Etchings and Scribbles

I like where this one is going, and will probably come back to it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- She smelled like stale cigarettes and cheap perfume. I never enjoyed those cheap adages as they seemed too shallow to describe a person. Only after having met Her , known  Her  intimately, and come away bruised battered and scarred, did I realize how apt a summation it was. We met while I was doing some community service at the local homeless shelter. They of course did more than cater to the homeless population, helping out those living on the edge of poverty as well. Those people had gone from few to plenty in the aftershocks of the war, and those of us living comfortably could feel the cold knocking at our door. It wouldn't be long before everything collapsed and left us all to freeze. But I digress, we were talking about Her . There wasn't a day that went by after our first cha...

Based on a writing prompt, "A person receives packages from themselves from the future". Maybe a series. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It all started on a Tuesday afternoon. I got home from work a bit early that day. My key stuck in the lock to my building and I had to wrestle it free, worrying the whole time I was wearing the edges and one day it would completely cease to work. Instead of heading upstairs and into the safety of my apartment, I drudged forward towards our mailboxes. Much to my relief, the hall was devoid of any presence save my own. I fought with the lock on the mailbox as well, they were all out to get me that day. The door swung open without a sound, save my keys clacking on the mailbox adjacent. The sight inside was not a new one, and it continues to this day to amaze me how much passion and ability our mail-person has for making such a small space contai...

This is a character concept for a campaign of the good ol' tabletop RPG. His name is Ike, and this is his backstory -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ike was born into a nomad community that sustained themselves by moving throughout the fertile Paradise Valley. This tribe was integrated enough with the local towns and villages that they could stop and trade for supplies when needed, but always they did everything they could to be self-contained. This involved hunting, fishing, foraging, surviving day-to-day. His parents were both very skilled, and while Ike was still young they taught him all they could about what to eat from the land. When he was shown how to hunt, he balked at the idea, failing even to loose an arrow on a deer that was too wounded to ever recover. Recalling that day, Ike would only offer a simple “I just wanted it to get better.” One fateful day, his parents went off to...

This is based on a run of The Consuming Shadow (a game by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw) that happened a while back -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Its been 32 hours since I began this mad dash to stop whichever ancient evil that deigned to invade our reality. The only thing keeping me going is an incantation I learned early on that heals my wounds, and the fact that bashing these monstrosities with my pistol eventually kills them. The only thing keeping my sanity from slipping away like sand through fingers is the delightful concoction in these syringes I've purchased. Still, even those wear off over time, and healing myself through constant melee takes its toll as well. I've just taken my second dose of "delightful", and already I can feel the madness tearing into me. The last town I visited had already been taken by the shadows, and the minions of the ancient one poure...

This is by no means a complete work, more of a short story, but I'm hoping this will give me a bit more of an audience. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The air shifted, warped in front of our eyes and dissipated like a cloud of smoke before we could even blink. The familiar lurching sensation in my stomach returned full force. It made me glad our supplies ran low and we hadn’t eaten in a couple days, vomiting seemingly out of nowhere as we returned to the living world would certainly seem suspicious. I suppose I should start at the beginning, but that was really the end. It was commonplace anymore for people to gossip about doomsday scenarios: antibiotic resistant bacterias, chemical warfare, radical politics (don’t get anyone started on terrorism…); the list goes on endlessly. “Just waitin’ for the bombs to drop,” people liked to say. Well, no one suspected our own planet would be th...