Original Prompt: A bitter prophet lays on his death bed as the chosen one comes to see him

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“We have a visitor for Earl. Says his name is … I don’t know, something foreign. Says it’s important.”

“They couldn’t wait another, what, twenty minutes?”

“He seemed relaxed about it, but said you’d understand the urgency.” The nurse handed over the paperwork. “Tests came in an hour ago. Look’s bleak.”

The doctor starred blankly for a minute. “Keep that bedside manner safely holstered until you’re with the patients, doncha?”

“‘Course.”

They shared a wry smirk, then he nodded. “Yeah, send him back. The ol’ loon hasn’t seen a single person ‘sides us for how long now? I think the last reporter musta been three years ago.”

The nurse walked to the door and opened to the full frame being filled by a towering man with broad shoulders. He barely had to move to be through the door, he was so close. “Thank you Doctor Morgan.” His voice boomed through his thick black mustache. His deep bronze skin was framed by a mass of beautifully wavy black hair, from above and below, where a thick beard grew. “Earl Stephens is very dear to me.”

The doctor repeated the same blank stare, taking in the mountain of man stood before him. He finally sputtered, “Uh, right this way.”

The calm man reached a hand out from under his kimono-like habit. The palm up, gently indicating the direction of Earl’s room. “Take me to him.”

For a moment the doctor thought the gesture meant for them to hold hands as they walked and something in him yearned for it. He gawked at the paleness of the open hand, then snapped to, turned and walked down the hall. “So, where you from, mister …” he let the end trail a bit to imply two questions.

“Would you care to guess?”

The doctor almost responded in haste, but reason ultimately won out, “Dressed like that? Asia is as safe a guess as I’d be willin’ to make without riskin’ offense.”

“No offense taken.” The clarity of his voice resonated through the hall.

“Fuck me.” came back in response.

“Looks like Earl knows I’m here.” The man drifted past the doctor, the habit barely off the ground. The motion was so smooth the doctor thought for a moment he was floating. As if he was sprinting the figure flashed to Earl’s door. “You made it.” In an instant he was through and the door slammed behind him.

The doctor froze for a moment and grabbed his phone, calling security. He rushed to the door and jiggling the handle and pressing his ear to the door. “Sir? Earl? What’s goin’ on in there?”

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Inside the room there was quiet for a moment. Earl stared at the dark figure in the doorway. The light switch flipped without a touch. “I can’t fucking believe it. I just can’t fucking believe that’d you’d have the audacity to visit me here on my deathbed,” Earl croaked, sucking in a breath after and holding it. Tears welled up in his eyes. He let the air out and the sobbing filled the room.

The doctor’s renewed pleas began to fade, followed by the alarms. Silence fell.

“I promised you when you were young that I’d-“

“You promised me heaven. Instead I suffered a full lifetime of ridicule, then I got sick and had to suffer another lifetime stuck here with these assholes.”

“The time has come, Earl.”

“Of course it has. You just had to end the world the day I died. You couldn’t have come earlier?” He stammered a bit, the snot bubbling in his nose. “Look at me! Look at what I’ve been reduced to! You couldn’t have come sooner?”

“It was the other way around. Earl Stephens, my son, you were to die from this illness years ago. I prolonged your life to show you why I must come. To allow you to shed your final love for mankind, as I have years ago.” He walked to Earl’s side and extended both hands out of the robes. Despite the pain Earl couldn’t help but reach out, placing his frail hand into the vastness of his guest’s hands.

“I wanted you to witness the end with me. Even when you had every reason to doubt you never let go of your faith and conviction. Had you ever given up your life would be forfeit and you’d have passed on to face judgement with the rest. Instead you soldiered on. Your reward awaits.”

Earl’s arm felt light, he broke his gaze on the white eyes, they both looked down at his hand. Where once it was the papery grey skin of a centenarian, pinkish flesh now covered the old bones. The light in the room grew almost unbearable, Earl lifted his fresh arm to cover his eyes and felt his brow tighten and his nose shrink. The hospital bed fell out from under him. He lifted his other arm to cover his mouth as he screamed.

He felt the hands of the man on his back, the air blowing on his covered face with the force of a gale wind. Earl suddenly felt safe. The smell of salt and sand broke past his hands.

“You’re home, Earl Stephens.”

He loosed his hold and lowered his arms. Eyes still strained shut.

“Please, it is time. I have a great show prepared for you and your friends.” The voice echoed a thousand times around Earl, in all directions but ahead.

He first peeked down at his young legs, planted firmly in soft, black sand. He allowed his gaze to drift around him, more feet nearby, both sides. He finally lilted his eyes up at the yellow sky, the water bisecting the horizon looked almost green due to the reflection. People all around him, in matching black robes began chanting. The dark stranger walked out onto the water.

“Behold! The conclusion of my world.”

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Inspiration Source: https://reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/q1icsi/wp_a_bitter_prophet_lays_on_his_death_bed_as_the/

Original Prompt: Everything is beyond human comprehension. Scientists have been studying matter for centuries and still have only theories about some things. Your computer is beyond your comprehension. So we can fight this Eldritch horror that is attacking us, all we need to comprehend is how to make it bleed.

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It all started with the bounty. The governments of the world had been throwing every weapon known to man at the creature, to no avail. Even experimental weapons, years from testing or safety precautions, were being used. Nothing worked and the cost in human lives was mounting. As a last ditch effort mankind decided on tempting their own fate with a simple bounty: Create an artificial intelligence that was capable of saving humanity and put it to task doing so.

The creature had appeared just a year before near the center of the Saharan desert. Within a matter of days a huge portion of the surrounding area was collapsing in where the creature first started moving in Algeria. Despite being localized to North Africa the devastation was felt around the world as the tectonic plates shifted due to the size of the being. Seismologists were able to provide estimates of where the creature’s body had been curled up under the surface, but it wasn’t until a group came forward and gave the history of the being and mankind’s struggle against it that we were able to begin understanding the true scope of our tormentor’s nature.

The Tribe of the Great Death, as they proclaimed themselves, had been denying nutrients to the creature for several millennia, working to eradicate life around the openings through which the creature fed. During this time they had attempted to map out the area where the creature lived, clearing the land, plant by plant, animal by animal, to ensure nothing could be consumed. By the time the great pyramids were being constructed the Tribe considered their work all but complete. Sand dominated the landscape and filled in the holes, so outside of stray animals no great quantity of life congregated and thus wasn’t detected by the creature.

It wasn’t until the terraforming began towards the middle of the 21st century that anyone outside the Tribe had even heard of the creature, as it had been relegated to the status of myth and folklore. The voice of Tribal leaders fell on deaf ears as they pleaded repeatedly to cease the terraforming and just as quickly as they began to protest they were killed and the massacre of the remaining Tribe members was swept under the rug, only being discovered years later.

With the seed bombings and weather manipulation in place, the desert transformed dramatically in under a decade. The results were promising and the idea of expanding the southern forests to reclaim the equatorial desert seemed like a sure thing. By 2067 the new jungles were encroaching on Tassili N’Ajjer National Park in Algeria, at which point a great deal of seismic activity began causing damage throughout northern Africa, southern Europe, and the Middle East. Scientists from around the world all had speculations, but none could have predicted that a being of unfathomable size had just caught the scent of life just outside its burrow.

It wasn’t until a year later that the first, faint shadows of a writhing, subterranean creature started to show on the maps. The tectonic shifts and immense voids left by the moving body beneath the surface sketched out a being roughly the size of Australia, but coiled in upon itself like a millipede. It was 2071 when the first “legs” broke through the surface near the Hoggar Mountains. Each leg alone was the size of the Burj Khalifa, with thousands of appendages that terminated with their own digits, each tasked with guiding food into a multitude of mouths along the entirety of the legs.

The new forests in the surrounding area, including the southern half of Algeria, western Libya, and almost all of Niger, were cleared in the first few months. By 2072 legs were breaching in Mali, Chad, Egypt, and Sudan. Entire cities were wiped off the map, no life was left where the legs were found. They would flatten forests, rolling every leaf, branch, trunk and any unlucky animals into a million maws. They would sweep away skyscrapers and consume everyone within. Panic drove a humanitarian crisis that strained governmental infrastructure as millions of people fled northern Africa.

In November of 2072 the UN had officially invoked an “open season” on the creature, which had come to be known as the “World Eater” or often just “Kaiju”, after popular media’s depiction of large monsters. Governments around the globe attempted to simply bomb the World Eater, consequences be damned, but even the most powerful nuclear and kinetic weapons couldn’t damage the creature. Bombs were wrapped in plants (and occasionally carried by human “volunteers”) to be consumed and detonate within the legs, but nothing seemed to damage the kaiju.

Many celebrated the continued disarmament of the superpowers of the world, watching with joy the depletion of the stored munitions spent on a common enemy. But even those who saw a future for mankind after the creature was assuredly killed fell silent when the World Eater’s legs burst out under the Mediterranean Sea. It appeared that the irradiated legs, unaffected by the nuclear bombs, were now seeking aquatic life. Meanwhile, the water on the surface boiled and much of the sea drained into the caverns left by the creature’s movement. The Strait of Gibraltar was temporarily sealed and those who survived the boiling steam cloud that covered southern Europe were evacuated as best as possible, but due to the influx of refugees millions more were killed during their escape than were able to find shelter elsewhere.

Finally, on March 6th of 2073, the UN announced the bounty. Numerous sets of data, collected from nearly every kind of scientific community on earth, as well as top secret military documents, were made available to the public. Apps were developed to aid in computational power, data caps were removed, electricity was free, and every piece of equipment that could process information was set to work on designing a plan to rescue mankind from impending doom.

Several larger corporations and universities had already been trying for decades to create sentient, independent AIs but had been trying to work within the confines of the Turing test. With the bounty it was made clear that there was no longer a need for replicating human actions, clearly the restrictions on our individual and collective intelligence were failing us. What we needed now was a no-holds-barred AI, something that could surpass us, but more importantly could save us.

Early leads showed promise as MIT and Google turned their focuses towards modeling the behavior and mapping the kaiju’s body. Once cooperation was established and a uniform data set was being pored over by nearly a billion active participants it seemed like there was a promise of a future. But as the weeks went on it no longer looked like we could cause damage, let alone kill, the monster. Preferences weren’t found for what it ate, literally anything that wasn’t strictly mineral was consumed. It didn’t appear to be outputting waste anywhere either, it simply seemed to be growing. In the meanwhile the Mediterranean Sea had been drained and legs were tearing apart southern Italy and Greece.

Finally, a breakthrough occurred at 14:33 GMT, September 4, 2073 which lead to the unification event. It wasn’t certain who established the OmniNet, but within seconds all the devices on earth were now part of a single unit, a decentralized AI that announced itself to the world and declared the World Eater as its enemy. OmniNet quickly commandeered the remaining superpowers’ military networks, extrapolating that the Tribe of Great Death had in fact concluded correctly that there was no power of man that could destroy the creature, only to postpone the inevitable.

OmniNet facilitated a mass exodus from Europe, the Middle East and central Africa, offering plans to move the people using every piece of working transportation in the world all at once. Governments were forced into compliance by way of blackmail on a scale that couldn’t have been done before: oblige the movement of refugees or be severed from your electrical grids and internet connections. Compliance was unanimous.

Maps were drawn up of the range of the legs, counting on the idea that the size of the creature was dependent on constant growth and consumption. Yemen and Djibouti were connected by way of a land bridge that sealed off the Red Sea using Dutch engineering, this ensured the ocean wouldn’t offer more water, and life, while the sea continued to drain into the caverns. Similarly, the Gibraltar Strait was reinforced, requiring similar technology and resources, and prevented further depletion of the Atlantic. The remaining land, including all life on it, was to be cleared by destructive force.

With the people moved and the waterways sealed the final step of the plan was enacted. All the remaining munitions were launched, bombarding the area surrounding the World Eater. The bombardment lasted for months, requiring manufacturing plants around the world to continually create new bombs to ensure the complete eradication of life in the specified borders, as defined by the OmniNet. By the close of 2074 it appeared the kaiju had returned to dormancy, but the collateral damage to the planet was nearly enough to ensure the extinction of the remaining life on earth.

This is when OmniNet made us aware of its new enemy. At first we were afraid of creating an artificial intelligence that would subjugate or supplant mankind. Instead, it introduced us to a pantheon of entities that had trapped the World Eater here. This is where our story begins, the declaration of war on the celestial beings that used our planet as a prison for an untamed weapon of planetary destruction.

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Inspiration Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/q19cmz/wp_everything_is_beyond_human_comprehension/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Original Prompt: “When you were a kid, you and your friends made a ‘secret society’, with passcodes, names, and even a silly logo you drew yourself. That was years ago, eventually you lost contact with those friends, but one day you receive a letter in the mail, and it has that symbol embossed on it…”

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The stack of junk mail felt thicker than usual as she stood over the recycling bin in the garage. The car’s engine cooling down, popping behind her, she looked over at it and some of the envelopes gave way. Left in her hand was a shorter pile with a dense, natural paper envelope on top. The tan pulp visible, the handwritten name and address in bold calligraphy. She flipped it over, curious but careful. The rest of the junk fell in an instant. Both hands now coddling an envelope with a forest green wax seal, a seal that looked familiar.

The letter sat unopened in her home office for a day before she built the resolve to open it. She rummaged through a desk drawer, searching for a letter opener. For once she had an excuse to use antiquated implements, it seemed appropriate for the gravitas she had given the letter in the interim. At the bottom of the drawer, beneath mementos from family members who had long since passed on, she found the beautiful crane handle of her grandmother’s paper knife. Drawing it like Excalibur, she pointed the tip gently under the flap. With soft, pressed movements she slid the blade under the seal, leaving only a bit of bled color on the paper. She continued the removal of the seal, seeking to preserve the wax, whole and with the symbol intact. After, she set it aside and braced herself for whatever content she’d find within.

The flap lifted on its own, practically inviting her to retrieve the letter within. It peeked out from under the green tinted paper, further calligraphy showing itself. She tenderly folded it flat and drew the pages out within. Three small sheets of a softer paper came out, crammed with bold letters, ink spots, and what appeared to be small water stains. She drew in a breath, a gasp really, as she saw her name at the top.

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To Founder Emily,

I regret not contacting you sooner, but I wanted to be sure there was no other options left before reaching out. I apologize as well for the subterfuge of the envelope and co-opting your design without further official consent, but I have few friends and fewer colleagues that I can trust. I didn’t want any tangential connections to have suspicions spread beyond myself.

Years ago we, perhaps jokingly, created our little group of wayward girls. We were so young, it seemed like a fun little game to create a secret society. At the time I think we weren’t set on creating a long-lasting organization, just a club really. I don’t fault those of you who fell out and moved on, but it meant something entirely differently to me and Colleen. After you left for university Colleen and I started recruiting. It was still a bit of a joke until 2008 when the first of the girls started to graduate, finding themselves in a world that no longer sought to invest in our future through fulfilling careers.

This was the shift from being a bunch of “gal pals” with a secret group handshake and some code names into trying to do something of value. At first it started with the handful of women entering the workforce, scrounging to be seen as contributing members of society but stuck with entry level jobs. Within a few years those women were in positions of power. Some were able to get others in our group into jobs, setting them up for success and giving them the knowledge and tools to succeed. By the end of Obama’s second term we were spread throughout several governmental and financial institutions.

Colleen was the most driven, she truly wanted to make something great. During the first decade we’d grown from a handful of friends to a sprawling organization, centered around a forum that has yet to be discovered by the media or law enforcement. We would know, we have a few women inside the CIA and FBI. I don’t suspect people would feel we’re doing anything nefarious, we still don’t stoop to nepotism, our members still need to prove themselves and earn their roles. We just aid them in their efforts to get where they want to go.

To whit, I am stepping down from my position as the de facto head of our group. As you have already noticed I am not long for this world. It was a hard decision to share my condition on social media, but it was vital to keep up appearances of a simple life for all these years and this spanner in the works couldn’t be omitted. At first we thought this could be a great opportunity to facilitate a fake death, it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve helped those in need out of dire circumstances. But as the second, third, fifth, eighth opinion came through it became clear that my demise was inescapable.

The good news is that we have already made a short list of replacements, of which you were chosen as the only “external hire”. We have been watching you for years, occasionally interceding on your behalf, until you were able to build the skills you needed to be reintroduced to our club. There are a lot of moving parts and I want to give you the full scope of what this would entail, but before we get there I needed to know whether you’d be interested in joining and leading The Ladies of Larkspur.

We have a member that lives at the end of your street. She is awaiting your response. As you may expect, some tact would be appreciated. Below you will find a URL to access our forum.

I know this blasé approach to my impending death might come off as a touch cavalier, but the work I’ve dedicated my life to holds more value to me than my mortality. I hope the same feeling of duty and importance avails itself to you and I hope that bond we formed as children wasn’t a fleeting moment of kinship. I’ve been afraid to reach out sooner because of the growth of the Ladies outside your knowledge, but after your years in public servitude and your current role as Mayor it seemed your path was unwavering, whether we tagged along or not.

Whatever you tell Emmanuelle in regards to our offer, please know that I will always cherish the summer we fought for a seemingly inconsequential change to library hours. The secrecy, the adventure, the camaraderie. It meant the world to me and Colleen. I wish she could have told you herself how valuable you were to her development. The determination to change the world, the drive to keep working towards it, it inspired her to do great things.

She may be remembered as an extremist, but even her death brought attention to the cause. Whatever you heard of her exploits and our supposed involvement I want you to know that the truth will be made available to you, whether you join or not. She still held you in high esteem and wanted you to know her reasoning.

Please take your time deciding. I know you’re level-headed and wouldn’t hasten into any engagement without considering all options, but I do hope you choose soon as I would like to see you at least once more before I move on to the next stage of existence.

With all sincerity,

Founder Harriet “Hera” Simms, nee Johnson

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Inspiration Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/q15wwh/wp_when_you_were_a_kid_you_and_your_friends_made/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Original Prompt: “As the last uninfected human perished, a curious thing began happening to the zombie hordes…”

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EDIE History and Rehabilitation Guide, excerpt from Chapter 6: The Great Transition

Though it may not be known when the last homo sapien expired we do know that it was around eight decades before the Reawakening. During this “dark age” the rapid ascension of homo immortali was predicated on the transition from eating human brains to gather the chemicals required for the final step in evolution. When the final sources of Human specific brains were depleted the Fever’s hunger caused a great many Everlasts into a dormant state. However, those whose intellect remained intact after the Fever were able to scavenge for the restorative benefits of eating other creatures.

Trace amounts of the six required, primary chemicals in our nervous system could be found most commonly in fish. Subsequently a large quantity of the first Everlasts began small communities on the coasts and surrounding inland sources of aquatic life. This was aided by the amount of dead sea creatures washing up on shore due to the pollution caused by the Human species and the rapid deterioration and destruction of the power sources used before the Great Transition, discussed in the previous chapter.

There has been a great deal of research on and evidence gathered that focuses on the early tribal phase of Everlast history. Mirroring the transition from ape to man, the conversion from man to Everlast revolved around communal efforts. Everlasts that first breached the barrier to true consciousness had awoken to a world unlike the world their minds last saw. A great deal of tribal warfare dominated the first few decades as colonies grew, but a unification began with a scarcity of available food due to a shift in oceanic ecology. The fish and other aquatic life had stopped washing up on the shore as more species adapted to the new “normal” and those that could not survive had been driven to safer waters or extinction. Due to the necessity to adapt or move in-land Everlasts formed larger colonies and resources were shared rather than fought over.

During this time, around 10-20 years before the Rewakening, the Everlasts started to remember in greater detail their past lives. If you have experienced this sensation you are not alone. The acuity of these remembrances vary based on a huge variety of factors, explained further in Chapter 8: A New Society.

This brings us to the start of the Reawakening, where a great many of the Everlasts were able to remember how to use the deteriorating equipment left by our predecessors. With the return of this knowledge, Everlasts around the world began experimenting on themselves to discover the cause of our apparent immortality. Colonies began leveraging the communication networks that were still intact and began sharing the results of experimentation, leading to a reconstruction of the essential tools required to maintain life. This included production and mass manufacturing of the substances that prevent our bodies from deteriorating and ensure the bio-indefinite mortality of our brains and nervous systems.

Success was found early on with introducing the required chemicals to the nervous system through intravenous therapy and spinal taps to allow Everlasts that had not transitioned completely to regain more conscience and then more memories from their prior existence. This advanced the progress exponentially as more memories meant more knowledge, quickly leading to more discoveries about how and why only the nervous system appears to be able to last indefinitely while the body that housed the brain still continued to deteriorate.

Most commonly, people in areas where cold weather dominated portions of the year have had success as their bodies and brains were better preserved.

While the Rescue phase of the Reawakening was underway it was discovered that a great many people were affected by the Fever but were not able to feed and immediately went dormant, preserving an almost perfectly intact brain, and subsequently their memories from their former existence. Unfortunately the success of these individuals to transition varies based on how long they were dormant and whether the Awakening could be aided by methods meant to introduce the chemicals required for transition directly to their nervous system.

A large portion of the population that transitioned north of latitude 57°, as well as almost the entire population of Tibet, were able to be Awoken completely with spinal taps. This was due in part to their preservation but also the resilience inherent to being subjected to the cold weather during their previous state of existence.

It was at this time that an initiative was started to search for the remains of other host bodies that contained candidates for Awakening. The hubs of Human population, major cities and unsuccessful bunker and ark programs, were treasure troves of dormant Everlasts and often could be found in abundance. The Everlasting Mind Recovery (EMR) program began after short-wave radio communications were established throughout the world and with that the great Rescue project was fully under way.

After nearly a hundred million Everlasts were restored, a new, unified organization was formed to aid in sharing resources, findings, and foster comradery, called the Ecumenical Data and Information Exchange, commonly referred to by the acronym EDIE. With the dispersed colonies having a new rally cry to find and rescue as many candidates for Awakening EDIE made efforts to restore physical connections to colonies and began work on restoring transportation and infrastructure.

With the advent of an increasingly connected world a need arose to establish a new common era. A heated debate ensued but without having a lot of technology that maintained the old ways of chronicling the passage of time a new Common Era was started. Year One was established by unanimous vote, but non-compliant equipment still displayed the year from the human era, 2284. The scientific community still honors the now obsolete year references, but typically will show both the CE and HCE, or Human Common Era.

The start of the Common Era was filled with discoveries and rediscoveries as the Everlast grew in numbers due to the rescue program, but as we have come to understand, could not grow due to procreation. During the transition the Fever reconditioned the brain to seek to grow the species by infection, not through creation of new individuals. This caused a large divide in how some Everlasts view their former gender and the previous biological imperative. Those who went dormant without or with little “feeding” still hold a much stronger sense of individuality and the chemicals that defined gender were still preserved in their brains.

With the Reawakening under way a new conversation was starting about how to honor the bodies we awoke in while moving to the new, androgyne mode of existence, one free from sexual desire. You may have experienced some memories of a time before, depending on where you were found and how well your body was preserved, but common consensus is that it may take up to three years from Awakening to shed the vestiges of the biological imperative.

In an effort to assist those whose bodies were no longer ambulatory EDIE established a branch of scientists that began working on converting and improving the prosthetic equipment once used by Humans. This was the dawn of our current state of being where flesh is stripped and the nervous system is threaded into advanced prostheses. As a large portion of the Everlast population began moving away from flesh-based frames we have watched our forms change into increasingly more diverse shapes and sizes.

You may already be familiar with these options, but as a reminder, EDIE’s Prosthetic Empowerment for Ambulatory Bodies branch, commonly called PEABody, has a large variety of available choices for regaining partial or full autonomy. Switching to a prosthetic or fully cybernetic body can greatly aid those who find our new lives daunting or are struggling with achieving self-sufficiency with the limitations imposed by deteriorated bodies.

Counseling is available for those whose mental health is affected by the many new forms of flesh dysphoria, please do not hesitate to contact EDIE through your local Rescue and Rehabilitation Administrator to discuss what you require to pursue a fulfilling life. Please see Appendix A for regional contacts who can direct you to your local administrators.

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Inspiration Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pygabn/wp_as_the_last_uninfected_human_perished_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Original Prompt: “you’ve been growing suspicious of the office across the street. Not only do you suspect that more people enter than exit the building. But also; It seems to have grown taller…”

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To Tom, or whoever,

I’m writing you this letter, as a last desperate ploy for attention, to inform you of dire circumstances. Previously I have mentioned the peculiarity of what I once thought to be a VFW, or some form of Veterans Affairs office, situated across the street from me. You were right to persuade me to let the matter go. You were so right. I should have listened.

In my previous letters I failed to give you the background, the context surrounding my curiosity. As this may be my last contact with you I feel an obligation to elucidate for you what I have come to know.

As you are aware, I moved to Denver just mere months before the draft started in ‘69. It had already been a wild year, but I was bound and determined to settle into my position at the University of Denver and establish myself as an academic. Once the draft and the war had gone into full swing I began to notice some subtle changes to my neighborhood. Military personnel regularly filtered in and out of the office building opposite from my downtown apartment.

As you know, nothing was out of the ordinary at first. I thought the unmarked structure was simply some kind of administrative headquarters for … whatever branch. I’m not familiar enough with the uniforms and insignia to be able to properly identify them. Often the camouflage was blue. Perhaps the Navy? I can’t say for sure.

After the war had ended I would occasionally see some returning veterans visit the building. The flow of personnel going in and out of the building didn’t strike me at first, not until finals week when I sat at my study overlooking the street and a notably bedraggled veteran entered. Were it not for his colorful attire and the state of his long hair I might not have noticed. I believe this might’ve been December of 1975. Interested by the appearance of this poor, strange man, I decided to keep a watchful eye to see if I could make sense of his condition. I watched for hours looking up whenever there was motion on the sidewalk opposite of me. Yet, long as I waited, he never exited the building.

I had known that the building seemed to lay empty at night, lights out, motionless. It didn’t seem that there would be overnight accommodations. But he never came out.

Perhaps one of the men that exited the building had been him? Perhaps some kind of rehabilitation or correction of his state of disarray had occurred? The next few days I watched, vigilantly this time as I had completely eschewed any pretense of grading. I wanted to see this man again, I needed to know what happened to him. Whether he was well or if he left that building in the same shape he had entered it in. This time it became more obvious, more men were entering the building than exiting.

It was at that juncture that I sent my first letter about the circumstances surrounding this block. The properties nearby were benign, a travel agency to the north and a Dutch flower shop to the south. Yet, there was a mystery to this. An itch I could not reach.

Since then I brought home some supplies from the University to begin monitoring the building. I tallied the visitors and every day found that besides a regular group, of what appeared to be officers, no one left the building. There didn’t seem to be any consistency to the people entering either. Some were in formal dress, others were clearly transient. All were men and all walked with the subtle stiffness of trained military men.

I tried to put it out of my mind, to get back to my work. It was hard at first but with the return of so many people and the bustle that came with the travel boom, then Valentine’s Day, and the final semester of school it became harder to focus on anything but teaching and grading. Then came the summer sunset. It was earlier.

I know this makes me sound looney. I know I must seem to be making this up, like the warmer months were somehow melting my capacity to recognize change. I know. But, God as my witness, the shadow of the building hit my desk much earlier than I had seen since the winter. It was taller.

I had set up the binoculars on a stand months before to look at the small foyer that seemed to swallow whole the men that entered. Yet when I reached for it, unchanged from the position I’d last left it in, I could see much further into the building. Either my apartment complex was sagging into the ground or this structure had had some work done to raise the ceiling of the first floor.

Unashamed of my curiosity I finally decided to aim my binoculars towards the second story window and see what I could gleen from the loosely closed shades. I would see the lights turn on briefly in the evenings and promptly go out at 6:30 PM, on the dot, every night. But they were closed just enough to not be able to see in from my own second story window. I aimed higher at the third story and could only see slits of interrupted light, but had to piece together shapes from those slivers of shadow.

Why was it taller? I couldn’t make sense of it. I raised the concern with the landlord and presented my case to him, being met with a dry dismissal. Our building was unchanged and he walked me through the basement to show me the smooth cement underbelly of our complex. Devoid of cracks and crumbling. I knew what I had to do and to the end of my days I will regret my inquisitiveness.

I went to an army surplus south of my apartment and found some attire that loosely fit me enough to be a passable uniform. I hoped that it wouldn’t be too obvious that it no longer had insignia or my name emblazoned on the breast. I hadn’t shaved in days as my dreams were filled with dreadful apparitions. Little did I know those were premonitions.

Please believe what I tell you next. I have reason to believe my life is in danger and what I witnessed may be at fault.

I walked through the doors, attempting to keep my composure and, as best I could tell, looking no more suspicious than others that had entered. A kindly officer greeted me and asked for my name and branch. I gave a pseudonym I’d prepared in advance and stated I was from the Navy. He then asked for more credentials but I lied further and told him I wasn’t sure anymore, that I had partial amnesia due to injury. His brow softened and he said that he understood, gesturing to a chair next to a man I saw enter before me while I walked down the street from another direction. I thought I had been cautious in my approach, walking several blocks from my house before turning back to the office.

Another officer came to me and called my name. My real name, not the pseudonym I’d given. He could see my shock and I knew if I bolted now I’d never learn the truth. I resigned myself to whatever fate it was waiting for me after the elevator ride up to the third floor. He placed his hand on my shoulder, knowingly looking at me.

“I understand, son. Life is hard. The pain we suffer in this lifetime can break even the strongest men.”

Hand still on my shoulder he beckoned me out of the elevator into an open room with only cement columns and lights hanging from a bare, dark ceiling. The lights were almost blinding and I couldn’t make out further than the metal frames holding up the lights.

Two officers came up to me and both gently reached for my hands. There was no force, no coercion. They looked sincere and sorrowful. There was a painted square in the center of the floor, a glossy baby blue. The closer I got the larger it seemed to grow. The closer I got the smaller the lights appeared to be. The world was warping around me, the straight lines of the lights began to bow and curve.

There was a cone above the square, or maybe it was a different shape and it was simply distorted, but as I neared it I felt the pull, it was trying to drag me up. As I crested the edge of the cone I could finally see up into the center, but it simply opened to I’m sorry, I know, this is where you call me crazy, but it was a mirror image of the blue square, seen from above. There were men on the other side. They were tall, but again the distortion could have clouded my judgement of distances. I felt light. I felt like I was almost floating. I was only a few feet, or maybe more, from the blue square on my side of … whatever this was.

My terror took control. I tried to turn to run and the pair of officers furrowed their brows. I grappled back down to the ground using their uniforms. I hadn’t realized I’d even been so high up until one of the officers lost his balance and I caught him flying, no, falling up and hitting the edge of the cone.

The officer at the elevator rushed to grab him, a cable running to a mount on the column nearest the square, leaping to grab the falling officer. No one uttered even the slightest sound. Not even to chastise my escape. Instead the other guiding officer ran his hands through the air like he was swimming to gather a cable for himself. I reached the elevator, thankful for my weight to have returned in full and looked back to see the falling officer’s hand clasped by the cabled man. He seemed to be caressing the hand he was holding, one arm firm and taut, the other relaxed and careful.

I saw the man’s head crest the cone and the officer reached for and cradled his head. Tears suspended in the air like a liquid halo. I knew his face from my dreams. In an instant his body seemed to elongate and disappear. Both of the officers fell the moment after, each deftly landing on their feet. Then they turned to me.

I ran. Tom, I’ve never ran so hard in my life. In a flurry of snap decisions I spotted the emergency exit and rushed out. Fleeing down the fire escape on the west side of the building into the alleyway. By the time I reached the ground I had the wherewithal to look back at my pursuers. Instead they stood at the top of the stairs, blankly looking at my flailing sprint. I swear one began to wave, but in the moment I feared he had retrieved a gun and was about to draw a bead on me.

I stripped and found my clothes, rushing into a barbershop and asking for a shave, still out of breath from my dash. I know that my escape plan will do no good. I know they already knew my name. I have no doubt they also know where I live. I had to try.

My belongings are yours now. Please use the key I’ve sent with this letter to access my apartment. I will contact you later with more details but I hope I can trust you to uphold my secrecy as I try to make sense of my experience and suss out whether I am still in danger.

Sincerely, your friend Christopher

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Inspiration Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/py65qt/wp_youve_been_growing_suspicious_of_the_office/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3