Today’s prompt: “The moment when you knew you were no longer a child”
There wasn’t a particular moment you remember when you passed into adulthood, but there’s a definite moment when you passed into corpsehood. And that moment is now.
Today’s prompt: “Thoughts on your favorite pet’s personality”
It’s a cliché that dogs are loyal. True blue, through and through. Man’s best friend and all that. Cliché, but true. Your dog does love you. That feeling is every bit as real as a family bond.
Which is why, when your dog is left alone in your house for days on end with your lifeless corpse and no one to fill up the food bowl, it takes a long time for him to resort to eating you.
Today’s prompt: “Would you rather win the Nobel Prize or be a rock star?”
You’ve always felt you were destined for greatness. You’ve studied hard, and your peers have always recognized you as one of the best there is at what you do (you’re a little like Wolverine that way). It was only ever a question of what you decided to apply yourself to.
If you want to research physiology, turn to page 7.
If you want to start a rock band, turn to page 8.
You and the groupies make your way to the VIP section of a nightclub.
The fan you were looking at earlier, with the long brown hair, is walking next to you. They brush up against your arm in a way you’re pretty sure is not accidental. It’s confirmed when you see a glance and a sly smile a moment later. You’re about to start chatting them up, when one of the girls in your group shouts, “Trina!”
The girl makes a beeline to a table in the VIP area where a woman in a skintight red tank dress is sitting, flanked by two men in expensive suits.
The woman in the red dress flashes a smile and waves you all over.
“What have you brought me tonight?” she says in a sultry voice. “The lead singer of Rabid Chimera?”
You offer one of your most charming smiles.
She signals a waiter. Several bottles of champagne appear in buckets of ice.
“Jules, would you do the honors?” Trina says to the man on her right. He pops the cork on the nearest bottle, pours a glass, and hands it to you.
“Cheers,” you say, and drink.
Only one glass in, you’re already a bit dizzy. The room starts to spin. You’re sinking back into your chair a bit. The fan with the long brown hair puts their arm over yours. You give them a weak smile. They turn to Trina and nod.
Trina stands up and places her hands on the table, the better to lean over you, examine you. As your vision starts to blur, it almost seems like she’s changing form to something monstrous.
You black out.
You and the woman drive to an industrial part of Stockholm. She parks the car in front of what appears to be a lab building.
“I knew, based on your research, that you would be the right person to see this,” she says. “You see, I think you’re right about the cancers. I don’t think that tissue originates in humans.”
“You think it originates with this specimen you’ve found?” you say.
“Yes,” she says. “This way. I’d explain it, but you have to see it to believe it.”
You enter a room in the lab. She closes the door behind you. The lab is pretty bare. No animals. No petri dishes. Nothing that would suggest any work on any as-yet-undiscovered organism.
“Where is this specimen?” you turn to the woman.
She smiles, and begins unbuttoning her blouse.
“Look, I’m flattered, but–” you start to say. And then you see the tendrils snaking out of her abdomen toward you.
You faint.
You’ve done coke before. You’ve done coke many times.
That was not coke. Or if it was coke, it was so adulterated by other substances as to effectively be rendered the opposite of coke.
Cocaine is a stimulant, of course, but after a few lines of whatever that was, you’re groggy, your vision is blurred, and your reaction times are so slow it’s like you’re wading through molasses.
There must be something hallucinogenic in there, too, because you could swear one of the fans who shared the coke with your band has just grown and transformed into something demonic.
You black out.
You and your colleagues retire to a swanky restaurant in the middle of Stockholm. You’re deep in shop talk and about halfway through a particularly delicious glass of Cabernet when your head pounds and your vision starts to blur.
You look around you and notice, standing in the corner, the woman in the bun and the pencil skirt.
You black out.
A quiet night in. You’ve come to treasure these while on the road. Besides, your craft is important to you, and that song is not going to write itself.
You’ve reworked the second verse a bit, and it scans a lot better. You get out your guitar and start playing it through softly, seeing how it feels when you say the words aloud. It’s feeling pretty good.
There’s a knock at the door. You sigh. Ryan probably lost a keycard. Again.
You open the door. Two large men seize your arms, while another throws a bag over your head. You struggle. One of them hits you on the head.
You black out.
You begin your acceptance address with the traditional salutation to the members of royalty and all the other ladies and gentlemen in attendance. You thank the Nobel Committee for the award, and recognize the many colleagues who helped make your work possible.
Your team had discovered a whole series of new cancerous growths, unlike any you’d seen before. The cells had mutated to a point that you’re not convinced the cancers originated in the human body. Not everyone shares your assessment, but everyone can agree that your research on these growths has improved our understanding of cancer by leaps and bounds.
After the ceremony, a woman in a tight bun and a pencil skirt approaches you. “Congratulations, doctor,” she says. “If I might have a moment of your time? I have a – let’s just say, interesting – new specimen for you to look at,” she says.
“New specimen?” you say.
“It’s – well, it has the potential to affect all life on this planet,” she says. “I think we need someone of your stature looking at it.”
Your colleagues are standing nearby, waiting to go to the after-party with you.
To go with the woman to see her “specimen,” turn to page 3.
To celebrate with your colleagues, turn to page 5.
“Thank you Cincinnati!” you shout one last time to the assembled throng at the Riverbend. The light show behind you fades into the twilight, along with the last reverberations of your amps.
Backstage, you head to the sink to wash your face. It’s a warm summer evening, and it’s that much hotter out there under the lights. You’ve been sweating up a storm.
The roadies are busy packing up all the equipment. You and your bandmates are relaxing for a few minutes, awaiting the onslaught of the fans who bought backstage passes.
The door swings open as security lets in a massive gaggle of fans with badges. You smile and pick up your Sharpie and start signing T-shirts, record jackets, and body parts while listening to your fans gush about how much your music means to them.
It seems like there’s basically two groups of fans in here. One is a crowd of early 20-somethings, all of whom are very attractive. One of them catches your eye. Long, straight brown hair and a slim build. Just your type.
You’re about to go up and introduce yourself when your drummer, Ryan, elbows you and points to the other group. “They have blow.”
To join the hot groupies for the evening, turn to page 2.
To do some rails, turn to page 4.
If you’re all, no thanks, I’d rather go back to the hotel room and drink some yerba mate while punching up the lyrics on that one song for my next album, turn to page 6.
You come to, face-to-face with a hungry elder god, surrounded by worshippers in black robes. As they force you into tentacle’s reach of the elder god, you wonder if there was any choice you could have made that would have led you to a different outcome.
Today’s prompt: “Finding a bag of cash”
You could always tell Carl disliked you, but you never knew just how much he hated every fiber of your being until he found that bag of cash and hired a hit man.
Today’s prompt: “A bad situation that turned out for the best”
The Cult of the Bloody Tongue slit your throat after using water torture, thumbscrews, and a tongue tearer on you. Which was a blessing, really. The Cult of the Bloody Tongue takes great pride in their craftsmanship, and about a month after your death, they completed work on an iron maiden, a rack, and a brazen bull.
Today’s prompt: “Write a short story in which you are the villain.”
You twist the base of your tube of Cherries in the Snow. Lipstick always works best for this part of the job. Your first inclination, of course, was to carve the sign with a knife or a scalpel, but it’s surprisingly hard to get a good, controlled line that way, especially a proper curve. You’ve tried blood, of course, and paint, but both were always too runny or too difficult to fix if you made a mistake. Oil pastels just didn’t spread very well. It makes sense if you think about it. What better way to draw the Yellow Sign on the torso of your victims than to use something designed to make a mark on human skin?
You draw the topmost curve with a practiced hand. Your canvas tonight, one Seth Andrews, is dosed with a tranquilizer, his hands tied behind his back, but he’s starting to come around. “Whaazzzaa,” he said. “Whaaarryouu doooonnn….”
“We,” you say, making a deft stroke down and to the left, “are getting you all pretty for Hastur.”
“Haaaztuuurrrr?” Seth asks.
“The King in Yellow,” you reply.
“Whoooozzzzaaaa?” Seth asks.
“Who is the King in Yellow? How to explain … what Renoir does with paint, Hastur does with madness. It’s his everlasting life’s work – madness, death and destruction, with a heavy emphasis on the madness.
“I’ve been working on finding a vessel for him,” you continue, your hand arcing across the lower right section of Seth’s bare chest in a loose swirl. “But it hasn’t worked. They’ve all gone mad, but – not the right kind of mad, you understand? Not ‘inhabitable mad.’ I’ve had to kill a lot of people trying to find the right one for my king to occupy.”
“Whyyyyyyyy,” Seth asks.
You’re almost taken aback by the question, it’s so obvious. “He is my king,” you say.
Seth tries to shake his head. It wobbles.
“No,” he says. “Whyyyyyyy killlll.”
“Well, I used to just drop the crazies off in the middle of nowhere. Let them cause some chaos. But some of them eventually found their way back here, and I can’t have that. Can’t have anyone drawing attention to what I’m doing before I’ve found my king his vessel.” You punctuate the thought by drawing a dot where the three lines join in the center.
A grin spreads crazily across Seth’s face. You put the cap on the lipstick, pause and watch him.
“Haaaztuurrrr says I’ll dooooo,” Seth says.
You look in Seth’s eyes. There’s no question. There’s madness there, but also – an entity. One you’ve waited for a long time.
“My king,” you bow your head. You bustle about the room. You grab a knife, its wooden handle stained with the blood of previous victims, and sever the ropes binding Hastur. You pick up a tattered yellow robe lying across a chair and a blank white mask hanging from the chair back. You hand the mask to Hastur and reverently wrap the robe around him, feeling for all the world like an attendant to royalty.
“Myyyy goood and faaaiithful szervaant,” Hastur says.
“Yes, my king.”
“Yooouur puurrpossse haazz beennn serrrrved,” he says.
“I know,” you say. You hand him the knife. “I wish I could see you work your reign of madness and terror.”
“It izz not the waaaayyyy,” Hastur replies, solemn despite the thickness of his tongue and the remaining stupor of the tranquilizers.
“I know,” you say. “Just – may I ask one last thing before I die, my king?”
“Anythiinng yooouu desiiirrre,” he says.
“May I have just a taste of madness before I go?”
Hastur smiles, a broad, sweet smile. “The maaadnessss was within yooouuu allll alllonnnng,” he says.
Today’s prompt: “Your city one hundred years from now”
The future has no time for the dead.
The cemetery where your remains were interred was moved twice, first to make room for highrises and an IRL Pokémon Go gym, then to make room for even higher highrises and a Mensa Bar where you can get the latest chip implant. The third time, they didn’t really bother to move you. They just disinterred your remains as they dug the foundations, and put your bones and your worn headstone – -2019 still visible amid the mud and spray paint – on Garbage Island, the world’s fastest-growing land mass.