It was a small memorial, only two to witness the laying of the casket into the ground.

“So long, Jack. We hardly knew you,” one said.

The other quirked up an eyebrow. “That’s it?” he asked. There was a note of amused incredulity in his voice.

“What’d you expect?” A ghost of a smile. “This is, what, the eighth time we’ve buried you now?”

A nod. “At least.”

“Does it ever get old?”

Jack shrugged and pushed his hands down into his pockets. “Hasn’t yet. I’m good for at least another half dozen deaths, I think. There hasn’t been any detectable signal degradation yet.”

“Well, that’s debatable.” The first man sounded sullen now.

“Oh, c’mon, Charles. This project was as much your idea as mine. You don’t get the right to be grumpy about it.”

“I’m not. I just—” Charles broke off, leaving the thought unfinished. A pause. “Do you remember what it feels like each time? Y’know, after?”

Jack grimaced. “Every bloody detail. I’m thinking I’ll go for something less violent next time.”

“Fine. I’ll arrange it.”

[Originally posted on Ficly.]

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He soared.

He had always wanted to fly, and now he was doing just that. He had no feathers, no wings, but he was flying just the same. The special magic that fathers possessed had made this possible. He laughed with the euphoria of the moment.

The wind blew his hair back, and he closed his eyes, reveling in the pure joy of the experience. He threw his arms out, tried to catch the air, tried to use it to his advantage. It was a thrill beyond belief.

Tumbling over, the last thing four-year-old Jacob Brown saw before the ground broke his tiny body was the figure of his father standing at the top of the cliff, arms still outstretched.

[Originally posted on Ficly.]

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Fog drifted, wet and heavy, over the short mall between the Wetherill Laboratory of Chemistry and Stanley Coulter Hall. Six tall lampposts bathed everything in an eerie, orange glow. The hour was late, and the campus was deserted — deserted but for one.

She stood at the south end of the mall, seemingly in contemplation, a small bundle clutched under her arm. Her other hand rested lightly on the fountain there, its lion face spewing water in a thin stream into the stone basin below its chin.

The fog swirled, and a cloaked figure appeared. She approached it, cautiously, the fog parting like a veil before her. Drawing to within three paces of him, she bowed slightly, a greeting.

“Your delivery as requested, Professor.” He spoke not a word in response, merely tipped his bearded chin in thanks as he collected the items into the deep folds of his robe.

Her task complete, she turned on her heel and strode quickly back to the edge of the mall, glancing only once over her shoulder. Only mist and vapor remained.

[Originally posted on Ficly.]

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PvPonline » Archive » Mark Waid is Right. Scott Kurtz weighs in on the state of comics, filesharing, and copyright. Well worth the read.

I’ve always enjoyed old spirituals with their rhythmic chants and call-and-respond style of lyrics. “Awake O’ Sleeper” strikes as me as something of a contemporary-style spiritual.

Awake O’Sleeper from Brandon McCormick on Vimeo.

Rain lashed down on that ravaged plain in furious sheets. The broken earth drank it up through ragged cracks that went down forever.

At the center of the plain, a gaping maw of a hole sucked down water in great, sodden gulps. Perversely, gouts of flame licked up out of it, unnaturally green and purple. A lone figure stood at the edge of the pit, unaware or uncaring of the tremendous heat. Its lips moved, inaudible over the combined roar of rain and fire.

Smoke and steam heaved from the pit, and up rose a great clay monstrosity, towering dozens of feet over the figure below.

“What would have of me, my master?” it bellowed. The figure looked up at the beast, allowing her hood to fall back. Her features were fine and fair, hair so blonde as to be almost white.

Her voice was cold as ice. “Your time of sleep has come to an end, my dear. I have need of a titan.”

The golem pulled its massive bulk out of the pit. “Then let us be on our way,” it replied. It scooped its master up and lumbered out over the plain.

[Originally posted at Ficly.]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

NASA’s dizzying concept art imagines ribbons of farmland in space. I’d live in one of these habitats.

Didn’t your mother ever tell you, “Make sure you put on clean underwear because you never know when you might be in a car accident?” Mine sure did. I don’t really know why it matters, though. If you’re in a car accident, underwear is probably the last thing anyone’s going to be worrying about.

In fact, I know it is because, here I am, pinned under this damn truck, and my lower half looks like it’s been put through a bloody meat grinder.

Always put on clean underwear.

Oh, right, Mom. That’s just fucking hilarious.

[Originally posted at Ficly.]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The albino stood on the platform and dragged the knife down his forearm. Blood ran in scarlet rivulets over his hand, his fingers. It dripped the sidereal pattern of his god onto the wooden planks around his feet.

Before him the air shimmered as it struggled to call forth his deity. The hot sun bore down full on his naked back, dampening the potency of the blood. Day was not the time for such magic, but there was no choice for it.

With each heartbeat, more of his life pulsed away, more of his power to prolong the spell ebbing. His was a complex gift, a dangerous magic. Each practice of the blood rites risked death, if the ritual could not be completed before last blood flowed.

The albino chanted, his voice barely a whisper, conserving energy, yet he felt his strength diminish.

He slashed again, savagely, desperately, hoping more blood would fuel the spell’s completion. Still it foundered, and he sagged to the platform.

The albino wept his final breaths. His failure meant that his people would die.

[Originally posted on Ficly.]

The place smelled like shit and piss.

“I thought these things didn’t have bodily excretions,” I called out to my partner.

“They’re not supposed to,” she replied. “For some reason this one does. Someone’s been hard at work making a clank that can process food the way humans do.”

The clank was a junker, alright, especially since someone had unloaded several rounds of buckshot into the thing. Oil and grease spattered the wall around where it was slumped, and a puddle of very human sewage was leaking onto the floor around the thing.

“Makes you wonder what happened here,” I said thoughtfully. No answer. I looked around. “Mel?”

I found her in the next room looking at a scrap of paper she’d found on the desk. I looked over her shoulder and read: Nobody loves a clank at midnight.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Hell if I know, Joe. Nothing about this makes sense. We still haven’t found Mr. Peabody.” She sighed. “Maybe when we find him, we’ll have our answers.”

Maybe, I thought, but I wouldn’t count on it.

[Originally posted at Ficly.]