Arthur

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...he spots a small town up ahead. The incoming road welcomes newcomers with a large green sign reads Welcome to Pleasant Valley.

Customers come into view going in and out of a small bodega near the sign. Upon closer inspection Arthur finds it’s a plaza at the entrance of town. A small shopping center for the kind folk of Pleasant Valley and any kind visitors who might come through.

A small family of four catch his attention. He remembers having a mom and dad, and he’s always wanted a brother and sister, so he figures he’ll introduce himself. Arthur knows they’ll love him because he’s extremely caring and very sensitive. Those are good characteristics...

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Zoom Out

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...grip is tight, firm, nothing will loosen it. If he gives in he’ll go off edge.

The deafening ring in his ears lingers infinite stretches of time before they gradually fade revealing drowned out scream, cries and pleas.

Whimpering resume, he sniffles globs of mucus to the back of his throat before swallowing and whimpers more.

“I-it was y-y-you wasn’t..

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Eating Lead Tonight

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...that many times over with things as casual as a hobbies or mere chance… It’s just a thing I’m doing. A goal needs to have a sense of accomplishment and purpose. Neither of which are characteristics I associate with quantity, less I be materialistic too, but I don’t own much and don’t plan to. What do you mean, exactly?

“I just mean it’s impressive!”

I’m not sure what it is that you think is impressive. I said I’d do a thing and now I’m doing it… Is it impressive I’m actually doing the thing I said I’d do? In which case, do you walk around in awe all day long as you go about your day encountering people who are actively doing the thing they said they’d do? I’m confused. Okay, okay, let’s take a step back because this isn’t making sense to me! Let’s start at square one: is the congratulations...

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Identity

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...holding from tearing apart and the necessity for oxygen forgotten, “What?” she asks. “How is this possible?” She’s in panic mode.

“You wanted someone to understand you. Who can understand you more than me, yourself?” he says and glances at the pen in his hand, then at the pen in hers.

She stares at the pen in his hand following him, and then at the pen in hers, and then back at his empty hand.

“I don’t understand what’s going on!” The confusion is nearly infuriating, but she’s shaking with the icy terror consuming her bones. Before long her body begins to dive into a shock, freezing and sending her into catatonic pause...

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Rebirth

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...and a long drag later Isaiah is following Sebastian. Then he’s walking faster. Finally he runs right by Sebastian.

The cleric begins to run and the celestial takes flight close to the ground and burst into a ball of fire aimed straight for them.

Isaiah drops to one knee and using his back Sebastian propels himself high into the sky and then fires a blast launching him too high up to see. Isaiah sinking and vanishing into the dirt mere seconds...

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Transistor VI

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...agony roars from every direction, all at once. Continuous, they twist and morph into demonic laughs and back to horrid screams. Hundreds, thousands, millions of them stacked on top of each other repeating this monstrous loop.

And then a child phases into view. He stands before Isaiah terrified, shook to his core.

Isaiah’s profusely amused at the petrified child. “Hey,” he says, “kid!”

Sabastian fights to look away and loses the battle. His neurons are firing panic signals left and right. Trembling hands, sweaty forehead, wide eyes and Isaiah is watching the kid conclude the worst in his mind.

“Are you okay?” Isaiah asks, now getting worried the child hasn’t yet reacted.

The Sabastian goes to speak, but pauses. Profound confusion mixed with fear...

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Eight Lives I

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...arms and legs. She touches around her body. She’s a young woman, curves, boobs, thumbs. But also not entirely like the humans, large cat ears instead of human ears, nails a bit longer and sharper than human nails and a long fuzzy white tail.

At a pond in the forest she gets a good look at her reflection. She’s half cat half human. Or a human with a tail, cat ears, whiskers the color they were when she was a cat, but human sized. “I’m kind of hot!” she says staring at her reflection...

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Transistor V

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...child in the gate!” he explains.

“Wait… It’s been like half a day…” she says, eyebrow raise high.

“EXACTLY!” Isaiah shouts.

“You’re serious?” Sarah asks.

“No, I’m fucking joking. Of course I’m serious! What would even be the point of a lie like that?”

Isaiah explains what’s going on to Sarah on the way out of the woods. He tells her how the boy ate the fruit of knowledge and was led to the gate for his own protection. He explain how he needs her help to track the passage the boy used to cross the gate.

Agreeing to help, they...

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Transistor IV

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...out of the other still focused on the black hole. This copy is distorted. Somehow different. Subtle deformities. The eyes aren’t quite right. The nose isn’t quite right. It’s a monster. He spreads his arms out and a glowing yellow field of light divides him from Isaiah and Sarah. They stare at each other, as if communicating a telepathic message they both face the field and fire, but nothing happens.

“Can you move us through...

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Transistor III

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...what the hell is going on?” Isaiah asks.

“Seth has spoken your name…” Ref says from within Isaiah’s mind.

“THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE!” his heart races. Isaiah’s palms are instantly sweaty. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand on end. Suspended midair, he turns to the church. Sarah visibly sees the fear crawling on the surface of Isaiah’s skin, that’s enough to send her into a panic, and to also look where he...

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Transistor II

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...You kill us? He won’t even do his own dirty work. Has his little bitch doing it?” Isaiah look away from him. “Brainwashed jackass,” he says.

“Watch your mouth fool! It is you who is brainwashed!” the priest says. “Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Abe-“

“HOV!” Isaiah yells out, interrupting the priest.

Sarah giggles quietly in her spot.

The priest takes a moment of silence before saying, “Abraham.”

“Is it now?” Isaiah asks. “Thought that name was for those following the light.”

“I suppose now is as good a time as any to exercise sin and rid the earth of evils such as yourselves,” Abraham says.

“Forgive me, Designer, for what I must do,” Sarah says.

“No need to bluff girl. Your shackles...

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Sebastian's Awakening III

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... continues to ask. Hopeful. But as the hours gather and all that exists is this place within the ring of fire, separate from the rest of the universe, hope withers and he goes catatonic.

Curled into the fetal position he stays in the center of the ring for hours and hours. And then a day. And then two days. And then three.

A week in this prison of emptiness, this most awful of places, Sebastian gets up. He’s still trapped. The screams are infinite. Everywhere. Everything.

And two weeks go by. Sebastian has not yet seen or heard anything but the screams and the roars and the gargling and the tortured pain.

And three weeks go by. Sebastian screams in agony. In hate. In anger for being aware of being in this place. Stuck in this hell. He’s attempted...

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Whispers

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...deep distorted voice says “It’ll leave if I do this!” While moving your jaw open and shut. Alone on your side it’s as though you first thought it and then said it. As if the demon only exists across the mirror. And everything on this end is voluntary. Thought out. Intentional. Choice.

“It’s in my head!” you say. “He only wants me to think it’s his doing!”

The demon lip syncs each word, hand moving your puppet jaw.

You think to pierce skin with the blade of the razor and the demon reaches back down to your arm and begins to press it into the skin. Vibrant burgundy blood gathers around the cut. Then wraps around the wrist and drips to...

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Staying Alive III

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...looks familiar when he gets out of the dumpster. He’d already been roaming unfamiliar streets when he found the building and jumped out the window avoiding ghouls.

“So, I’m lost…” he says, back on the street unable to tell which direction he came from. “Nothing new there.”

Luckily the coast was mostly clear with exception for two or three stragglers. Ghouls from the night before. Alex quickly disposed of them and took the opportunity to track and find painkillers ahead of time. An expired bottle of Tylenol. “Fun times await you, little ones.” He tells the bottle of Oxycontin as he shoves it in his backpack and continues his journey...

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A Coward's Apocalypse

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...The best bet was to leave the campus if people started to eat other people. Why stick around? But it was worse out here. More death. This thing that’s happening is happening everywhere.

In front of the Chunky Burger there’s too many of them. They’re ruthless. And Zack can’t talk himself into looking. He doesn’t want to see it keep happening. They’re tear innocent people apart and he can’t even try to help. Those things have taken down giant powerful men. Zack’s just a kid starting college. Undeveloped shoulders predict a child with this sickness easily takes him down. He’s paralyzed.

Behind him the screams get worse.

More people are dying.

More people are killing...

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Transistor I

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...and out the room, through an apartment littered with books and loose pages, documentations of transistor like himself and their ability of transmutation. “Don’t have to do shit!”

“I led him to the gate.”

“Whwhat?! What the fuck, Ref? What’s wrong with you, then?” he stops in front of the build. “Do you know where it is at least? If that’s even possible!”

“No.”

“Great! Thanks. Shit! I’m on it, FUCK!” Isaiah complains his way down the Queens’ sidewalk.

“Thank you.”

“Fuck you! Go away!” He walks into a liquor store and walks out with a cigarette hanging from his lips, a Newport pack in his shirt pocket and an open beer in his hand.

The store owner runs out with a gun. “STOP! Give me my shit!” he yells at Isaiah.

Isaiah raises his right hand and flips him the bird. The transmutation lines on his upper body and arms glow gold through his shirt and he sinks into the sidewalk vanishing. He’s gone as far as the store owner knows. Isaiah walks out of the window of a bodega...

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