Scenario in an Orlando Apartment

And so I sat, feigning interest for months old copies of Newsweek while I tried my best to distance myself as much as possible from the dramatic stage show unfolding before my eyes.

“God, I swear if I have to hear her voice again, I'm going to have a fucking hernia.”

“Please, just give her a chance, okay? She really wants to talk to you. Nothing is going to be solved if you keep ignoring her like this.”

Tansen's a good friend of mine. I trust him. I never knew Michelle well, but the horror stories that Tansen had told me about her sub rosa after they had broke up painted a very monstrous, clingy picture.

My sister was the one holding the phone. She was sentimental, sympathetic, sensitive – I feel like she could relate to Michelle in a way me and Tansen could not.

“Alright, fine, give me the phone. I'll handle this.”

The second he got the phone, he turned it on speaker. The slightly distorted sound of a sobbing young girl was picked up in return.

“T-tansen?”

“Fuck off.”

Tansen promptly ended the call, and handed it back to my sister. “See? Solved.”

My sister let out a genuine sigh of frustration, then turned towards me.

“Alex, could you please get Tansen to do something before Michelle does something drastic?”

I threw down the November 2012 Newsweek issue and aggressively defended myself. “Hold on, I am not involved in this. If Michelle does end up following through and killing herself, right now I am devoid of all responsibility. And I would rather it stay that way.”

“God, you are both so-” She was stopped by the phone ringing again, and picked it up. “Hey, sorry about that. No no no, don't. He's just... He's just being...”

Tansen. Who had moved into the kitchen, yelled to us so his voice could be heard: “Tell her to fuck off!”

My sister took some time to cover the phone's microphone to yell back in reply – “Tanny, shut up! I swear to god!”

After this point I had tapped out. The room continued to fill with hysteria until a single apexical moment occurred – a loud boom had come from the speaker of the phone, and my sister had jumped, screamed, and in a kickstart of nerve threw the phone across the room before beginning to hyperventilate and repeating the words “Oh no” and “Oh fuck” over and over again, in no distinct patten.

Upon hearing my sister, Tansen reentered the room. “Oh calm down. She's probably faking it.”

“Oh my god Tansen, shut the fuck up. I swear to god I will KILL you.”

Tansen tried reaching for the phone, but my sister got a nearby pillow and started swinging it at Tanny at full strength, all the while still crying. At that point I put my foot down and said enough.

“No. That's it. Fuck this. I have other stuff I need to get done this week, and this does NOT concern me. Go get someone else to do it.”

If either of them had said something, or even acknowledged what I said, I had no idea – the instant I had finished I stormed through the front door and out to my car.

Its been three days, and I haven't heard from either since the incident.


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Twitter: @CodexofAegis
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Writing Prompt Challenge -- Prompt 1

Welcome to this week's Writing Prompt challenge!

This prompt is:

A Man gets to paradise. Unfortunately, Lucifer won the War in Heaven ages ago. What is the man's experience like?

James found himself in a very familiar place but with a very peculiar look.



Yup, this was heaven alright. Somehow the prophets of God and Heaven had got it all correct. James took a moment of self-congratulation for keeping that Bible under his bed despite not caring for religion in the slightest. I suppose critically catholic parents also helped him as well.



And so here it was, the beloved Gates of St. Peter. The only difference was the man who was meant to meet him; James himself wasn't too sure if it was Moses or his guardian angel or God himself he was supposed to meet for the reasons explained above, but he was almost certain the weregoat in front of him wasn't supposed to be it.



“H-hello?”



“Yeah buddy, just walk right through.”



No, something just wasn't right. Angels were all normal people with wings, weren't they? Why would this guy be any different?



But then the reality hit him, and when it did it hit him like a brick, though compared to other people this brick hit a lot more slowly as most would've instantly recognized that the goat was a symbol of the devil. Then again, this isn't some esoteric religious scholar we're talking about.



James struggled with his words. “Am I... am I in Hell?”



The goat merely shrugged. “Well, I guess. But not really. This is kind of just extra space. Listen – just go through the god damn gate.”



Something was definitely up, for something as sinful as the damnation of god in god's own domain didn't seem likely. Reluctantly James conceded to the goatman's commands, and he was lead up to meet the man himself – the Devil.



“Hey man, have a seat.”



Satan, in his initial mannerisms, seemed a lot more polite than James had originally considered. Still, the newest member of Neo-Hell kept his guard up.



“Wh-what happened to Heaven? I thought this was where all good men go to die?”



“What? No, well I mean, it's kind of just a place to live again. But that's Hell. You see, this real fucking piece of work named God decided he was too “high-class” for this shit, so he decided to rent up some space in the Heavens to make the Hilton Hotels of death. Fucking jabroni, that kid was.”



“'Was'? What happened to him?”



“Well, I decided I wasn't going to have any of God's bullshit. Decided to invade his ass not that long ago. Won pretty easily, but by that point he had already fucked the minds of all you Earth kids. Some viral marketer named Jesus from Urot-V to reincarnate him as some white male in the middle of the desert. Motherfucker converted half of the damn world. But back to your point, that shitlord got murked.”



“But if you killed God, wouldn't he just come back here?”



Satan pondered this hypothesis. “Huh, guess you're right. Guess this goes deeper than I thought. But that's not important now; welcome to Hell. But like, not as bad as you thought. Kind of just, you know, okay. Not so much pain and spikes to eternal peace, kind of more like mid-size house in the suburbs to midsize house in the suburbs with extremely cheap hispanic labor-work. But really, Heaven wasn't all that great in the first place.”



The lord of Heaven and Hell snapped his fingers, and a chariot of ash, blood, and bodies came out that served as means of public transportation. To his dismay however, his new guest shrunk back upon looking at it.



“Oh Golly! Oh jeez, that thing – that thing's awful!”



“Hey, listen buddy, it's all in a matter of taste. I don't judge you because, you listened to like, prog rock when you were alive, did I?”



“But I didn't listen to prog rock.”



“Do I look like a fucking almanac? How was I just supposed to know that, useless piece of information?”



Eventually things worked out pretty well for the two, and it became just another story in the land of Neo-Heaven. Just perfect. Not rushed at all. This is truly how it ended. Believe me.


---

Twitter: @CodexofAegis
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Guardians of Enthia -- Chapter VIII

Katalyn surveyed the barren ashlands known as Akira from his point atop Malaco's vista – a point notorious for being the last stop before the ash got too heavy. His companions – Dotalyn, Gregory, as well as the brothers Shawn and Sean, and Katalyn himself had planned an expedition into the forbidden grounds for quite some time, with the approval of the Royal Society as well as the Floutin Expeditionary Association. While the others were asleep due both to the early morning and long hiking that took place the day before, Katalyn found himself unable to stay asleep, and so took this time to make certain that the crew had all the items in their catalog one last time. Taking out the list. He read it off in his head:

- 5 airbreathers
- Food and Drink for 20 days (10 days had already passed, and they had intended to survey Akira for roughly another 10)
- 5 shortswords (for practical use)
- A locket (Gregory's)
- 3 pairs of clothes for each (15) (However, Shawn had lost a shirt on the 8^th day, so in reality this was 14 and a half)
- A notebook and monocular (Katalyn's)

He pointed to the items as he read them, and found that all was accounted for. Impressed with himself, he then took the time to wake up the others, and finally make their way into the place the gods abandoned.

Of course, that was all 16 days ago.

Even more days would've passed if it was not for a young midari student to have stumbled upon the logbook at the Royal Society's records chamber. Naturally, the young elf brought this to the Council, and they once again got together in discussion.

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