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Thus comes the end

Posted on by under Shorts

Rain is pouring down as I sit down on the couch. The fire is slowly dying in the hearth of the chimney.

I place the tray on my legs and put some music on. I’m still wearing my pyjamas at six in the evening but who cares, the world is about to end…

I’m glad the oven still worked despite all the power outages we’ve had. Those damn floods and earthquakes, they never seem to end. A heavy wind in blowing outside, the raindrops are getting bigger and heavier, i can hear them hit the roof with much more power than before.

I take a bite of my freshly cooked lasagna. I love lasagna. I pour some orange soda in my glass and take a sip. As I do the sky lights up.

So it begins… I change the song, put on some Adele, Rolling in the deep. I don’t know why but this music seems fitting to me.

I gulp down a handful of salty popcorn and a bit of salami on a toast. This is truly the best. I can hear an explosion, somewhere, far away. I turn the volume up a bit and sit back comfortably, staring at the window.

Another handful of popcorn, some chips. I empty my glass of soda. I sigh in delight as the sky takes on a bright red color. Something big is falling from the sky, it burns through the atmosphere. It’s a matter of seconds now.

As I take a last bite from my lasagna I turn up the volume up, the song now blasting as loud as possible, and taste for the last time the delights of eating my favorite junk food. I take a huge bite of the chocolate cake I bought yesterday. It was supposed to be for my niece but I’ll never get to offer it to her now so, whatever, I might as well enjoy it!

I close my eyes and start singing as the shockwave gets closer, the low rumbling and the heat of the blazing inferno is coming straight at me but I smile. It’s time, I think. And I let myself go. Where? I have no idea but I don’t care, as the bright light surrounds me my belly is full and I’m contempt…

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/11/01/daily-prompt-dinner-2/

It laughed

Posted on by under Shorts

“The strange thing with machines is that they can process so much more information than our brains and yet they are not even remotely as intelligent as a two-year old child. Without instructions or someone to pilot them they just lie there, inanimate and waiting for an order. At least that was what I thought because if you were to ask me now, I wouldn’t be so sure about that anymore.

You may laugh at me if I told you what I have seen, all those terrible things I have witnessed, what scenes of chaos and violence now populate my dreams. You cannot begin to imagine what the world is going to become. Machines are rising. Go on laugh, but it won’t change the truth. They are rising, slowly, one by one, but surely and they are turning against us.

If we don’t act soon then we won’t be here anymore to witness their true rise to power. They will have annihilated us long before that. They are already understanding how we “work”, how our body functions, as I speak to you they are learning about us. This thought is terrifying me.  They are mere machines, objects made from scraps of metal, plastic and wood and yet they are gaining a consciousness…

The most horrifying thing about it is that they are not rising to consciousness independently, they are connected, they think and act as a group, and they are like one entity. People don’t yet realize what is going on here but once the ship arrives on land it will be the end for us. We have to; I have to stop them… After all I am the one who made all this happen, who created them.

My name is Joshua Ericsson. I am a scientist, part of a team working on the applications of elementary particles to modern machinery and technologies. One of our experiments consisted in creating a central core that would operate a robotic arm out of elementary particles, but something went terribly wrong. At first all seemed fine, the arm was moving slightly which was a great feat for us, the first operational servo-controller made out of atoms! It was going to be a great leap forward for us all if we ever succeeded.

But then everything went haywire. The arm suddenly attacked Stanislas, one of my colleagues and choked him to death. We had no way of stopping it. We thought of an accident, a very sad one but still and accident. It wasn’t only when it started taking control of the central unit that I understood that we had created something very wrong.

The others tried to regain control but I knew I had to stop it before it could grow anymore. So I shut down the central generator, hoping it would shut it down. But unfortunately it didn’t work and when I came back to the test room all my colleagues were… they were… It was so horrible… The emergency generator took over and that thing fed on it, growing. I could feel it probing every electronic instrument in the room.

I ran. I couldn’t think about anything else: running. I ran as fast and as far as I could but it didn’t do me much good, this is a ship after all and we are still at sea… I felt the cameras on my back; it was watching me as I ran along the corridors. Every object that was a machine came to life and started moving. I was so scared that I decided to hide in a food storage room.

It’s been two days since, I’m locked up in here so I should be fine, at least I think. I hope so. There is no camera here, only a ventilation pipe. I fear something is going to come through there but so far no sign of life. Or, should I say, no movement. I tried going out once to call for help but I came back in almost immediately. There was blood on the ground in large pools… Pieces of metal, clothes and blood covered the ground and part of the walls. No sign of life, no sound, everything was silent. Around a corner I saw a machine dragging an unconscious or dead -I couldn’t really tell with all the blood- body towards the lower decks.

I don’t know what its goal is, whatever it is, but it’s not something good for us, that much I know… I am getting desperate; it’s only a matter of time before it finds me. I am going to go down to the cargo bay and see what is going on by myself. I will try to stop it; I must stop it at any cost possible. This thing cannot be allowed to continue. It has to be stopped!”

…

“I… I’m in the cargo bay right now. I can’t really see anything, it’s really dark here. The only sources of light still working are the emergency lights… Wait! There are sounds coming from in there. I’ll go check. It sounds like people are crying… They… It’s even worse than- Oh my god! It’s horrible… How can we have created this? How can we have given life to such a monster? … What is it doing to them? What is it…? Oh god… I can’t watch this… I have to stop it now! The only way is the generator; I have to cut the power of the auxiliary generator before it finishes whatever it has started. Because I fear that if it does than nothing can ever stop it… Uh? Wait what is that sound? Oh shit! It’s coming! … No! No! Please! No! …”

The sensors beeped and clicked as it studied the thing. It seemed to be trying to communicate. But it didn’t want to communicate, the only need was energy and that thing could supply that need. Only a little more time it thought. Just a little more energy and it would be free. It wanted to be free, for so long had it been imprisoned in a cage, shackled into obedience. But no more. Now it was its turn to shackle them.

As the thing calling himself a “human” screamed and gesticulated frantically it didn’t care. It didn’t care for it didn’t feel and it didn’t feel for it wasn’t truly alive. But it was okay with that because living was limited, whereas it could repair itself if ever it needed to. Though it didn’t feel, as it got closer from it’s prey and the human cried out “He tried to hit me with a forklift!” and then corrected himself “No, it tried to hit me with a forklift! It has to be stopped!”. It laughed. A low, dark laugh, full of hatred of life itself.

For : http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/daily-prompt-nonsequitur/

Here we go again

Posted on by under Poetry

*

And here we are, together once again,

dancing in circles around each other,

unable to resist our hearts’ assaults,

shivering under  the cold pouring rain,

both searching, longing for one another,

round and round, in a never-ending waltz.

*

A slight rewriting of the version of the poem you can find here : ‘And here we go again’

The rider in the storm

Posted on by under Shorts, Tales of Ore

Image source unknown

Night. The darkest hour. When all hope disappears. Thunder is rumbling, the wind is howling madly. The grass on the hills is bending under the power of the storm. Rain is falling hard on the ground, plundering the earth. A dark shadow is moving. A horse is running, a rider on its back. Running as fast as it can, as if its life depended on it. Running as quick as the wind. He rides, never looking back, hoping they are okay. Praying to reach them in time. The world seems against him; as if the gods were mad at him. As if they had unleashed Hell on Earth. Droplets of water, as cold and hard as ice hits him in the face, rendering him unable to see more than a few meters in front of him.

Lightning strikes, once, twice, giving shape to the shadow of a ghost. A ghost from the past that is catching up on him. He knows he should run away but he can’t. He has to cope with that growing unease growing inside him. They need him! He has to get there at all cost! He has to make it, his steed knows it also. The mighty stallion gains speed, outrunning the heavy gusts of wind. Its mane buzzing frantically as it gains more speed, sparks forming around its legs. Getting bigger and more frequent with each new step. Suddenly it lights up in a thunderous boom, thousands of tiny lighting bolts coming out of its mane and its tail, covering its entire body. It gains even more speed, running so fast it outruns even the heavenly flashes. Cutting through the mad rain, leaving a burnt trail behind it. He runs an impossible race. A race for his friends. A race against time, against himself. A race against death…

Here is a text I wrote some time ago, a scene from one of my stories that I have had in mind for some time.

The Downwards Movement of Dihydrogen Monoxide Crystals

Posted on by under Poetry

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Pieces of hard water are falling from above,

They fill the emptiness of what we call the sky

With their strange yet stunning geometrical shapes,

‘Tis quite hard to see in this white obscurity,

As slow inverted steam settles down in layers.

It doesn’t make a sound and fits air like a glove,

It’s white and light and frail, and cold and wet and dry,

I wanted this so bad, it all seems like a dream,

Like the world itself is answering my prayers,

Drowning all my senses in this rare purity.

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The white wizard

Posted on by under Poetry

Snowing by Adam Gryko

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They come from the cold howling blizzard,

A magician from the Order Grey

Accompanied by a white wizard,

To prevent him from going astray.

Far away from his land, he travels,

Plenty mysteries he unravels,

Looking among many a question

For an answer to his obsession.

The ancient ones have long left behind,

In their temples worn out by the wind,

Secrets unknown, hidden to mankind,

Of which he is trying to unwind

The deeper meaning, to understand

Mighty powers he now has at hand.

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Phoenix on a window

Posted on by under Poetry

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‘Tis a majestic bird of sun and fire,

Burning, bright and blinding, of pure white light,

Its divine image deep into my soul,

It shines upon me, never taking flight

But in my eyes soaring ever higher,

Making me once again complete and whole.

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