Alexander’s stomach rebels. It cramps and spasms as his body struggles to contain the wrongness inside him. Sweat beads on his smooth skin; his muscles ache and his mouth forces itself open. The bathroom’s tiled floor is cool and peaceful, and he desperately wishes that he could let himself collapse onto it, to curl up and dissociate until it’s all over, but he can’t, he really, truly can’t. He is here and this is now and everything is happening so much. ...
“You’re moving to another facility tomorrow, puppy.” At first you don’t understand. Your brain’s a bit hazy, with your head between her thighs and her taste lingering on your lips. And her fingers in your hair, again, longer than it was when you arrived. Not regulation. “… I am?” “Mhmm. Things are in motion. Your empire’s getting desperate, too,” a sharp-toothed grin, “maybe we’ll trade you for something good.” “… oh.” ...
“So,” you ask, “why am I still alive?” She’s sitting at the little table outside your cell doing paperwork again. The Liberation has more paperwork than you ever suspected. “We disabled your mech’s countermeasures,” she says, not looking up. “About an hour before you spotted us, in fact.” “That’s not what I meant—WAIT, an hour!? But I spotted you barely an hour into the patrol!” “Yes,” she finally looks at you, smiling, “your command/control system is full of holes, dear.” ...
“… this is an abuse of power.” “Is it?” She tilts her head, genuine curiosity flitting across her face. By now you know that she’s a perfect actor. On the table behind her, far out of reach, a bowl of soup—your dinner—congeals. “Yes. There are rules for prisoners of war.” “Hmm. No, I don’t think so.” “It doesn’t matter what you—!” She shushes you. When you’re able to breathe again she continues, “the purpose of power is in its exercise. It doesn’t care how it’s used. There’s no platonic ideal that I’m twisting out of shape, no laws written that matter more than how they are enforced. All hierarchy is unjust. That’s what this is about, dear.” ...
The first shot is cinematically wide, obviously an anamorphic lens with a slow aperture. Everything is in focus: the ruins of fallen skyscrapers. The rubble-strewn beach. The smoking carcasses of tanks and troop carriers, and the cloudless sky above. Silent except for the wind. The ground shakes. A massive machine strides out of the ocean, up the beach. Two-legged, four-armed, festooned with armor and shields; a massive claymore strapped to its back. The overall impression is a polished and heavily armed sphere, its sharp angles accented by red strips. Patriotic music swells. ...
Originally posted to Twitter on December 15, 2021. “Did you know,” she says, “that the average person can endure less than five minutes of direct exposure to Her before their timeline is completely overwritten?” You, bound and gagged on the floor of the temple’s airlock, can only nod in response. Everyone knows that. She grins at you. “Unintelligent matter is rewritten faster, of course, and living wood endures surprisingly well—that’s why your rebellion was so excited when they found the asteroid forest, right? Sucks for you that we got here first.” ...
A looming spider, a horrid beast! Its chelicerae drip with purple-gold venom; it picks its way through the world on claws as sharp as needles! With each step its swollen abdomen dips to touch the ground; the air shivers before its mass. What a fate, to encounter such a monster! And yet— Its pedipalps hang thick with bells, each of a different size, each carefully tied to the rough hairs that coat those waving appendages; more bells adorn its legs. Some dangle from silken thread and some are held by rings which pierce through the beast’s chitin. ...
This story has content warnings for: gore, corruption, sex with a chair, probably rape, not that gross but also sort of gross. Please take care. Contamination begins gently. A pinprick hole in the hazmat suit’s thick composite where she stumbles and falls against a forest of needles growing from one of the site’s walls. Most break. One finds the perfect angle. She doesn’t feel its touch on her sweaty skin. ...
Mouse creeps through the ruins on wary feet, careful of each step. There is so much here that she does not understand; so much that she has always been taught to fear. Etched plastic and fallen glass, the reaching bones of long-dead godlets— Stillborn, or so she’s always been told. Pathetic things reaching up towards the unattainable. It doesn’t matter to Mouse, not really; that was all long ago. All she needs to know is how to slip around whatever ancient hunger might yet linger within them—and that’s so easy! ...
By the time you find the secret door you’re almost ready to give up and call it a day (well, a night. Can’t rob the necropolis during the day!). Maybe this tomb was never finished, this mausoleum never occupied. Maybe it’s just a dead end! A trick. It’s been known to happen. Besides, your lantern’s starting to sputter, the last refill of oil on your belt hanging with the weight of finality. If you waste it on a dead end then it’ll be weeks until you can scrounge up enough for another attempt, maybe months before you can sneak in again. ...