Goodnight said the face jutting out of the wall. She reached up to touch it but it moulded itself back into the brick. The swirls on the carpet spun into ethereal balls of light and their laughter tinkled like wind chimes. Only there was no wind in this solemn place where the moon came and went and the stars burned black.
Her hair stuck fast to her sticky, hot brow and she knew that she was lost in this 'other' world. There was no fear just a calm acceptance as the life she had barely begun to live drained out...
100 feet away. Or 30 meters away to be more exact.
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Sisyphus
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King Aeolus
Last seen: Thessaly
Feb. 29th
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Merope @ Ephyrae
Corinth, Greece
9 months ago
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Mount Olympus, Greece
1 day ago
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Ephyra
4 hours ago
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Tartarus
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River Styx
5 minutes ago
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"Lola."
"Lola?"
"Lola."
"Of all the songs ever written, his favourite is Lola? You can't be serious."
"Dead serious."
"Wow. That's a guy who really needs a friend."
"I know. So will you do it?"
"Why on earth would I?"
"Out of the goodness of your heart?"
"There's goodness in my heart?"
"You might be surprised what you'd find if you went looking."
"Calling all spelunkers! Is there anyone out there daring enough to embark on the most dangerous of quests, the search for goodness in the depths of my heart? Finders keepers, down there!"
"Very funny. So you're not...
"You can count me out."
"What? Why? Come on, it's only one little job. The last one we'll ever need."
I looked at him warily. "I don't even want to know. Just let me go back home. I'd really rather not get involved in this."
"You're the best hacker we know."
"EX-hacker," I growled through gritted teeth. "I'm done with all of this."
"You're not done. Your heart is racing. You remember the thrill of a job."
I couldn't very well say no to that point, at least. My heart was pounding in my chest. I could feel the blood...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead. And it's absolutely nothing like I expected.
In all of the near-death experience stories I was told they talked about the light. So much so that I thought that I should walk into it, if only to see what was on the other side. Only there was nothing there, not as far as I've seen anyway. There's just the light.
I keep thinking that if I keep walking, maybe something will appear. But I've been walking and...
I'm dead. Really dead. Not in the "there'll be a twist at the end and I'll be saved" kind of way. Just dead.
Surprisingly, I don't mind all that much. It's much calmer out here in the abyss. There's a strange peace that comes with being nothing. Or, rather, not being. There is a difference, you see.
Because I am not, I am able to not be wherever I like. And I am not in the middle of everything.
While I was alive, I loved stories. Stories were incredible things. I would look for them everywhere-- music, movies, books, newspapers,...
Wine, you are wonderful. I won't shout it, I won't be heard about above the din. Nightlife never appealed to me beyond the very notion of it. I appreciate gatherings, but rarely the gathered. And so, wonderful thou art, wine.
I got tanked on pinot gris and focused on her adoringly. She had better legs than this too expensive wine I ordered with careless enthusiasm. Yeah, she was a showgirl. It's as obvious as the hangover I'd nurse in the morning.
If your parents are going to name you after a song, there are a few things they should think about.
For a start, it needs to be a good song. Actually, no, it needs to be an actual name. Nobody wants a kid called "You know what they do to guys like us in prison."
But it still needs to be a good song. A really good one. Not some one-hit-wonder.
And it should be subtle. I mean, "Penny Lane" - that's obvious. "Layla"? Not so much.
Maybe I'll change my name to Layla, when the forms come through. Or...
I jumped. I blacked out. When I awoke, head ringing and eyes spotted with colours, he turned round slowly.
"You ever heard of an Ox Bow Lake?"
"nuhuh" I said. Mind you, the gag would have rendered the same result as a Shakespeare soliloquy.
"sahwiwochee" Hell, it was different. Maybe if you were a dentist, this conversation would be less one sided. I eyed the man who had broken in to the lab, wondering if he'd had orthodontist training. He knew his way round a physics lab alright, but fiddling with the quantum accelerator probably wasn't the best idea. That...
My best friend is a guy called Peter and he's incredible at talking to people. He has a vault of information in his head that he's gotten from all of his past conversations with people. When he meets someone new he merely tells them what he knows so far about their hometown and then lets them build upon it, this he'll take to the next person he meets from there and so on. I was with him the other day and we were talking to a guy from south africa, we live in australia, and the guy was used to...