Microstory - Tumblr Posts
He took a drag off his cigarette and looked loningy out the window.
"Is it everything you imagined it'd be?" She whispered softly from the bed next to him.
He looked around the room. It was beautiful, best that Soma Corp money could buy. So much more than a gutter rat like him deserved. He racked his brain thinking about it. This was it: the money, the tech, the respect. It was everything he'd ever wanted. People like him died for this. He had literally killed for this. So why did it all feel so hollow? Why did this room feel as far away from reality as it was from the ground?
"No, he whispered. I fucking hate this city"
"But it loves you, that's why you keep coming back." She said with only the slightest bit of scorn in her voice.
He looked across the room at the hardware on the table. His body armor and rifle and her deck and trodes stared at him the way he stared at the city. In a few hours, none of this would matter, and nothing would probably ever matter again.
"Whether it loves me or not, I'm gonna burn it all down." He said taking his last drag.
The longer I went on, the less I remembered. As I traded parts of myself for processing power, meat and memory for time. I lost parts of my past everyday consumed by the compulsion to keep going.
I still remember us, though. I remember them. I remember the lake, the sun. I remember the way the light made their eyes pop and the way they laughed. I remember their touch and the way their hand felt in mine. But I can't remember their name. I can't remember their face or why it ended. I can't even remember if it was real, but it's all I have left.
I'm a husk, a collection of electrical impulses in a shell of meat. I cling to the thought of them because I loved them. I still love them, but also because it's the last time I remember being myself, being alive.
D’mitri opened the exotic tome. Something about it had drawn him to it even before he saw its bizarre runic patterns etched onto the leather-bound cover. He felt an energy exude from within its pages and he couldn’t help himself; he had to explore more. His elation quickly transformed into confusion. Every page, cover to cover, was blank. Energy continued to waft from the book but there was nothing to be seen. Nothing to read. “What’s more worthless than a book that can’t be read?” he thought. But he was studious and diligent. More importantly, he was aware of the limitless possibilities of magic.
D’mitri combed through his library to find a clue to further his research but found nothing of magics that wished to be felt but remain unseen. Returning to the exotic tome, he began flipping through its blank pages until he turned to a page he had missed before as it was stuck to another. This page had physical images that he could see with his own eyes: it depicted parabolic runes fashioned in the shape of a gateway. As he studied the strange page, words came to him. Not in a voice or in symbols but of his own mind:
What opens shall never close What is seen shan’t be forgotten What is chosen has no choice
Where once his mind was a hurricane of thoughts and theories, he now had clarity; his mind’s eye was a blank canvas. A grand theatre where the curtains had been drawn for their opening production. Upon comprehending these words, his mind was flooded with vivid images of vast alien landscapes: Subterranean caverns glittered with blue and violent glows, deep ocean caverns where massive tendrilled whales swam, and monstrous tentacle faced people chittered to each other in a language that no tongue could ever speak. D’mitri wasn’t sure if the images were only in his mind or if he had magically transported himself. He could feel the cold splash of the water, the moist cavernous air, the vibrations of the tentacle people’s speech, but nothing of his own body in his study. Yet his body remained sound where he still had control. As he continued to dissect into the runic page he felt another word. A single string of letters. He speaks the grotesque word that sounded as if he were retching a giant slug. The instant the final sound left his lips he was overcome with the uneasy feeling of a predator watching him. He felt his projected mind get yanked briefly to stop its momentum then ripped away from the beautiful scenescapes. D’mitri found himself in a midnight salt flat. Flashes of lightning revealed glimpses of a mountain looming over him. Upon further inspection he realized the mountain was squirming. As he listened he heard it moan a thousand moans; wails of countless dying people. The scent of death struck his nostrils as did the warmth of vile breath from its many toothy maws. The mound of putrid flesh and death, with no discernable eyes to speak of, glowered at D’mitri. He could feel its hunger pressing down on him for only a moment. Its hunger quickly faded and with it, D’mitri felt a part of himself go with it. Something that he didn’t know was there but missed it the moment it left him. In that new void, that feeling of emptiness, became a new sensation. It felt hungry for something he’d never had before. It craved expression of emotions no decent human should indulge. It demanded control by giving into chaos.
Air leapt violent into D’mitri lungs. The gasp thrusted him back into the chair in his study; he had not taken a breath in some time. The rest of his senses returned in time to witness the exotic book on his desk burst into a necrotic green flame until nothing but ash remained. D’mitri felt weak and wispy as he stumbled out of his study and into the dreary gray rain outside where he would remain for a few hours. He had read more than enough for the day.