Ark-Noir

 Time lost meaning as the words sunk into my cracked mind. "Or you could be put to sleep then quickly shot in the head..." Never believe someone when they say they which choice they would choose in a situation similar to this. The true answer only comes when they face it. And I had to make my choice. Getting myself into some kind of servitude, or a quick, clean, and painless death. No one knows how they really will react. The other man sighed. "I'll put it plain, kid. It's not the easiest decision. It may not look it, but we do good work here. We keep people safe from nasty things that aren't human. You've seen it yourself. Such beings

 Headaches are never a nice thing to wake up to. The feeling of someone leaving a nail in your skull has never been a pleasurable feeling. Knowing it came from another human being made it even worse, because it meant they wanted something. I took my head up off the cold metal it was laying on, keeping myself steady in the chair I was put into as I held my head, rubbing the temples. It didn't help the massive throbbing resonating within my skull, but the task helped push past the pain to think properly. I willed my eyes to crack open, so I could see what I had gotten bludgeoned into. I was a more or less classic interrogation room,  with f

 Rolling hills of grass as far as the eye could see. I could feel the yellow stalks scraping my legs as my short legs flew through them, the cool and gentle wind caressing my young cheeks. "Bet ya won't catch me!" I laughed. "Bet I can!" I could hear a series of leathery snaps from behind me, before a heavy weight my back and drove me into the waiting grass. I giggled and waves my arms in mock despair. "Help, help, I've been captured!" I could hear laughing from my 'captor' before I was rolled over by them, with a not human, but comforting and familiar scaled visage. "Roar, I am the big bad dragon, come to eat the princess!" He

Giants walk among us. Some are faux giants, posing as something greater, and even stronger than they can be. Giants have something they can never have. They have giant hearts, to show the compassion and love where it is earnt. Giant of valor, to face forward to protect that which is behind. Giant of mind, with cunning and wisdom in equal measure. Giant of hand, to create marvels that awe and defend others. The giants are not always seen, some that are never even recognized, even by themselves. Each one that passes, shrinks their already dwindling numbers. They will live on, even in their passing. They have a legacy that wi

 I walked out of the office and into the slightly humid air outside. It wasn't as humid as it could get in the area. The humidity brought a slight pleasantness to the otherwise dry day, I thought as I went out to the street and started heading home. I moved amongst the crowd with the ease of a ghost, most probably not even noting my passing, even as I noted theirs. The city scene passing by, with my mind automatically making me look at all of the little nooks and crannies that created dark, while passively observing most of the stores showcasing something with the newest invention out of labs, something they called psytech; brainwave readin

 My mind was completely frozen. Everything that I had had, just been cut off at the drop of the hat. No warning, no indication of it before. Just... gone. I was the kind of person who had lost everything before. Everything I held dear, and found eventually found solace from the darkness in their own light the built from scraps. Eventually, I was able to rebuild what I had, but I always feared the darkness that lurked at the edges more than anything, including death. And yet it came. I could sense people coming by to try and talk to me, but whatever they said didn't process in my brain. Several words did linger, through the haze my mind ha

  "I want you to remember what you can. Do not force yourself. Just try to remember what you can." It's bright... like the sun is directly focused at my face. It's so bright, like I haven't seen light for days. "Alright, good. Can you look around?" It's all white. It looks like tile... just pure white, and so glossy. So shiny... "Please focus, Ark. What else?" Ok.... The rest of the room is made of the tiles, all over. All neat and tidy, perfect. The only thing in the room is me, and this metal slab I'm strapped to... why am I locked down onto this thing? What is going on? Wait, who is that? What does he want? Why is he smiling like

 The town could be called a ghost town. Most of its buildings were in severe disrepair, many crumbling with age. Happy signs showed extreme weathering, without any tending by loving hands. Grass grew between the cracked tarmac of the roads and parking lots, with the decorative trees overgrown and as wild as the trees within view rage of the town. Only one part of it was new and well tended. An elevated podium, with a sound system that anyone could tell was jury rigged from anything that could be scrounged up all leading to a microphone on the podium that has seen better days. Surrounding it was a congregation of men, all in suits of armor t

 I didn't touch the book for several days after reading that. I couldn't place my finger on the exact reason why, until about three days afterwards. I was deathly afraid of it. Sure quite a few people would go along and say something along the lines of 'Oh, I can beat it, I can deal with it.' until they are faced with it. And then they pissed their pants when actually faced with it. I at least admitted that I was scared. The loss of what made me human, only to be hunted down and killed like a beast, was not how I wanted to die, or live. If this was a normal game, I could just start a new character and forget about it ever happened. But I wa