Ethyachk's Stories

How to Shatter Skepticism

2007-04-02T19:12:14Z

Sam stared at his handwriting in disbelief. There was no question whose hand wrote those words; no one but Sam was capable of scrawling something so nearly illegible. Problem was he definitely did not remember writing that down. Sam looked around suddenly, trying to catch whoever it was who was playing this prank, but found nothing amiss in the room. Sam looked back to his computer screen and stared at the machine.

After a moment Sam laughed. He sneered at the page in his notebook before tearing the ridiculous prank out and crumpling it into ball. A moments aim and Sam threw the little paper ball into his trash can and grinned at his success. Sam glanced at the ridiculous page again before returning to his original intent of noting never to click on such an add again.

“You idiot. If you don’t get that thing you, I, WE will DIE .”

Sam dropped the notebook and rolled his chair back. For a long moment he could do nothing but sit and stare.

When that moment was over, Sam desperately cast his first bid.

Down to the Damned

2007-04-02T18:56:15Z

As the dark one watched, amusement and disdain both plain on his face, the man trudged down towards hell. Three steps down and the heat was already stifling. Five steps down and the heat grew unbearable. The man paused.

“Is there a problem?” the dark one asked, irritated.

“It’s very hot,” the man gasped.

“Really…” the dark one glared at the man. “You say that like no one has ever mentioned that before, like I don’t damn well know that myself.”

“I didn’t know it would be so bad,” the man commented, coughing a bit. The dark one rose to his full height and pointed at the man’s face.

“You chose this path,” the dark one reminded him. “You, not I, chose to take these stairs to the realm of the damned. Your decisions, your choices, your life, all to blame for this short walk. Now stop your stalling, your complaining, your protestations, and go!”

“It’s just…” the man said as he backed up one step, then another. “What if I made a mistake? The wrong choice?”

“It’s a bit late for that,” the dark one growled.

The Wrong Decision

2007-04-02T18:37:52Z

When the moon seemed to shudder, John blinked. When the moon then shattered with an explosion of light so bright that it overran even the many cancellation lights lit in his office, John turned away. He was too late to save his vision from a dizzying red blur, but he remained otherwise unharmed.

John turned and peered through his personal red haze to inspect the moon and found the heavenly body shattered, its remains swiftly spreading across the visible sky. John’s vision slowly cleared of red giving him a better view of the impending disaster. As he watched, the parts of the moon that there supposed to be hurled away from the earth slowly began to creep closer, growing larger in the sky as they did. When the smallest bits of the moon reached the atmosphere, the sky began to burn.

It was only when the entire sky began to glow with flames that the enormity of the situation truly struck the dumbfounded John. The ill-conceived plan of destroying the moon was destined to destroy that which it sought to save.

Somebody New

2007-03-30T21:33:56Z

I met someone last night. She was a friend of my sister’s, one I’d not met before, and we really hit it off quickly. She was skeptical of me; I mean her only opinion of me was my sister’s opinion who can, bless her heart, make me sound much worse than I actually am. The reality of me was a pleasant surprise for the young lady and with my winning smile I won the right to talk to her. We spoke of music, how we both enjoyed many of the same bands; we spoke of dancing, how neither of us got to dance nearly enough; we spoke of love, how we’d both been hurt before. I told her she was beautiful and she laughed. When I carefully repeated my statement, looking her straight in the eye, she blushed and looked away. Then she looked back into my eyes and told me I wasn’t so bad either. I kissed her then, and she kissed me back. I hadn’t known her for very long, but she was already soothing my pain, replacing sorrow and loneliness with hope and joy.

And then I opened my eyes, awoke from my dream, and wept as I lost her.

Safe...?

2007-03-30T20:59:23Z

As the haggard man wept with both joy and horror I fell back on my hands unable to do more than stare at the young woman who had been pulled from the bowels my backyard. After a moment I tore my eyes away from her and her father. I blinked through the driving rain and watched as the new hole in my yard continued to fill. The man’s bitter sobs were all I could hear through the rain.

The young woman’s soft, ragged breathing slowly grew stronger until her eyes flickered open. At first they were dull, filled with confusion, but the reality of what had just happened hit her like a bolt from the sky and horror bloomed across her face for an instant before she started crying hysterically. The man, her father I presumed, held her tightly, whispering in her ear. Even through his tears, he did what he could to calm the girl. He gave me a plaintive look, no more than a glance really, but I understood immediately.

After running to my house to get a large blanket for her, we carefully led the still sobbing child inside.

The Light of the Empire part V

2007-03-26T18:59:25Z

It wasn’t that Kaijan heard something that made him stop cold, it was the realization that, other than the ruckus Klam was making, Kaijan couldn’t hear anything. Any time a forest was this quiet something big and dangerous was about.

“Quiet,” Kaijan hissed at Klam. The boy returned a haughty look.

“I grow weary of the way-” Klam stopped short when he noticed the deadly expression on Kaijan’s face and the two drawn daggers he was holding. Klam started to back away, but Kaijan growled in frustration.

“Do not move,” Kaijan snarled quietly and Klam stopped in place, terrified. With the little fop quiet and still, Kaijan was able to listen while he cast his eyes about seeking the trouble that currently finding them.

The sound of horses pounding hooves reached Kaijan’s ears. It sounded like a dozen horses each being driven by an loud guard from the palace. Kaijan had made sure that no guards would be able to follow by horse for at least a day, so that left but one bad option.

“Wizards…” Kaijan grumbled.

Unexpected and Unwanted Travels in Time

2007-03-26T18:30:30Z

Jor sighed. Normally you might expect a man who had just had experienced his own death to react less calmly than to simply comment, “Gotta be deja’vu.” And in nearly any other man you would be correct. Jor reacted to this situation in such a blasé manner because, to him, it was anything but out of the ordinary. Jor had experienced his own death no less than two hundred and thirty five times over the past two hundred and thirty five days, and with each new death Jor learned a new way to cheat fate.

Jor didn’t look at it like that; Jor looked at it more like fate was cheating him. This was not a man to gain the knowledge of how he was going to die and then do nothing but let it happen. Jor never resigned himself to his revealed fate. However, after cheating fate day after day for the better part of a year, the whole process was beginning to get annoying.

Jor wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve the ability to cheat death, but after this latest horrible demise, he figured it was high time he found out.

The Visitor's Deeds

2007-03-21T03:23:01Z

Amy woke up to the same splitting headache she always woke up to after the demon was done. She groaned and tried to remember what had happened. Flashes of places she had never seen before, echoes of words she’d never spoken; nothing useful.

Amy blinked her eyes open slowly and found a dark ceiling above her. A quick glance confirmed that she had no idea where she was. From what little she could see the room almost looked like a chapel, but she saw no sign of anything Christian in origin.

Amy checked for clothing and found none. Sadly this was not uncommon, so she was more irritated than anything else. The only strange thing was that her hands felt sticky. She pushed herself up and sat for a moment letting the headache clear. The moon came out from behind a cloud and bathed the room in a soft light.

Amy began to shiver in horror as she saw what lay strewn about her. Dozens of dead bodies, torn to pieces. Amy realized she was seated on an altar surrounded by dead bodies.

And she was coated in human blood.

I figured out what's missing

2007-03-18T19:48:19Z

Even as I stumbled back and fell into my tub, I could see the shower curtain moving. When I cracked my head on the tile wall, it slowed my panic down bit.

Collector. That was what the business card said. I think I figured out what he collected from me. I had to get it back. All I had was a business card with three words on it… Could I track him with that?

I turned to the Internet and after a few hours searching I had found a few message boards where people reported strange things missing due to a certain mister Frost. In all of these boards the person doing the reporting was either ignored or banned from the site.

But the list of things stolen. One man had his shadow stolen, another his eye color, and another his fingerprints; one girl lost her hair color, another her voice, and another her smile. My heart grew heavier with each report. None of them ever seemed to get what was stolen back. Worse yet, I couldn’t find a way to contact any of them.

How was I ever going to get my reflection back?

Heroes of old

2007-03-18T19:02:15Z

As if to drive the point home, the Spiked Mane flew overhead shrieking, its normally white claws stained with the blood of Peter Peartree. George was sure it was Peter’s blood since the poor young man hung lifeless in the dragon’s spikes. With a shake of its head, the dragon released Peter and the corpse fell to the ground with a sickening thump. The dragon circled once in the air, shrieking again, before it flew off to the north.

“Peter! No!” screamed the young man’s mother. Many people ran off with the old woman to see to the fallen man. George did not. With a cough the old man tuned and walked back towards his house. Panic gripped the people around him. Few noticed the old man slowly walking home.

The ache in his back flared up again as George buckled on his breastplate. That pain in his left knee that had never quite gone away returned with a vengence as he strapped on his shield. But as he drew the sword down from the mantle the pains quieted.

“Well,” George muttered.”I hope I got one more in me.”

What Did He Do Last Night?

2007-03-15T19:47:02Z

First of all and certainly most important, I was a man. That was quite the change from the day before. I’d never been a man before, so that particular detail really stuck out in my mind. Secondly and nearly as disturbing, I was in bed with myself.

I began to panic as I started having thoughts about body swapping. However, swapping bodies is impossible, as far as I know, so I also worried that I was on some kind of drug I didn’t remember taking. You can’t get drunk enough to wake up in someone else’s body, right? As I panicked the person next to me, stirred.

“Morning,” said the person in my body in a sleepy kind of way that sounded exactly like what I would say.

“Um…” How exactly do you talk to yourself when you’re not in your own body?

“Coffee,” the person in my body said also exactly in the way I would say it.

“Yes! Coffee!” I agreed shrilly, or tried to agree shrilly. Having this man’s deep voice made a shrill voice impossible, though the nervousness definitely got across.

“Is something wrong?”

Why are we on a boat?

2007-03-14T18:12:07Z

“What are we-” Feck started to talk upon waking until the pain of standing caught up with his consciousness.

“Gods…” Yes, that was the pain. That searing, agonizing point just behind his left eye. The pain he always felt when he stood up in a strange place after drinking.

“What’s wrong with you?” Came an unfamiliar voice. Whoever was speaking didn’t sound to be feeling any better than he. A queasy feeling hit Feck and he leaned heavily on… well, whatever it was to his left.

“Is it me or is the whole world swaying,” Feck said as he turned an unpleasant shade of green.

“We are on a boat,” was the sarcastic reply he received. After opening one eye long enough to verify the boat comment, Feck sat down heavily.

“Well that’s a relief,” Feck announced. “However, I have no idea where I am or what is going on. At this point I’m surprised I remember who I am.”

“Don’t feel bad,” a soft woman’s voice. “None of us know where we are.”

“Other than that we’re on a boat,” Feck commented.

“Right.”

“Swell.”

The Toaster Adventures, Part Cat

2007-03-14T15:06:40Z

As I lay there smoking (unintentionally), waiting for my wife, I was first greeted by the neighbor’s cat. She was known for being able to get into our house at will, though we never were quite sure how.

“You’re definitely not a handyman, are you?”

“You’re supposed to…” I actually made it three words before realizing who it was that spoke to me. “What?”

“Well I gather from the smoking toaster and the smoking you that your attempt at repairs have fallen short of their ultimate goal of toast that’s not flavored with charcoal,” the cat replied, calmly licking her paw and wiping her face.

“You’re talking,” I accused the cat. An amused look was my reward.

“Of course I am,” the cat replied. I swear it was smirking.

“Cats can’t talk!” I insisted as I waved some smoke away from my face.

“Of course cats can talk,” she scolded me. “All cats can talk.”

“But I’ve never heard a cat talk before!” My day was taking a very strange turn.

“You’ve just never been in the right frame of mind to listen to a cat before.”

Not Your Ordinary Monday Morning

2007-03-14T14:49:52Z

When she came in that Monday morning, she really wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. There were a few minor setbacks, but they weren’t anything unexpected. Things get put off on Fridays. This particular Monday, though one of the last, wasn’t going to be any different from any other Monday.

That was until the barrel of a gun was placed firmly against her temple.

She’d never really liked this particular employee. It wasn’t that he didn’t work hard; actually, he was well known for getting his work done on time. It wasn’t that he didn’t work well with others; most of his group projects went smoothly, and when they didn’t, the fault was never his. It certainly wasn’t that he was an unpleasant person; he seemed a fair and decent guy.

No, she didn’t like him because he was just a little too smart, a little too quick-witted, a little too good at finding the errors that no one else found or was willing to point out. She didn’t like him because he had a little too much backbone.

Apparently, too much.

Why Not To Be in an Airlock

2007-03-14T14:03:52Z

“What? Hey! Open the airlock! Hello?”

“Sorry buddy, no can do.”

“Why the hell not?”

“It got me. Now it’s in charge.”

“What’s in charge?”

“Remember I told you something spilled?”

“That’s why I’m here with a mop, genius.”

“What I didn’t say was that I spilled it.”

“Spilled what? There’s nothing here.”

“Oh, there’s something there. Something so horrible I can’t even begin to explain to you what’s going to happen.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

“So what’s this horrible thing I’m worrying about here?”

“The brain slug.”

“The WHAT ?”

“Brain slug. It’s probably climbing up your leg right now.”

“I’m looking around here, but there’s no brain slug. There’s no slug at all.”

“It’s moving fast I see.”

“The slug is moving fast.”

“Probably climbing up your spine right now.”

“There’s nothing on my spine, dammit.”

“Must be in your ear then.”

“In my ear! In my ear?”

“Oh, before you join the collective, I’d just like to say one thing.”

“What?”

“April fools.”

“It’s July you bastard.”