio touching Sa Ke with his hands. But in that instant, Akio’s hair seems to turned white with the sun’s glare. The overly cultivated crop fields extended beyond the end of the river, it have became the houses of the chickens instead.

The once-coughing endlessly Sa Ke starts to cough lesser and lesser. All of his phelgm seems to cleared up, his mind is cleared, his energy have returned. And he whole-heartedly gave his bag of coins to Akio.

Akio: I have no need for coins, look at that deep river filled with fishes, that endless cropfields and the noisy chickens, what for, do I need these coins for?

Author: So I need you to understand this, Sa Ke is a businessman that slogged his whole life trying to earn more money, money is the only form of logic and survivability that he has and knows. When Akio said that, Sa Ke was profoundly insulted, it made his whole life felt redundant.

While Bu Ge was thinking of ways trying to take over the coins for himself, Sa Ke got into provoked mode.

Sa Ke threw his bag of coins to Akio’s feet, “ This bag is half of my fortune, enough for you to build several houses, have a wife and raise a family.”

Sa Ke looked at the run down straw house and laughed menacingly, “Stop living a poor man’s life, will you?”

Bu Ge was surprised at the sudden turn of events, he quickly picked up the bag of coins and handed over to Akio nicely even though there was nobody to do trading in this reclused area. The carriage rider got the hint and quickly ushered the horses making them agitated.

Akio looked disappointed but he did not argued back, he was just pleased Sa Ke finally regained his vitality.

Sa Ke was anxious with the horses walking away, he quickly bid farewell to the old master and jumped to the horse carriage.

But it is only when the visitors had left, Akio started feeling his life force being forcibly washed away. His body kept trembling with cold, his vision turning into a b̶̧͕̓̓̃̆l̷̨͕̙̅͝u̷̡̹̗͈̥̮̺̻̓r̴̯͉̥̍. Every movements turns into an excruciating pain. He remained in silence, for there is no one else in this abandoned village to share his woe.

He walked very slowlily like a tortoise towards his favourite fishing river and splashed into it like he always did, but this time round, he did not surfaced. His human body have turned into a mysterious water-dwelling creature known as kappa.

Characters

Madam Madeline - Always angry.

Detective Alice - Calm but curious.

Police John - Not interested in his job, over-reliance on Detective Alice.

Morgue Assistant Leonard - High IQ but underpaid.

Cashier Michael - Killed by a heart attack

Car rider David - Killed by a driving distraction.

1963 words, you may like the autopsy of jane doe 2016.

Madeline is a slightly older woman, she looks like a man and is often referred to as Sir, that is when she usually gets angry, and shouted, “I am a madam!”. Without a spouse, she lingered in her boring house with a boring garden with a boring scenery of a bus stop. Surrounded by all the nothingless in her life, she walks out of the house again to fill the empty spot.

Who would be the next victim?

A kid, A man, An elderly.

Entering the crowded marketplace, the visitors gets more and more impatient, they started to cut-queues. Eventually a scuffle broke out and Madeline joined in.

Madeline: How can you cut the queue?

Elderly: My legs are painful, the long queue is killing me.

Madeline: If everyone keeps cutting my queue, when am I going to reach the cashier?

The first complainer, another bypasser was upset by the situation, seeing that the elderly was not giving up his queue, she directly left her items near the cashier table and just walked out of the shop, just like that. The poor cashier have to pack back all the items later on, but seeing as the crowd, there will never be the time for it either.

The cashier michael tried to reduce the quarrels, “Sir, why do you argue over such trivial matters? It is a saturday, everyone is out here to have fun. Let the old man go first, I will do my job fast as well.”

Madeline: I am a madam!

Everyone temporarily got stunned by the loud sound. The cashier shivered and felt a sudden passaway of energy. He continued to scan, scan and suddenly, he dropped to his kness and lie down on the floor.

Madeline smirked at the fallen cashier without realizing the nearby cameras taking videos of the whole incident. Unfortunately she cannot purchase her essential items, but she also brazenly just throw the items on the cashier table, leaving someone else to pack the items back.

When she turned around, the crowd becomes significantly lesser, apparently people do not want to get involved with a fainted cashier, they just want to buy their items and go out for a happy saturday. Her loud footsteps was muffled by the noise of the arriving cars in the street.

Vrroom, vrroom, vrroomm.

Madeline was irritated by the sounds but knows she have nothing to confront these people with. She proceeded to stalk the driver and passenger of the loud cars, when they entered the super market, she pretended that one of the cars is hers. She kept trying to open the door know, but it refuses so.

She started to attach strange objects underneath the car, I dunno what is that, but it would make strange noises when the car moves.

Madeline retreated back home and waited for the news.

The news showed a car crash killing 1 and injuring 2.

The night has settled and Madeline was sastified, she was only eating an apple as she failed to buy her groceries. But her second ego started kicking in.

Second ego: How could you do this? They are innocent people.

Madeline: The ugly elderly cut my queue, who knows how many people’s he has cut before.

Second ego: How could you kill someone?

Madeline: Do you mean the cashier or the driver?

Before Madeline could think of an answer, she fell asleep.

When Madeline woke up the next day, apparently she have no more memory of the yesterday’s incidents. Her brain is like a new teenager’s, full of energy. She went into the city again and got into some troubles again.

But subconsciously, she knew she is getting in trouble, she needs to keep her identity low profile before some smart ones catch up with her wrongdoings. What wrongdoings, hmmm, I can’t remember.

Detective Alice is a good-looking one but she is paired with an unmotivated one, police John. Together, they have achieved some greatness and broke the biggest cold cases in the crime department. Cold cases are basically criminal cases that cannot be solved, all the evidences and suspects are broken off.

But this mystery of a heart attack of a cashier and a mild distraction of driving accident had mind boggled the best enforcement partners in the country. They kept asking more and more witnesses but there are like so many people in the area of happenings, it was as if the incident was wisely plot to avoid being caught by law enforcers.

Detective Alice started to catch up with police John whom was drinking coffee at a popular drink shop.

Alice: Oh come on! There are still many people to investigate.

John: Dun you think you are bothering them instead. Like literally, what evidences have you received?

Alice got annoyed as John is once again tricking her to spill out the beans made from her hardwork.

Alice: This time round, I am not telling you.

John: Well then, there is nothing for me to do here then.

Alice got scared and told John to stay, “I am just a lone girl, if anything happens, will you be responsible for my life.”.

John: I dun really care. A police cannot investigate your death if it has not happen yet.

Once again, John finished his strawberry chocolate cake and acted as if he is going to leave.

Alice: Hey, hey hey. Okay, there was some arguements in the grocery shop, a man was shouting and caused everyone to flee and the cashier fainted and possibly died due to a heart attack.

John: I can help with that.

Directly police John asked the supermarket owners to show all of their cameras’ videos. Obviously John could not be bothered to look at the long videos, and detective Alice watched multiples screens at the same time. Eventually Alice found the suspect, it looks like the suspect had hurt both the cashier and implanted something underneath the car.

Because the shout have no physical evidence, the partners could not use that as proof of crime. Instead, they focused their attention towards the strange object underneath the car in accident. Indeed, they found what they are looking for, fingerprints. At this point, they can immediately capture the suspect and do the hard questioning, but this is when the suspect use their wise defenses and even call in lawyers for protection. This partners have a different way of solving crime.

When they visited the old residence, they got creeped out by the untidied area, leaves were everywhere, broken pool, holes at roads near the bus stop. A few kids went by and shouted, “Becareful, there is an angry one here.”

The partners looked at each other, and they knew they came to the right spot. Things are about to get dangerous and this is the time for police John to shine. But basically, it was just detective Alice hiding behind his back to erase her presence. Police John just walked as per normal, and knocked at the door.

The door did not opened, but they came in via the side door.

Madeline looked very pleased, she is going to screw up these house invaders. She took her shotgun and hide in a cabinet. But for a long time, the people never entered, eventually she stopped the hide and seek. When Madeline was looking around the house, there was no presence of anyone.

Madeline found some of her items missing, she got furious and left the house, trying to chase down the thieves. “Who stole my precious!”. Those were just ordinary items actually.

And when the door opened, a man in police uniform with a girl hiding behind him said hi.

Madeline got surprised. These dimwits actually waited at the door for 4 hours. Should have checked before opening the door.

Police john: So your house got a broke in?

The police directly let himself in the house.

Madeline: How can you enter my house?

John: Dun you want me to investigate? Or do you prefer me to leave?

Madeline’s face totally looked suspicious, she pretended it is alright to have the crime scene investigated. Meanwhile, detective Alice placed back all the ordinary items that she had stolen.

Madeline was so confused when all her belongings are still in the house, it was like her memory was dwindling away. But the partners starts to search deeper and deeper into the house. At a certain area, Madeline starts to freak out.

Madeline: Alright, stop this nonsense. Go out, go out!

The police John that got screamed at looked unthreatened at all, he opened the door and viola, a group of police appeared before Madeline’s scared eyes. Detective Alice sprout out of the group of police’s shoulders.

Group of police: Sir, we have found your fingerprints at a crime scene. Also there were camera footages of you arguing with the dead cashier.

Second ego: Scream at them, scream at them. They called you sir!

Madeline: No, I will get caught.

But the worse nightmare is when the group of police did not invite Madeline to the police station for the interrogation. Police John directly showed the group of police near the sensitive area where Madeline freaked out.

Eventually all the dangerous items were found and confiscated.

Madeline got sent to jail with full justice at work.

As Madeline languished in her prison cell, she kept mumbling, “I am a madam…”. She can’t believe she was caught of a crime she did not commit, she is completely innocent, they planted false evidences at her house. But what can she do? When she is surrounded by four walls and nobody or lawyers to discuss with.

Madeline ate little for a few days as her brain is excited with the trauma of being caught. Eventually she just lie down on the cold floor, never waking up.

Morgue Assistant Leonard placed his hands on the cold body but it felt strange, it is too cold and too rigid, it is as though the body has already been dead for a month. He directly pressed her skin to reveal the conditions of her organs but all was fine. Eventually the puzzled man did an x-ray on her whole suspicious body, it was then he found that the brain area was consumed by bacterias unknown to science. It was like looking at a brain-eaten zombie, chills crawls on Leonard’s arms. If he is not wrong, the dead body can wake up now and attack him.

He slowly walked backwards until he reached the door. He slowly opened the door while looking at the lying motionless body and not the door. The body started fidgeting, and Leonard goes nuts and ran for his life.

After a week of nothing happening, Leonard finally returned to the morgue, a man has still got to eat, if he does not work, no money to pay the bills. But he walked cautiously, his pistol is directly on his hands. And another pistol hiding underneath his shirt. He was well-prepared for, a zombie or not.

But when Leonard saw the empty body table, his imagination turned real. But it was unlike the movies, there was no angry zombies chasing at him. The whole morgue just felt eerie, and the body was just gone, there was nothing left for him except to move on and do his other jobs.

When Leonard kept writing and kept writing, things started to drop from the ceiling. Leonard realized his doom, he slowly walked away from his desk, without facing upwards, going towards the door again.

But Leonard could not open the door, there was a hand at the top of the door pushing the opening door back. The zombie’s face smiled at Leonard, the zombie was climbing on the ceiling all this time.

Characters

Aya:

Wheelchair bound girl, always sad and complaining, her frustration stopped only when Joseph was there to comfort her.

Joseph:

Joseph was an adventurous kid, he wanted to play and play, unfortunately he got hurt in an accident, when he is older and visiting the faraway but cheaper doctor, she met Aya and Apple.

Apple:

Another wheelchair bound girl, very negative and keeps scaring Aya that their disease will get worser and worse, eventually Aya knew that this is the truth and they can never recover and leave the hospital.

Sky:

Aya's mother, worried about her daughter's condition and that she cannot take care of her forever.

1260 words, you may like 1 liter of tears 2005

The sun rays radiating warmth onto the white hospital bed, Aya, a girl that is supposed to be in school at her age, is sleeping in a hospital instead. She had a hard time waking up, because her legs got into an accident and the nerves was degenerating. She moves out of her bedroom in her silver wheelchair.

But yet, another impact crashes onto her, her name is Apple, slightly older than Aya. Apparently she ate all of her scrambled eggs and gave her plain bread in exchange instead. So now, Aya have 4 plain bread on her dining plate, “Why did you eat all my food again?”. Apple simply rejected her complain and judging her own actions by saying, “The early birds gets the worms”.

It have been a long week since Aya’s mother visited her, she is looking visibly upset.

Apple: Ah, your mother haven’t visited you in ages.

Aya (Eating plain bread): Well, my mom have to work on weekdays, I do not want her to spend her weekends on the hospital anyway.

Apple: My parents have not been visiting me for months, eventually it will be the same for you.

Aya (Annoyed): When we get out of here, we can see our family everyday.

Apple (Burst into laughter): Haven’t you known your condition? Your nerves have been severed to save your life, just like me.

Aya (Curious): I do not understand what you mean?

Apple (Serious): Your legs will never get better.

Lazy to go outside, they wheeled their wheelchair to the windows, they saw a guy walking around and getting lost. He is cute and all that, but it will be hard for these girls to make a friend, nobody wants to be a sincere friend with wheelchair-bound people. In a cruel tempt of fate, the cute boy enters their hospital room unwittingly, his eyes looks unrealistically good but his movement is clumsy.

Joseph: Where is the doctor’s room?

Apple ignored him and rolled away nonchalantly.

Aya felt guily in this awkward situation and decided to lead the way, but her wheelchair accidentally bumped into Joseph’s legs.

Joseph: I am sorry.

The hospital had a cooling air as it was near the beach, the coconut trees lined the sandy walkway and you could see foreigners walking all the way.

Doctor: How is your condition?

Joseph: It is great, in fact, I think we can stop future consultations.

Doctor: I was thinking you could stay here and familiarize with your condition first, but you do you.

When Joseph was leaving the hospital.

Aya shouted.

Joseph: What?

Aya: I said you did not thanked me.

Joseph: Oh, sorry about that, and thanks.

Aya: Please push my wheelchair along the beach to wherever you are going.

Joseph kindly pushed the wheelchair girl along the scenic beach but he was wondering how she is going to push herself back.

Aya: Are you from this hospital too?

Joseph: Yeah, but I have been fully treated.

Aya: Ouch. (Realizing she could never see him again.)

Joseph: Why?

Aya: Cause my illness cannot be cured. (Misdirection.)

Joseph was supposed to go home via bus stop, but his plan had changed, and he moved the wheelchair girl back to the hospital.

Aya: Why are we back here again? I thought you were going somewhere.

Joseph: I decided to stay here, the doctor is a distant relative of mine, I have not really bought gifts for him yet.

It is night time as the crescent moon shines luminously, the pair got stopped at the piano placed at the entering hall. Incredible strings of music enchanted the hospital’s hallway as though a real musician is vibing with her instrument, but it was just Apple. Apple had no background in music, but she kept playing with it until she familiarized with the pianists’ techniques.

Sky/ Aya’s mother: Where have you been!

Aya: Oh mom, I did not knew you were visiting me today.

Sky: Hey, my darling, I am busy at work today, there is weekend overtime.

Aya felt embarrassed with Joseph around.

Sky: Is he a new patient?

Joseph: An old patient, I have been fully treated.

Sky: Maybe I should buy you a phone, if you are going to keep going out like this?

Aya got very embarrased: His distant relative is the doctor, we are just friends.

Joseph said hi to the doctor and make his stay.

Apple got incredibly curious and kept asking Aya about the new guy during sleep time.

On the next day, the shine breaks into the windows again. Aya thought Joseph is gone, but she was surprised that she saw him again. Joseph explained that he does not know the way to the shopping centers. Aya facepalmed herself and realized Joseph have not bought the gifts yet, but she engineers a clever plan.

Now Aya was handlocking with Apple, both wheelchairs moving simultaneously while Joseph was pushing both of them. Both of the girls kept giggling. Eventually, they tricked Mr cute to visit the local big aquarium to buy novelty gifts.

There were blue shining fishes called neon tetras swimming in groups, the surrounding exhibit were full of smooth stones and handcrafted miniature landscapes mimicking the wildlife. And then, there were pelicans and swans fighting each other for fishes thrown by the zookeeper.

Finally, they reached the novelty gift shop, it was a rolling ball machine shop, there are like 20 different toy machines at here. Each drop costs $1 and you could get an animal toy that is a random animal species. Joseph gifted each of them a toy, and they were like, no way! They are already excited from leaving the stuffy hospital, but now they got gifts as well. Aya got a dolphin while Apple got a tortoise, “Hey, you should open one for yourself as well.” But Joseph refused, he bought 8 more toys and some breadrolls for his relative which the cashier packed inside a gift box.

Apple: What festival is it?

Aya: Just long distant relative visiting each other, it is common courtesy to bring gifts.

Joseph: The doctor/relative only charged me half the hospital bill.

Apple and Aya: Ahh….

When they are returning to the hospital and bypassing a basketball court, Joseph got into a panick and kept sprinting around randomly while hiding his ears with his hands.

Apple: Ermm, what is going on?

Aya just stared at frantic Joseph blankly.

Joseph: Are you guys alright?

Aya: We should be the one asking that question.

Eventually, Joseph hurried up and pushed the two wheelchair girls pass the area quickly. The sound of basketball dribbling fades into the distance.

Joseph climbed onto the 2nd floor of the hospital and gave the gifts to the doctor.

Doctor: You know, doctors can’t really receive bribes.

But the doctor took the gift box and placed into the fridge.

Joseph: Actually, I wanted to stay at home to reduce my hospital bills. But, there are many inpatients in here and their diseases seems incurable.

Apple and Aya were eavesdropping from outside of the doctor’s door.

Joseph: I was thinking, perhaps I could be a nurse here. I know the way to the bus stop, and the shopping centers, I can buy groceries, medical supplies and fetch lost patients or welcome their visiting relatives.

Doctor: Bro, you are pushing yourself too hard.

Joseph: I just do not want to be a burden.

Doctor: But you are blind.

When Joseph opened the doctor’s door, Aya was sitting on her wheelchair crying silently, but he could not see it.

Blood moon

$100,000

Smooth ball

$10,000

School prank

$50,000

Bonsai

$5000

White dream

$7000

Deep down $17,000

Oh my hamster!

$50

Snowfall

$10

The cursed throne

$700

I am undead

$50,000

Luminara quest for the Ancients

$10,000

Last hope

$10

Minari

$20,000

Playground

$200,000

Reverence

$48

The high life

Free

Abandoned

$100

With the wind

$170

Chameleon

$220

Sleeping in the memory

$500

Falling in love all over again

$1000

A fragment in space

$500

Way of the sword

$100

A beautiful mind

$80

Gold chain

$1200

Wake up

$20

Terraforming

$1200

It is over

$4800

Mansion of doom

$2000

Unwelcomed

$10

Captain rats

$10,000

Cosmic fireflies

$30,000

Echoes of destiny's tale: Threads across realms

$10,000

Vorgrath's Blade

$5000

Dragon of atlantis: Voyage to the island

$50,000

.