Should the Arrow Fly Further, pt. 5

Xiu Zhang emptied the smoke from her lungs. Through the smoke that twirled and danced before disappearing above her head, she could see Lionel scratching his head as he sifted through a box he had pulled up from behind the counter. “Unfortunately, I can’t give you much,” he sighed, poking at a rusty metal ball that feebly rocked back and forth, “I’m not in the business of metal, mostly just telling people where they find metal somewhere else, you know? But I have some things for you to take, girl, some things may keep you safe, might keep you alive.”

Xiu picked up an oddly-shaped gun with a thick wooden handle. Weighing it in her hands, she felt that it would be better suited as a club than a pistol. “That’s an old flintlock pistol,” Lionel said with a nostalgic grin, “From way before our times. Popular with pirates forever though, because you feel it. You get one shot, but then it’s very heavy, you see? Good for smacking. Not good for hurting someone so bad they stop talking, but very good for hurting someone so bad they start talking.”

Xiu placed the pistol gently on the desk and held her arm out in front of Lionel’s face. Without batting an eyelash, every piston, servo and gear in her arm began whirring and chugging. Her arm shook violently and vigorously, but her steely glare showed Lionel that she had complete control of the sleek red limb. She stopped flexing the synthetic muscles in her arm and let it rest on the table with a tightly clenched fist. Rhythmically and hypnotically, tiny metal blades popped out and back into her knuckles in a display of the lethality of her prosthetic. Extending each four-inch blade out as far as it would go, she softly grazed them along the wood of the counter. With the meticulous precision of a surgeon, she carved four deep grooves into the counter as casually as she might have run her hand through water. Popping the blades back into her fist with a razor-quick “snikt,” she looked at Lionel through her heavy-lidded eyes.

“Alright, alright,” Lionel nodded, raising his hands in surrender, “Maybe something with a little more bang, then.”

Shuffling through the box with a discerning grimace, he tutted and shook his head at the meagre collection. Xiu closed her eyes and brought up every bit of information she had on Prometheus. She waded through news articles, dubious reported sightings, and petitions to have his crimes forgiven. Looking through the available law enforcement databases, she tried to figure out exactly who she would be going up against.

Every article came with a vague physical description of the man. He was not only proud of his synthetic implants and prosthetics, he openly flaunted them. Reports ranged from describing every inch of his body being a cold gun-metal grey to saying he sported a skin-simulating material that shifted colour so subtly that you could have an entire conversation with him before realizing that he had turned a vibrant shade of green. In one article, his voice sounded like the harsh grinding of barbed wire being passed through a grain thresher, while in another it sounded like a playful midi-melody from an old video game. The only consistent feature that was described in every piece of literature Xiu read was his eyes. Prometheus’ eyes were described as cold, unblinking, and having orange-red glow like antique LEDs.

Descriptions of his various implants were no more precise. One officer was brought to hospital after an encounter suffering from deep gash wounds. When doctors attempted to suture these wounds, the man’s skin burnt and hissed, and the gashes grew larger. An autopsy revealed that an agent had been injected into the man that made him deathly allergic to the polypropylene used in the suturing thread. Another reported a man who was found dead in an alleyway with a look of sheer terror on his face. When the coroners attempted to move him, his bones crumbled in his body, despite a lack of bruising or evidence of poison having been used. With a shudder that shook through her spine, Xiu remembered the state she had found Wei in. Steeling herself against her fears, she brought up an image of her and Qiu, smiling and hugging each other. Xiu took a breath as she looked at the picture of her sister, and she replaced every ounce of fear in her body with anger. A hand shaking her shoulder snapped her out of her reverie.

“Hey, I say girl,” Lionel said with an arched eyebrow, “I think I found something you might be interested in.”

He lifted a tiny spotted orb out of the box and placed it on the counter. Rolling it around, Xiu noted the six different-coloured spots that adorned the surface. Each spot had a Chinese numeral delicately engraved in the centre. It looked more like a child’s toy than anything useful.

“You know what this is?” Lionel asked with a devious smile. Xiu shook her head. She had never seen anything remotely like it in her life.

“This is something Wei designed back when he was first starting out. Sent it to me for safe-keeping. Too dangerous to keep in a shop full of electric goodies. This,” he spun it playfully on the table, “Is a short-range EMP grenade.”

Xiu’s eyes widened and she shot out of her chair and across the room. Lionel laughed and waved her back over to the counter. “Relax, relax, it’s not armed, and it’s not set to detonate. Freak you out a bit, eh?”

Xiu sat back down and regulated her heartbeat and breathing as she lit a cigarette. Since the rise in popularity of advanced prosthetics and implants, EMP weapons of any sort had been outlawed in a unanimous vote by every government that had legalized human augmentation. Carrying or using an EMP weapon of any kind was treated as a threat to public safety. Xiu in particular felt unsafe near EMP weapons. Without the implants and augments in her heart and lungs, they would quickly fail and she would die within minutes. She picked up the grenade with her organic left hand and inspected it carefully.

“How do I arm it? How do I set it to detonate? What’s the effective range? What will it shut down? How do I disarm it?”

“Easy girl, slow down with that thing. Might look like a toy, but it’s definitely a weapon, see.”

Lionel carefully rotated it in her palm.

“To arm it, blue, blue, red, yellow. To disarm, backwards: yellow, red, blue, blue. To detonate, triple tap green. Green, green, green. Real quick. Then you have five seconds before it blows up. No stopping it after green, green, green. Range is three metres. Made to be real tiny, concentrated, but strong. It shuts down everything electric. Prosthetics, computers, phones, wiring, everything. Give your heart a bit of a shake even if you don’t got augments. This…”

Lionel paused briefly, twirling his fingers as though trying to conjure the right words from thin air. “This is made to shut shit down. Use it to shut shit down, yeah? You know? Not a toy. Here, put it in your pocket, make sure it’s buttoned up real safe. Don’t want that falling out.”

Xiu reached past her leg and opened a small compartment in the back of her calve. Fitting the small grenade inside, soft synthetic plastic wrapped around it and it pulled it into the back of her leg. Lionel stared in disbelief.

“That’s fucking incredible, yeah, it is. A pocket in your leg. Can’t believe it.”

“That’s what you can’t believe? I can shoot a man with my palm. I can identify trace substances just by touching them. The pistons in my legs are so strong that I can kick through solid concrete.”

“Yeah, but I seen all that. I never seen a girl with a pocket in the back her leg. Have you?”

Opening her mouth to argue, Xiu thought about it and realized she never had. Even in the mundane, Wei had been creatively unconventional with his craft. Smiling softly, she shook her head.

“No. I guess I haven’t.”

“Hey, you can smile too, eh? Thought you was just a steel bitch.”

Xiu gripped the counter next to the other handprint and crunched another fistful of powder. Scowling at him, she leaned in close as she sprinkled the dust over his hands.

“Not just a steel bitch. But I am definitely a steel bitch.”

Lionel laughed nervously and held his hands up in surrender again.

“No offence meant, no offence meant. Don’t want you angry at me, no way. Alright, let’s get you set up with the information you need to figure out where this fuck is and then you kill him real good and save your sister.”

Bringing up his monitor from the counter, he began filtering through upcoming meets while Xiu smoked silently.

An hour passed, and the room smelled of cigarettes and a foul tea that Lionel had brewed and seemingly forgotten about. Finally, he leaned back with a content grunt and poured himself a large cup before offering a small cup to Xiu, who hesitantly accepted. It tasted like motor oil, but for some reason, Xiu couldn’t stop drinking it.

“Alright, so what I did, was I looked for upcoming meetings where men who we think work for Prometheus are going to. We see this one,” he pointed to a man with an incredibly long name, “Has many meetings coming up. Mostly bulk weapons, some small augments. We see this one,” he pointed to another, “Has a few meetings coming up, all for single rare items.”

“So which of the two is it? Do I need to stake them out, or can I shake them down?” Xiu asked, pouring herself another cup of the repulsive tea.

“What? It’s neither. Look, this man has nothing,” he brought up a file for another small-time smuggler, “Which is very strange considering how active he was before. Now, there’s nothing saying any of his deals went bad, so he’s probably not dead. Nothing saying he got arrested on the feed, so he’s still in the game. Where is he? Laying low, probably with his boss. We find him, we find Prometheus.”

“So how do I find him?”

Lionel grinned and pulled the old flintlock pistol out from under the counter.

“You shake people down and they start talking.”

Legend of the Ourang Medan

This is an interesting tale, one that has been told for over half a century by superstitious sailors to wide-eyed orphans who gather at ports around the world, eager to hear of adventure or suspense. You may have heard it before, but I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. And I will tell you right now that the stories that pass through the taverns and whorehouses hold only a fraction of the truth.

In the years following World War II, I had found myself searching through India in search of a cure for my curse. After a year and a half of following fruitless leads, I had ventured to a southern harbour city where I spoke with the sailors, gathering the latest legends and ghost stories (for following false legends often leads to a kernel of truth). One loud American sailor working on two cargo ships that passed between America, Australia, and India spoke of a mystic Aborigine in Australia who could entrance people and sift through their dreams like a prospector looking for gold. Though drunk and rambling, there was an excited hush in his voice that made me believe him, and I asked if the cargo ship would take me on board in exchange for medical services. I met with the captain of one ship, The Silver Star, who approved of my offer, and the ship set sail across the Bay of Bengal and through the Andaman Sea.

The first few days were largely uneventful. The sky was bright and blue, the clouds were few and far between, and the sailors laughed as the strange creatures of the sea bounced alongside us. While the Americans and Australians spoke of piracy and how they would fight off any threats to the ship, the Indonesian crewmen grew quieter and quieter as the voyage went on. As we entered the mouth of the Strait of Malacca, the First Mate – himself a grizzled Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur – spoke in hushed tones to the captain, who grew grim with every conversation. Taking note of these interactions, I spoke to the First Mate and asked him about the crew’s anxiousness.

“We will soon be in the Strait of Malacca,” he said to me, his face illuminated by the small brown cigarette between his lips, “It is… A place of fear. A place of hatred. I have travelled through many times, and every time…”

He trailed off, rolling the cigarette between his thick, nicotine-stained fingers. He breathed deeply, and a cloud of the foul smelling smoke swirled around his face. He took another long haul of the cigarette and looked at me through his heavy-lidded eyes.

“Every time, there is something wrong.”

I looked at him with a puzzled expression. Surely he meant that something went wrong? It must have been an old sailor’s superstition, blaming natural mistakes on the route they took. He shook his head gravely.

“Every time, there is something wrong,” he repeated, walking below deck to his bunk.

As soon as we entered the strait, I understood what he meant. The radio receivers that the captains had used to stay in contact with each other had suddenly sputtered a sharp crack and gave nothing more than static. A heavy sheet of fog fell upon the ships so that the captains could only communicate through the bright fog lights they kept on deck. Rain hissed down on the sailors as a malicious wind shrieked and tore at their clothes. And then there was the feeling of dread. The Americans and the Australians suddenly fell as silent as the other sailors. We all felt as though we were trespassing in an old, abandoned mansion; every shadow the ghost of the owner, the eyes of every painting following us unceasingly. The captain flashed the light at our sister ship. The sister ship flashed back.

For hours that seemed like weeks, the crew worked silently, desperate to be out of this wretched strait and free of this feeling of terror. Night fell upon us, and the rain slowed to a patter. The fog began to spread, and through the menacing black clouds, even a single solitary star could be seen shining. The sailors breathed a collective sigh of relief. Flashing the light of our ship at our sister ship, we saw a sight that drained the breath out of our lungs and refreshed the familiar feeling of fear. Dead ahead of us sat the silent silhouette of a dark, lifeless ship.

Sailors are a superstitious group. They believe in omens, charms, curses, and divine providence. But on all ships, in the heart of every man who has set foot on a vessel and travelled the seas, there is one omen that is universally feared: the ghost ship. Be it an ethereal ship filled with the cackling souls of the damned or a wood and steel ship devoid of any souls at all, sailors fear the day they cross paths with a ghost ship of any origin.

Every heart on board skipped a beat as a faint chattering played from the bridge, interrupting the eerie silence. Pushing through the sailors, I flew up the metal stairs and into the small room where the captain stared wide-eyed at the receiver. The speaker beeped in rapid Morse code seemingly repeating the same message over and over again. The frantic and hasty beeping suddenly ceased, and the bridge was left silent, illuminated only by the blinking red and green lights of the displays.

The captain turned to me and packed his pipe with trembling hands. I leaned over, lighting it for him, and asked him what they had said. He stared at me with large, lost gray eyes.

“’S.O.S.’,” he said softly, “’From Ourang Medan. We Float. All officers including the Captain, dead in chartroom and on the bridge. Probably whole of crew dead.’ Some gibberish and panicked beeping… Then…”

He scratched absent-mindedly at his beard and took a deep pull from his pipe. In his eyes, I saw apprehension. Terror beyond that of mere superstition.

“Then…” he continued, “’I die.’”

Looking out at the looming black figure of The Ourang Medan, I felt chills tingle through my spine. I understood that as a captain, he would have to investigate the S.O.S. call. We would need to board the hulking, lifeless creature.

The Silver Star pulled up next to the Ourang Medan, and the sailors threw hooks attached to ropes along the rails, reeling us in. As the only one on board with medical training, I knew I would need to be in the boarding party. Along with me were the captain, the First Mate, and two American soldiers who had earlier been swapping stories of bravery and strength. Though they puffed their chests and flared their nostrils, I could see their eyes darting back and forth, and I could see them trying desperately to swallow their fear. Clutching our pistols and lamps, we crossed the metal plank laid between the two ships and began our search for survivors.

The deck of the Ourang Medan was completely empty. Dropping to his knee, the First Mate ran a finger along the steel that lined the floor.

“Completely dry,” he said to his, “Though it was just raining not twenty minutes ago. And there’s not a single footprint, scratch, or scuff.”

Taking the lead, the captain beckoned us to the hatch that led below deck. As we bowed our heads under the arch of the small steel door way, a putrescent stench filled our lungs. One American shook his head violently and ran back above deck. Lifting our lamps to see where the vile reek was coming from, we saw row after row of cots, each one filled with a sprawled out occupant.

I moved forward and examined a body. The limbs were fractured and splayed in every direction, as though the man had been dropped from a great height. His mouth was agape in a horrifying shriek, and his tongue was shrivelled and black. His eyes stared through the ceiling, his lids peeled back further than I had ever seen, his pupils the size of pinpricks. I attempted to close the man’s eyes to give him his final rest, only to find that they were locked in place, frozen in a look of perpetual terror.

Moving from cot to cot, every corpse was the exact same. Limbs broken and flailing. Mouth locked in a terrible scream. Eyes staring up at whatever unknown death had befallen them. The second American soldier clutched at his stomach and placed a hand over his mouth as he bolted up the stairs.

Venturing deeper into the belly of the ship, we found a small door leading to the engine room. In front of it lay a dead dog. Unlike the men, the creature was curled up serenely in a ball, as though it had fallen asleep guarding the engine and never woken up. As I lifted the poor creature, the First Mate took a sharp breath through his nose.

“Gasoline. We need to leave, right now.”

Placing the animal gently at the foot of one of the cots, I followed the First Mate and the captain above the deck and back onto the Silver Star. No sooner than we set foot on deck, we saw the sailors’ eyes widen with fear and awe. Turning around, we saw the bridge of the Ourang Medan erupt in flames, and a thick black smoke billowed into the sky.

Now, if you’ve heard this story before, that’s likely where it ends. The skeptics and the rationalists will tell you that it was a gas leak or that the Ourang Medan was carrying nerve agents. Some people will tell you it’s a myth, and that the ship never existed at all. But I was there. And I know that it was no gas leak or nerve agent, and I can sure as the eyes on my face tell you that that ship existed.

As we sailed away from the flaming wreckage, the black smoke swirled into the shape of the Devil himself. The bow of the Ourang Medan began to smoulder and as the flames caught the gas and exploded, His gleeful howl echoed over the water and chilled us all down to our bones. As the immense shape of the damned Lucifer dissipated into the night sky, the thick fog descended upon us again, and our ears were once more filled with the constant hiss of the rain.

The rest of the trip, the crew was silent. I looked over my shoulder more than once, thinking I had heard an otherworldly chuckle, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one, for I saw several other sailors jerk their heads at some unheard noise. But nothing had followed us. Nothing that we could see.

We made an early landing in Singapore, and the sailors bounded off the ship as though the Devil’s icy claws were scraping at their backs. Taking a moment to speak with the captain and First Mate, I thanked them for their hospitality but informed them I would be looking for another ship to take me to Australia.

“That’s all fine, lad,” the captain said, rubbing the heavy bags under his eyes, “I’m retiring the Silver Star anyways. I always prided myself on having never lost a sailor, and I can’t go on having lost two now.”

I looked at him quizzically and asked him what he meant.

“Boy,” he said, furrowing his brow, “Those two Americans that ran above deck before us? Nobody on the Silver Star saw ‘em come out the door. They vanished.”

Lupei Dalca

You are familiar with Romania before it was Romania? When I was born, it was divided into three parts: Wallachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia. Many are familiar with Transylvania, for that is where Dracula is said to have lived. This is not entirely true. The basis of Dracula – Vlad III, better known as Vlad Dracul (Vlad of the Dragon) or Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler) – was ruler of Wallachia in the 15th century, during the Ottomans’ conquest of the Balkans.

Vlad was known for his ferocity and his practice of impaling his captured enemies on stakes, often piercing them so slowly that they would live for a period afterward. Vlad was not actually a vampire, just an exceptionally cruel leader in an exceptionally desperate time. Legend has it, however, that he employed varcolac – vampiric werewolves – to intimidate and devour his enemies.

One such creature was named Lupei Dalca – the lightning wolf. The stories said that the first flash of lightning in every storm, even before the rain began to fall, was Lupei Dalca breaking into a sprint.

During one battle with the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman commander was in his tent at the back lines, preparing strategies for his troops. As he opened the flap to command them to take marching positions, a burst of lighting struck the ground next to his foot.

Leaping into the air and falling on his back, the commander stared perplexed as the bright blue sky grew dark and cloudy, and rain began to fall on the encampment. His bodyguards helped him to his feet and asked him what they were to do. The Ottoman commander knew that his cannons would have difficulty moving through the thick mud of the battlefield, so he retired to his tent and waited for the morning to attack.

In the morning, the commander’s two bodyguards still stood outside the tent, wondering why the commander had not woken up yet. He was usually an early riser, and it was extremely uncommon for him to be asleep this late in the morning. Opening the tent flap, they saw their commander splayed and bloated on the ground, his eyes rolled back in his skull, foam dripping from his mouth. Examining his body from top to bottom, they found nothing unusual with his corpse, until they reached his foot.

Underneath three imperceptible slashes in his boot, they found three deep, jagged claw marks that hissed and bubbled with the green poison that Lupei Dalca had applied to his horrendous claws.

Some say this is nothing but myth, and that there is no historical proof that says otherwise, but I still fear lighting that strikes too near for my comfort.

A Quick Legend

There is an old story my father read to me about a cup.

It was a normal wooden cup, but there was an odd symbol scratched into the side. Nobody knew what the symbol meant, and legends began to spring up around the cup. People said that those who drank from it would live forever, or those who drank from it would conquer their enemies… Some even said it was the Holy Grail itself. One evening, a man walked into a tavern and asked for a drink, producing this cup. Well, everyone in the tavern had heard of it, and soon a brawl broke out. Knives and swords were drawn, heads were severed, blood was shed, until one solitary man stood, gasping and clutching at his wounds. He lifted the cup in victory, drank from it… And felt nothing.

“But,” he thought, “What does immortality feel like? It must just feel like living!”

And so he ran out into the woods to protect his treasure. Years later, his body was found, broken and battered, still clutching the cup in his skeletal grip.

Now the legends have changed, and they say that the cup is cursed. They say that anyone who drinks from it is doomed to die alone and insane, isolated in their paranoia and greed.

I remember my father looking at me after the story and saying “What do you think is the moral? What have you learned?”

“Don’t believe the legends,” I said, confidently.

“That’s right,” he smiled as he patted me on the head, “But still, maybe don’t drink from that cup.”

I Am Still an Ill Omen

Many of you were very interested in my curse, and were very supportive of my determination to do good by becoming a doctor. I thank you for your interest, but I ask you to hold you congratulations and well-wishes. I deserve none of them. After my experiences in Romania (which I recommend you read before this), I left the medical profession and devoted myself to finding a cure for the curse of the strigoi mort. It was selfish and foolish. I have not yet found one. I have resigned myself to the cold Canadian north, where I spend my time isolated in my cabin, sifting through old books of the occult or chatting with some old connections online when I am not drinking myself into a stupor. The other day, I was so drunk I swear I saw a staircase outside my cabin, just sitting in the middle of the forest; writing these stories is good to keep me away from the drink and such delusions. But I have seen many things, and it surprises me how many of you had not heard of strigoi mort, so I will tell you of things I have seen. Maybe it will be of some help to some of you, should you encounter any of these demons or curses in your lives.

I left Romania and traveled east, through Moldova and into the Ukraine. I had some money left over from my work as a doctor, but wherever I stopped I offered my services in exchange for room and board. Some nights I ate well and slept in front of a warm fire place. Others, I lay hungry and cold under the stars. Everywhere I stopped, I asked those I treated and anyone who would listen to me if they knew of any local shamans or witches; any occultists or miracle workers. This was a long time ago, long before many of you or your parents or your parents’ parents were born. The old ways had not been crushed under the assimilating boot of nationalism. Though few and far between, you could find those who worshipped the old gods and practiced wicked magics and rituals.

I was a day out of Mykolaiv – in those days a small but bustling port city – and I stopped in a small inn by the roadside nestled next to a general store and a handful of houses. I entered and introduced myself as a doctor willing to make examinations in exchange for room and board. The young innkeeper smiled, passed me a cup of tea and said she would do the rounds of the small village to see if anyone was in need. By the time I had finished the cup, there was a line-up of near twenty people waiting for me to examine them. I laughed and began my work.

While prodding a particular protruding pustule on an old man’s back, I asked if they knew of any shamans or witches in the area. A hush fell over the room like the grim shadow of a black cloud. I apologized and continued poking and the repulsive boil.

“It’s just…” a man with fewer teeth than fingers began, “It’s just that we did have a witch. Real nice girl, she was, made us good tonics and potions and kept some nasty creatures at bay. But…”

He trailed off and wrung his hat in his hands. I nodded, understanding that she had passed in a way they would rather not bring up. I finished my examinations, ate a pleasant dinner that the innkeeper gave me, thanked her and began up the stairs to my room.

“Wait,” she interrupted, “I… You have something different about you, yes? You are not truly living?”

I was taken aback by this knowledge. Without feeling for a pulse or for breath, most people cannot tell a strigoi mort from a living human. Our flesh is not pale, our eyes are not dull, and we do not require blood or living flesh to survive. I confirmed her assumption and asked her how she knew.

“It’s a gift or a curse maybe, but I think it’s a gift,” she stammered, blushing, “Mom had it too. It’s a kind of sight. I don’t see spirits or nothing, but I can just tell when a person ain’t all person or when a curse hangs heavy over an area.”

She rolled her lip through her teeth nervously and her eyes darted to the window several times before she continued.

“We did have a witch here. And she did die, we think. But thing is, we think… We think her house is cursed by domovoy.”

I admitted I was not familiar with the term and asked her to explain.

“Well, it’s not a magic curse, say, like a hex or a spell or even like what happened with you. It’s a creature takes to living in your house. Now, usually they’re docile, don’t do much to hurt you or harm you if you take care of the place and leave them a little snack here and there. Even when you make a mess, they usually just make a bit of foolery until you tidy back up; moving chairs, putting out candles, harmless stuff. But this one-”

A hair-splitting moan tore through the small inn. A hot wind scorched my skin and knocked candles and chairs to the ground. A feeling of profound loneliness sank into my heart, and lingered for a moment after the moan had subsided. I looked at the innkeeper with wide eyes.

“We think this one’s angry. The witch did not come down to the store one day, and that night, the wailing began. We have tried to go to the house, but it screams at us, night or day, whenever we get up the hill. We are terrified. Please, please help us.”

I explained to her that I was just a doctor, that I didn’t know anything about exorcising houses or domovoy. I explained that while I may be undead, that did not mean I was immortal. I had no interest in walking into a house with an angry demon and trying to bargain with it to leave.

“No, sir, you misunderstand domovoy!” she pleaded, “It may be angry, but it will not leave. Once a domovoy has chosen a house, it stays there forever. Something is angering this domovoy inside the house… something that should not be there.”

As I looked at her tired, begging eyes, another shriek pierced my heart. That intense loneliness… As a doctor, or someone who once was, I could not let these people suffer such turmoil night after night. I agreed to enter the house and attempt to find what was wrong. The innkeeper thanked me and promised I could take anything from the house if I managed to calm the spirit.

I did not sleep that night. The wails of the creature shifted the temperature of the room from freezing to boiling, scattered my belongings across the floor, and inflicted such loneliness that I hadn’t felt since the passing of my family. In the morning, I rose and ate a small breakfast with the innkeeper before walking down the road and up the hill where the dead witch’s house stood.

There was nothing particularly nasty or cursed looking about the house. It was small shack made of cobbled stone, with ornate wooden shutters and a sloping, dark wooden roof. As I edged closer, I heard a threatening combination of a growl and a gasp that seemed to come from the entire house. The windows seemed to widen and shrink, pulsating with a racing heartbeat that pounded within the building. I closed my eyes tightly and shook my head. Opening them, I could see that the windows now rested at the same size.

As I moved towards the door, a loud hiss came from the doorknob. Looking down at it, I saw a snake, rearing back and bearing its fangs at me. I tried closing my eyes and shaking my head, but opening my eyes, I could still see the snake glaring at me with his cruel yellow eyes. Steeling my nerve, I lunged forward and grabbed the snake by its neck. No sooner had I done so than I realized that I held a perfectly normal wooden door knob in my hand. I wiped the sweat from my brow and made my way inside.

The inside of the house was meticulously kept, though covered in a thick layer of dust. I crept slowly and quietly, looking for anything strange or out of the ordinary besides the collection of arcane artefacts and books that the witch had collected. I made my way through the front room and walked towards a doorway leading to a bedroom when the door slammed in my face. A shuddering yell echoed through the house, coming from the ceilings and floors and walls, shaking the plates and pots and pans from their shelves and cupboards. Whatever was causing this creature to be so enraged was clearly in that back room.

Books and knives and wood from the fireplace began flying at me, thrown with malice by some unseen force. Grabbing a heavy stone statue of a creature or demon or god I had never seen before, I ran towards the door. I brought the statue crashing down on the handle, smashing the lock and kicking open the door. Running into the room, I saw the source of the being’s unhappiness. Lying on the bed, everything desiccated and decayed but the elegant purple dress she wore, was the mummified corpse of the witch. I ran to the bed and lifted her lifeless body. The moment I touched her, the entire house screamed with the agony and rage of Hell itself. I dashed through the front room as beams collapsed around me, stones tore themselves from the walls and floorboards peeled upwards revealing steaming, bubbling pitch.

I fell out the front door, dropping the poor woman as I rolled through the dirt and dust. Lying on my back, gasping for air, I waited for the creature to reach forward from the house and claim me along with the grinning skeleton of the witch. And I waited, and I listened. Silence. I rolled over and looked at the house. Through the open door, I could see the pots and pans neatly lining the shelves. Beams which had slammed to the floor, stones which had narrowly missed my head, and the floorboards which slapped at my shins were all neatly back in place. Taking a deep breath, I lifted the witch and staggered down the hillside back to the village.

That night, the villagers thanked me profusely for allowing them to reclaim the witch’s body and give it a proper funeral. She had been beloved in the community, and the villagers felt it a crime to not bury her according to her pagan religions. Her body was placed on a pyre in a small clearing in the forest, and she was covered with rich-smelling herbs and freshly picked flowers before she was lit ablaze. As I stood watching the purple dress ignite and the plume of white smoke drift into the sky, I thought I heard a faint sob coming from the village. I turned around and saw a dim light coming from the hilltop where the witch’s house was. Straining my eyes, I am positive that I saw a man with a thick beard holding a lantern standing in the doorway of her house. And though I am positive I saw this as well, I still cannot believe it is true; I am certain that I saw it wipe a tear from its huge, hairy face. The night was silent, and I slept soundly.

The next day, I went to the house to see if there were any books or trinkets I could use. I grabbed what I could fit into my pack, and began to walk out the house. Hearing a slight grumbling, I turned and walked back inside. I took a small plate down from the shelf and left a piece of bread sitting on the mantle. Leaving the house, I heard a satisfied sigh.

Should the Arrow Fly Further, pt. 4

Xiu Zhang ran her fingers through her inky black hair and looked up at the sign. Dull neon pink letters flashed and flickered: Ying Ying Pet Store. Double checking the address she had saved to her retinal display, she let out a confused and frustrated breath. This run down shithole was only a twenty minute walk away from her apartment, and she had never seen it, noticed it, or even heard of it. Yet standing in front of it, she wondered how it had ever avoided her eye. The gaudy, peeling yellow paint on the outside glared in the sun in stark contrast to the sleek gunmetal and jet buildings that surrounded it. Screams and squawks could be heard through rattling blinds behind the windows. A large foreigner with thick dreadlocks down to his waist lumbered about the store, shouting in a muffled language that Xiu couldn’t quite make out. She lit her cigarette and opened the door.

A tiny bell rang and the massive dreadlocked head spun to look at her. A pair of glowing green eye implants with dark black sclera whizzed and whirred as they examined her. A thick purple tongue ran itself over a set of yellowed teeth, and Xiu watched them settle into a smirk underneath a matted, tangled beard.

“Welcome to Ying Ying Pet Store, my dear,” the giant said in a resounding bass, “What were you looking for today? Parrots, maybe? Very popular. Or a rabbit? These ones are very good, make very good friends, but also very tasty if you like.”

Xiu grimaced as the man lifted a fat grey rabbit from it’s cage and held its paws as he danced grotesquely around the shop with it. Without missing a step in his wobbling jig, he dropped the rabbit in another cage and settled behind the cash. “But with those implants, you probably aren’t interested in something alive, hah? You’re looking for something metal, something plastic, something rubber. Those augments are capable of very much, yeah, not civilian model, but disguised to be civilian model looking. Crafty. I know that crafty. You are Wei’s girl, yeah, you are. So Wei is dead, then?”

Xiu stared at him for a moment, letting what he had just said in rapid-fire, broken English settle in. “Yeah. How did you know?”

The man smiled and one of his green eyes rolled back into his head only to roll back up from the other side. “I been dealing business with Wei a long time. You know him, his secrets, he always said if someone come around digging up his secrets, then he’s dead. If he wasn’t dead, nobody would know he had secrets. He was very secretive man, many secrets. Your sister, for example, a secret he kept.”

Xiu licked her lips anxiously. Something about this man made her nervous. Maybe it was his indistinguishable accent, or the way he lorded his knowledge over her. She glared at him and flipped on all her analysis programs; if he was lying, then she would catch it and force the truth out of him.

“What do you know about my sister? What do you know about the chip?”

The man’s grin widened even further as he silently gloated. “I know what Wei tell me. More than you. I know why you’re here, girl. If Wei’s dead, that chip’s gone, and you need it. Do you know who I am?”

“You’re Farong,” said Xiu, “You’re Wei’s… liaison, or something.”

“Very close. My name is Lionel. I was Wei’s partner, long, long time ago, before you knew him. I still worked with him, information though, hardware is risky business, but information is a thing that I do. He would send me a package, yeah? I would put encrypted information on it. Send it back. Send him information about chips and nanobots, neuroscience stuff. Brain injury. I know, I always know. And girl, turn off those programs, you make me feel like I’m on trial.”

Xiu was surprised he had noticed her silently turn on her analysis programs. Still, even as she began to shut them down, she noticed him fluctuating his pheromone levels, heart rate, lung capacity, and toxicity levels. He had some kind of mask up that prevented her from reading him, and now he was showing it off. Lionel chuckled as the levels of LSD on her read of his blood skyrocketed to three times a lethal dose.

“Girl, I was Wei’s partner. We know all the tricks because we invented the tricks. I have information, and I will give it to you. Wei was a friend, and the most loyal customer I ever had. I owe him. Besides,” Lionel spat aggressively on the floor, “I don’t much care for who has your chip.”

Xiu’s heartbeat jumped and her cigarette fell out of her mouth as she leaned forward. “You know? You know who has it? Who is it?”

Lionel smiled softly and pointed towards her hands. “Easy, girl.”

Xiu looked down, realizing that she had torn out two fistfuls of wood from the counter. She pulled out another cigarette and lit it before leaning in again and staring Lionel right in the eyes.

“Who?”

Lionel stopped smiling and pulled a small monitor from under the desk. “This is what we know about him. He is the leader of a radical group, wants to replace their bodies with metal. Whole bodies, not just pieces that fell off. Nobody seen him, doesn’t know what he looks like, but we can guess based off of little clues here and there. Sometimes things go missing, sometimes nobody cares. Sometimes you see a pattern, sometimes you start caring. So we look at a few shipments that go missing, some times match up, some people say they see a man with eyepatches at both, another man with moustaches at both, we put it together…”

Lionel swept his hands across a calendar that had appeared on the monitor, marking days where shipments and deliveries had gone missing. He pulled them across to a secondary holomonitor where they floated and glowed in front of Xiu’s face. “We see that the pieces that go missing, they go missing together, they make one scary looking fucker.”

Whirling his hands to manipulate the display, Lionel quickly pieced together a terrifying looking man who was almost entirely augmented. “All that’s left is some bones and his brain. He has neural upgrades, but you can’t replace the brain, you know? You don’t think, you don’t are, like Dickhearts say. Wei’s chip, your sisters chip, you know what it does?”

Xiu squinted at him. “It fixes my sister.”

Lionel waved his hand dismissively. “It fixes your sister, yeah, but how does it do that? The robots replace. Bits that don’t work? Nanobots replace with themselves, replace with iron or steel or any metals. Very advanced. First of its kind. Wei’s cut the edge. This guy here, he takes it, he makes himself fully robot. It’s a way for him to replace his brains.”

Xiu gritted her teeth and pulled hard on her cigarette. A long, steady stream of smoke billowed from her nose and mouth. “It fixes my sister. What’s his name, and where can I find him.”

Lionel looked at her, and she felt a strange sense of admiration and respect coming from him. “You are Wei’s girl,” he said with a gentle smile.

“What. Is. His. Name,” she repeated through her teeth.

“He call himself Prometheus. He think its funny.”

“Prometheus,” Xiu whispered, twirling her lighter through her fingers before lighting another smoke.

The rabbits and birds and cats and dogs in the store all seemed to fall silent, waiting for her to speak, but she said nothing.

a sonnet

Were I to leap from this bed, would I dance?
Would legs grow muscles and spin me around?
More likely they’d kick and fall to the ground,
Would I be so brave as to risk a chance?
Were I to look at her eyes, just a glance,
Would she giggle and wave at me, or frown?
More likely she glare, or leer, or scowl,
Bravery begets but a brief romance.

But a romance brief is better than none,
And a hopeful heart cannot be withheld,
Thus to your side I bravely stand and speak:
“There is no love here, no tale has begun,
No lust in our loins, no passions to quell,
Yet what becomes strong, begins life as weak.”

Lovestruck.

Alright, so he’s lying on his back, just knocked completely out, and we all run up, and we’re all freaking out, because, y’know, he got hit pretty fucking hard. So we run up and we’re checking him out, and we’re asking if anything hurts or if anything feels broken, and all he can say is “Did you see her? Did you see her walking by?”

I’m looking at the others like, what the fuck? What’s he talking about? Who? And he keeps asking us if we saw her, and I ask him, I say “Buddy. You got hit really hard, I don’t think you’re making a whole lot of sense right now. Who are you talking about?”

And he gave me this look, and I’ll never forget it, because I’d never seen his eyes like that before, and we’d known each other for what, ten years? Like, he’s looking at me like I’d said I’d never noticed the sun in the sky or I just told him I’d never heard of the Beatles. Just looking at me like he can’t believe it. And he blinks a few times and shakes his head clear, and he says “The woman I’m gonna marry. I just… I just saw her, she was across the street. Did you see her? Did you see where she went?”

I mean, there were a couple of girls who came over when they saw him get hit, but I didn’t notice one in particular, and nobody else did. I ask him, y’know, “What was she wearing? What colour was her hair? Anything?” and, this is so fucking ridiculous, all he can remember is that she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world, and he knew he was going to marry her.

Guy runs across the street to talk to a total stranger, gets banged up by a car, we found out later he had a couple cracked ribs, and the only thing he can remember about this woman is that he’s got to marry her. I mean we all had a good laugh about it, right? It was ridiculous. But thing is, he wasn’t kidding around. Y’know, he’s laughing with us, but he keeps saying, “I’m gonna see her again someday, and we’re going to get married. You’ll see, guys. She’s the one.”

So a few weeks go by, and we’re at the bar, and this girl walks in. Very cute, but like, you know, the bar doesn’t slow down and a fog machine doesn’t turn on and the Everly Brothers don’t suddenly come on the radio or whatever. But thing is, for him, that all happened. He swears that time slowed down, and the air felt thick and magic, and he heard angels singing. We’re all sitting around the table drinking cheap, shitty beer in some crap dive, and he hears angels singing to him, telling him that that’s the girl.

So he excuses himself and walks over to him like she’s got him hypnotized, but she hasn’t even noticed him. And then he says hi, and that’s when we could all tell. For us, that’s when time stopped and the music played and all that crap. When they said hello, and she looked at him like she had been waiting her entire life for him to say hey, and she had no idea. They talked all night. They fell in love immediately, they became inseparable. They loved each other so much from the night that they met. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started planning their wedding on the spot.

They were so in love, and they did everything together. I saw how crazy he was after that day, but how could any of us have known that she would have been just as crazy about him? They never even met, and then it was like a switch had been turned on. God, they were perfect for each other. One of those couples that’s actually fun to hang around, that you don’t feel embarrassed by when they give each other little kisses and trade inside jokes. You… You felt proud of them. We were all so damn proud of them.

And that’s why we’re all here today. Because we were proud of them. And now we have to say goodbye. But we’ll always be proud.

HERE IS SOME SEXY EROTICA IT’S REAL HOT

She touched his penis and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you,” she whispered sexually into his ears.

“I love you, too,” he whispered sexually back into her ears.

He pressed his hand into her breast, which was very round and had a nipple on it, which was also round. He squeezed it rhythmically and moved his palm in circles. She leaned her head back and whinnied like an aroused horse. “Oh god, I am going to orgasm if you keep doing that,” she said, feeling her heartbeat increase and knowing that that meant she was going to orgasm if he kept doing that.

“Okay,” he said, removing his hand from her breast casually.

“Don’t worry,” she said, still touching his penis with a firm, yet friendly grip, “I have had sex before. I know how to do it very good.”

“We need to be safe though, you can’t get pregnant, I’m not ready to be a dad yet,” he said, pointing at a jar of condoms on his desk, “Not when I’m so close to becoming president of the United States.”

She nodded to show that she agreed with him. He nodded to reciprocate her opinion. She walked over to the desk and reached inside the jar of condoms. Oh, but before she did that, she wiggled her butt for him and he thought it was SUPER hot. Guys love it when girls wiggle butts.

She walked over to him with an armful of condoms. “We’re going to be so safe tonight,” she moaned like a porn star that wasn’t actually an okay actress, “You are going to ejaculate safely into a prophylactic and your sperm will not get in my vagina, fertilizing an egg and impregnating me.”

“Oh baby,” he said.

She took off her pants and folded them before placing them erotically on a chair. She picked him up and threw him on the bed, simultaneously tearing off his pants in midair before folding them and placing them erotically on a different chair. His penis was extremely hard because of all the blood in his penis that was giving him a very hard erection. He had a really big penis, too. She gasped at it because she had never seen such a big penis and she was very excited to put the penis in her vagina.

“I want to put this penis in my vagina!” she shrieked, throwing her arms up in the air and waving them back and forth with erotic anticipation.

“Not so fast baby, I want to give you some foreplay to get you even more sexually excited and then you will feel more sexually fulfilled when we move on to penetrative sex,” he said, placing two fingers in her vagina.

“Oh god that’s so hot,” she growled like a horny praying mantis.

He placed another two fingers in her vagina and lifted her up in the air. She was super wet and slippery, because when a woman gets aroused, they often secrete vaginal fluids that lubricate the inner walls of the vagina to make penetration easier. You can also buy lubricant at the store if you or your partner don’t secrete enough vaginal fluids to make intercourse easier and more enjoyable. But these two totally didn’t need it because she was wetter than a canary at the bottom of the ocean.

“Okay, I’m ready for sex now!” she cried out as he bounced her up and down on his fist.

“Yes, I am as well,” he said, gesturing towards his big penis.

She removed a condom from the pile of condoms and wrapped it tightly around his penis. “This is my favourite part of sex,” he said, smiling comfortingly at her face, “I love preparation and the consideration that goes into practicing safe and consensual sex.”

“Yes, absolutely, the fact that we are practicing safe and consensual sex is the hottest thing about this,” she agreed, nodding at him.

She stood above him and put her hands on his chest. Taking a deep breath, she sat on his penis and it went inside her vagina. They fucked SO hard. They did ALL of the positions, too: Her on top; him on top. Eventually, she felt her bowels contract and he felt his finger twitching and they both knew that they were going to have a huge orgasm.

“Okay, I am about to have my orgasm,” he said, his face contorted into a grotesque mask of ecstasy and pleasure.

“Yes, I am also about to have my orgasm,” she said, her breasts whipping around with orgasmic delight.

They both orgasmed at the exact same time, as should happen in any loving relationship involving sex. He politely excused himself, then removed his penis from her vagina, holding the condom at the base to ensure there was no spillage. He placed the condom in the garbage can next to his bed. They shook hands and agreed that the sex had been mutually beneficial.

“When should I call you next?” he asked her, licking his lips like they were covered in sauce.

“Whenever you feel like having more hot sex,” she said, wiggling her butt, which he very much enjoyed.

He picked up his phone and called her. She laughed, because she thought that that was very clever and funny, two qualities that she found very attractive in a mate.

“Will you marry me?” he asked her, holding a ring out.

“Yeah, that sounds great,” she replied, crying and sobbing and wailing and tearing at her hair in delight.

They got married and had even more sex, then decided to have a baby and they were very happy, but they didn’t have sex for a while because her vagina hurt from the birth, but it was better after a few months and they kept having sex. They had mutual orgasms every time because they loved each other so much. It was really sexy and erotic.

THE END

It Will Kill You (cohesiveness is overrated)

Every soul-crushing movie ending, every break up, every death of a loved one, every hangover, every ounce of bad news you have ever received, every scrap of disappointment and heartbreak and loss and rejection and alienation and ostracism and distrust and uncertainty and loneliness and desperation all pressed into one person and they’ve never thought of anyone more than they’ve thought of you.

You don’t publish what you think because you almost lack the arrogance to view it as valuable. So you build that arrogance and pride up until you feel that you don’t deserve it, and then you publish it as a form of self-flagellation. Forcing yourself to spew your bile and expose yourself and instead of being proud you let it be your punishment. And you still find yourself revolting.

You even say ‘you’ instead of ‘I’ because you don’t want to seem selfish. You get angry, and you have outbursts, but you’ve trained yourself to direct them inwards because you hate hurting people you love, even though you probably do it anyways.

You know this will be what kills you. That’s terrifying. It’s terrifying being so positive that this is how you’re going to die, and the only question is ‘When? When will it take you down?’ You proudly say ‘Not tonight!’ and that might be good enough to get you through to tomorrow, but one day, it’s not going to be enough, and you know it. You know that one day, you will slip up, and this will be what kills you.

And so you cry out what you find yourself crying out every night. You push against everything that is telling you so rationally and logically and definitively that this is what kills you. And you say not now. And you say we will do it later.

You twist your sickness against itself, and every aspect of self-destruction and absorption becomes the shield that you hold between yourself and the lashing, slashing tendrils of this disease. It laughs at you and it beats you and it mocks you, knowing that it has already won. Because there is no doubt that this is what kills you. But not now. We will do it later.

And the only fear becomes that we will do it. But we will do it later. We will do it. But we will do it later. We will do it. But we will do it later.

This becomes the rhythmic beating of your heart, the slow rise and fall of your chest as you breath. This is how you live. This is what will kill you. But for now this is how you live.

And you feel too heavy to pick up a knife. You feel too tired to walk to a bridge. You feel too hungry to let yourself starve. You live by dying, because you know that you are already dead. This is what killed you. But not now.

So you stare at the white hairs in your beard and you sigh. The bags under your eyes seem darker every day. You didn’t exercise today because you have aches and pains in your bones. You’re getting older, every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every year of every decade of your life. It means you’re still alive. It means that it will kill you. But not now.

I’m going outside for a cigarette and staring at the moon. I am wondering if there was a time when people really believed it was made of cheese. I am wondering if there are still people who believe it is cheese. I am laughing. I am laughing at these stupid thoughts because I have a cigarette and I can laugh.

It will kill me. But not now.