Tortured Teenage Soul

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Tiny Excerpt

I’m writing a story about an angel and a demon named Tamiel and Evangeline (it’s not related to Good Omens, I just liked the idea of a bouncy, cheerful demon and a surly, stubborn, angry angel falling in love.  It’s based on a dream I had.).  I’m not going to post it in full until it’s done, but I did want to put a little except out for you because dang the prose in this one is good and I love it.  So this is one paragraph from the middle of their admit-our-feelings moment: 

“You’re mine, angel.  Mine,” I turned my head, looking up and resting my chin on his sternum.  My voice was the sound of whispers and promises in the dark of the night, “I wasn’t looking for you.  I wasn’t missing you.  I didn’t need you.  I still don’t.  I’m choosing you.  You are mine, I choose you above all the others, above every angel and demon and human and other thing on this earth.  You.  Only you.  You’re the only one worthy of standing next to me, the only one who can be my equal.” 

“Yes,” he breathed, “I choose you.  I name you my equal, my eyes open and my heart full.  You are mine, demon, no one else’s.  I’d fall a thousand times to walk next to you.”  

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Hey @stellar20011 thanks for reblogging Tall Tails.  It was nice to log in this morning and see the extra reblog notifications you generated for me.  =D

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Memory

I remember what it feels like to want. 

It’s been so long, you see.  So long.  I’ve forgotten what it feels like for someone to casually touch you.  Lay a hand on your shoulder, or pull you close in the dark. 

I’ve forgotten what it feels like to be loved, forgotten so much that I question whether or not I’ve ever been loved at all by someone who wasn’t related by blood. 

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be wanted.  To be subject to the look, or on the receiving end of the banter that leads to nakedness and joy and sweat and tangled sheets.  I’ve forgotten the smell of sex.  Forgotten the feel of it, the texture of skin beneath my palms, my body is a wasteland of starvation.  My nerves have forgotten how to fire. 

I’ve forgotten what it feels like for another human to be your shelter.  I’ve forgotten what it feels like to let someone else take care of you, forgotten how to do that.  My dad offers to carry the singular bags I have in my hand from the grocery store and I let him, but I feel like a burden.  I know he doesn’t give it a second thought.  It’s just the nice, polite thing to do.  He loves me, I’m his daughter, and it means something for him to be able to help me like I’m still little and need help with everything again.  But I feel guilty because I’m an adult and I can carry my own bag.  I’ve forgotten how to let someone be nice to me. 

My heart is like winter, but inside there’s a home where a warm flame burns, deep inside the fortress it lives in.  Inside there’s love and laughter and passion.  Because there’s one thing I remember. 

I remember what it feels like to get those texts.  The ones that make you smile, the ones that make you flirt, the ones that make you hold onto your phone like it’s a lifeline or an anchor and beg it to vibrate again.  That little spark, that little chip of joy.  I remember what it’s like to sup on words, to swallow them down and let them make you hungrier for more.  For meatier words, for words with feelings or words with fire.  I remember what it feels like to want to follow the words home, to go to their source, to want their company.  To watch a movie with them and wish, wish that they’d put a hand on you.  To try and say with your eyes and your body what you’re too shy to say with your mouth, but oh...your fingers will say it.  Your fingers will tell the little electrons to fly, my friends, fly. 

I do, I remember what it feels like to want.  And I know it’ll never happen again. 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Belong

My mom is a witch.  

No, really.  She’s a witch.  So is my aunt, and my grandma, and my other aunt, and my sister.  Both of my aunts can light fires by flicking their fingers, and put them out the same way.  Their fireplace is always warm, and in the fall they make the sparks of the firepit dance for us.  They can make things grow, too, but they’re not half as good as my mom and my sister.  You should see our garden.  My grandma never talks about her magic.  She never uses it.  She won’t tell me what it is.  She just shrugs and says, ‘we’ll see, maybe when you’re older’, but I’m twenty-five now and she’s seventy-seven.  

We live in Missouri, right next to the grande dame that is the Mississippi river.  My mom tells me the river is old, ancient.  That she can love you just as easily as she can make you taste the silken mud of her bed.  My mom talks to the river and says the river answers.  She comes home, her legs splattered in mud.  She never rinses if off with the hose.  ‘It’s a gift’, she says, ‘from the mother Mississippi’.  She carefully brushes it into little jars and puts it on the shelves with the rest of the things she and my sister use to cast magic.  

Not me though.  The river never speaks to me, and I don’t like getting muddy.  She seems too young to know anything, always moving, never staying in the same place long enough to learn.  If she’s alive, I don’t know her, and I don’t visit.  I’m not a witch, you see, I’m just a person and I’m terribly vulnerable to drowning.  Likewise, the corn fields hold no special mystery for me.  The tall grasses of the plains don’t feel like home and they don’t make my blood sing.  There’s magic in my family, and magic in our land, but there’s no magic in me.  I don’t belong.  I used to ask my mom if I was adopted, but we look so much alike that there really isn’t a question of my parentage.  

Lately, I’ve been chafing in our home.  It feels too tight around me, and I’m choking on prairie dust.  There’s no peace for me lately.  The river seems to be angry; my mother has been coming home with clean legs and a confused frown.  I’m snapping at my sister and wishing I was anywhere but here.  This happens sometimes, I get taken by wanderlust.  So I do the same thing I always do when home feels too small.  I pack up my stuff, get in my car, and I drive.  

I don’t know where I’m going.  The wide, open interstates of the country are simply drawing me east, and I watch the blacktop unravel under my tires.  There are rules on the rule, rules in any liminal space, and no ones every explained them to me.  I just know.  Be kind, be polite, be cautious, and don’t linger too long.  And if you need something, look for the gas station that has room for trucks.  

It takes about seventeen hours, but I reach the east coast of South Carolina sometime around sunset.  I’ve never seen the ocean before.  I’ve never been to the beach.  Missouri is land-locked.  

I get out of my car, and the wind whips the smell of salt into my nose and I inhale.  The wind is peace.  I start down the path through the dunes, jogging towards the sound of the waves.  I feel the vibration of them in my chest.  When I spill out onto the wide, sandy shore, I stop to tug my socks and shoes off, slowing to a walk so I can feel the cool sand rub between my toes.  

There is a storm rolling in, and I can feel it, I can taste it.  I can hear the ocean talking, like my mother says she can hear the river.  She is old, older than the river.  She’s been on the earth since before that muddy child, and she’ll be here after it dries up.  Home, she says.  You are home.  I have been waiting for so long.  

I reach the waves and I keep walking, not caring if I get wet.  I stand and close my eyes and reach out with senses I didn’t think I had.  I feel the chaos of her rushing through me, the energy twisting all around me.  It’s like the wind that tugs at my hair.  I open myself to it, letting it fill every inch.  I call the storm to me, ask the waves to jump higher.  They gladly do, crashing playfully against the shore.  None of them knock me down.  We are glad to finally meet.  I stay for awhile, getting to know her, and she gives me gifts of shells and driftwood.  I happily gather them, and thank her.  

When it’s finally dark, I go back to my car.  My phone is in the center console, and when I fling myself onto the seat, my phone starts ringing.  I answer it.  

“You’ve met her,” my grandmother’s voice says.  It’s not a question.  

“Yes.  Finally.  I...” 

“You know now.  I couldn’t explain it to you.”  

“She’s vast, ancient, complex, deep, chaotic and she’s equal parts beauty and terror.  Things lurk in her depths.” 

“I know.  Just like us.”  

“Yes,” I hold up my hand, watching the energy and electricity I’d been given by the storm dance across my fingertips in bright arcs, “Just like us.”  

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Tall Tales

“No,” said T’salle, the translation device making their words sound vaguely robotic, “There’s no way that’s true.  I’m not paying up.” 

“No way what’s true?,” Kekxeral settled themselves on the bench across from me, a nutrition pack in their grip.  They looked back and forth between myself and T’salle. 

“We made a bet,” I said, “about who could think of the craziest thing their species had done to survive.” 

“And I, of course, told the story of M’elanth.  They were shipwrecked and ate nothing but roots on an island for three days before rescue.  Their digestive system was never the same again, but they lived,” T’salle explained.  it was often hard to interpret the facial expressions of their species, but I’d been around the water-world species long enough to know smugness when I saw it. 

“Why do you always do this to the new people?,” Kekxeral leveled a flat stare at me.  With his species it could mean amusement or resignation or a weird mix of both.  They turned to T’salle, “I bet then she told you that there were several varieties of root that are regularly consumed by her people?”

“Yeah, I told T’salle about potatoes,” I said, smirking. 

“Ok, then let’s have it, what terrible, horrifying feat did you counter with?”

“In the early 21st century there was this guy who went hiking--”

“--because apparently climbing on rocks is fun.  No one climbs on rocks in the wilderness for fun,” T’salle made a gesture that was their species’ version of an eyeroll. 

“Some humans do,” I shrugged, “ANYWAY, I was telling T’salle about this guy who went hiking and a boulder fell on his arm, trapping him for a five days with only a bottle of water and two burritos.”

“What’s a burrito?,” asked Kekxeral. 

“It’s like...you know those sandwich wraps I eat sometimes? It’s like that but with meat and cheese and some other stuff in it,” Kekxeral shuddered at my mention of the meat.  Their species couldn’t eat it, “He ran out at the end of the fourth day, and so he started drinking his own liquid waste to survive.  Then, since his crushed arm had started rotting, he cut if off with a dull pocket knife and used the torque from the rock to break the bones.” 

“Tell Kekxeral the rest,” T’salle grumbled, still clearly skeptical that this was a real story. 

“He climbed the rest of the way out of the canyon and down out of the valley until he met a family who called for help.” 

“Oh yeah,” said Kekxeral, “Sorry T’salle, but that one’s true.”

“Ha! Pay up!,” I held out my com so T’salle could fling me the money. 

Grumbling under their breath - a sound that the translators turned into little more than electronic static - they sent the money over and said, “How do you know it’s true?”

“Because human-Andy likes to tell self-mutilation stories to newbies, and when I was new, she told me the same story,” Kekxeral explained.  I grinned and listened, knowing what was coming next, “And when I doubted the truth of it she didn’t just make me read the old news-reels, she made me watch the entire hour-and-a-half long torture scene that is the movie they made after the fact.” 

“A...movie...?,” T’salle said, their confusion clear. 

I shrugged, “We love a good, heroic survival story.” 

“T’salle, since you’re young and this is your first assignment, I’m going to give you some advice,” Kekxeral said, leaning forward and gnawing on one of the nutrition packs, “Earth is a death-world.  Don’t bet against a human when it comes to survival.” 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

If you’re a woman you only have two choices in life: short nails, or expensive orgasms. 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Late Night Salt

Honestly, I am absurd. 

The idea that anyone would be attracted to me is absurd. The idea that anyone would get past the “I guess I can put up with the looks if you’re fun to be around” level of attraction is absurd. Rolls of fat, stray hairs on my chin, stretch marks. It’s absurd. 

Every once in awhile when I move right or out on makeup I get a thought in My head that says “your face is ok, your hair is nice, I mean you’re not completely a troll”.  And, honestly, I don’t think I’m a troll.  I don’t think I’m ugly.  It’s just that I know that asking that same attitude of someone else is absurd.  

I make sure to squash it because that is a lie I’m telling myself.  That is false hope. 

Now, if only I could squash the desire for human contact and love as easily, then I’d be all set. 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Smaller

I wish I was smaller. 

Smaller of body, so I could be cute and pretty and fine clothes easily.  So I could get second or third looks, or even first ones.  So I could remember how to flirt and not be so ashamed of my desires.  Small women deserve big love. 

Smaller of mind, not so I could be a bigot, but so that I could be less aware.  Not as smart, so my mind would finally quiet down and stop trying to process everything at once.  So I could giggle and laugh and not feel that disingenuous scraping on my soul.  I dislike lying, but it seems like it’s all I do sometimes. 

Smaller of soul, so I was less complicated.  Easier to understand, less of a puzzle.  So that the sharp edges between me and other people would be smaller, so I could be less argumentative.  I want to be softer and gentler, but I wasn’t built that way. 

My mind is a place of constant movement, constant ideas.  It’s good for being alone and smart and competent, but bad for getting along with others.  It makes me lonely and sad because I know in the end that working through the sharp barbs and labyrinth turns that make up so much of me won’t be worth it for any who try.  No one likes the maze for being a maze. 

The memes that say everyone deserves love, everyone deserves caring.  They don’t know me.  Those memes are lying to you. 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Alpha and Omega

Last weekend was a funeral.  A much-loved relative taken by cancer, but also an end to several years of pain and suffering. 

This weekend was a wedding.  A new beginning for the brother of my closest friend, and genuine happiness for him. 

Emotions are funny, terrible things.  It was the wedding the fucked me up emotionally more than the funeral.  I mean, that’s completely nuts, right? The wedding was the day before my 37th birthday.  Circumstances being what they were, it passed largely unnoticed, or at least un-celebrated. 

It fucked me up because no one is going to want an old, fat, grouchy feminist.  The idea of a man loving me enough to stand up in front of a bunch of people and give a little speech and exchange rings and whatnot is so absurd that it’s laughable. 

I tell people that I’ve come to terms with it, with knowing I’ll never find a partner, but if I’m more upset by a wedding than a funeral, then I’m obviously lying. 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Fade

I feel like I am fading away. 

Like my lungs are forgetting how to breath, like my heart is forgetting how to beat, my muscles forgetting how to work. 

My body wants to forget how to work, it just wants to sit and not move. 

My emotions are jealous, they don’t want to stop, they want to remember.  Remember how to run and how to feel energy and how to join the rest of the world. 

But my body wants to fade. 

[throwawayforbeautiful]

I forgot.

You asked me two days ago how I was doing.  You’re my friend, one of the few who wouldn’t just ask to be nice.  I wanted to tell you how I was.  Say that I am lonely, that I’m restless, I feel snowed under, that I’m sorry I forgot to come to dinner it wasn’t you...

But...

I forgot how, and I didn’t answer your text.

When I was in my twenties, I could have long, soulful conversations deep into the night.  I could talk about myself, I could listen, I could open.  I did many times to you, it’s why we’re friends. 

I’ve known you for more than a decade now.  You’re married and you have kids and your amazing wife is sick, just a temporary thing, but it’s a thing and I think, well, it’s more important.  Your family is more important than my loneliness. 

It doesn’t help me remember how to get out from behind this wall. 

Does anyone care about me? Not just a little but a lot? How do people see me? Do I make a impact? Am I more than just a passing thought?

The rest of humanity is behind a glass wall.  I exist, but I don’t participate.  Over the years I’ve atrophied.  I forgot how to reach out.  I thought I wouldn’t need to.  I was so hurt.  I entered my dotage early, inflicting isolation on myself so I could lick unrelated wounds, and it became so hard to maintain connection. 

So I forgot.  Little by little.  Now I’m disappearing.  Little by little.  Wishing I knew how to break through the glass, wanting to talk about what’s going on inside, wanting to tell you that no, I’m not ok, but I could be if I could just tell you...tell anyone. 

I wish I could remember how to be human. 

[giraffepoliceforce]

I really want a science fiction story where aliens come to invade earth and effortlessly wipe out humanity, only to be fought off by the wildlife.

They were expecting military resistance. They weren’t counting on bears.

[splintercellconviction-deactiva]

Imagine coming to a hostile alien world and being attacked by a horde of creatures that can weigh up to 3 tons, run at 30 km/h (19 mph), and bite with a force of 8,100 newtons (1,800 lbf).

By the time you realise that they can traverse water, it’s too late. The surviving members of your unit manage to make it back by shedding their excess gear and running for their lives; the slower ones were crushed to death within minutes.

You later describe the creature to one of the humans you captured, wanting to know the name of the monstrosity that will haunt your nightmares for cycles to come.

The human smiles as it speaks a single word, slowly and distinctly, in its barbaric tongue.

“Hippopotamus.”

[artdeactivate2025]

This is giving me the biggest, creepiest grin I might have ever grinned 

[skeletonmug]

Imagine being the next crew to go down to earth and thinking “it’s fine, we got this. We have the weapons and equipment necessary to deal with bears and *shudders* hippopotamuses. We’ll be fine.”

And at first you are, you’ve learned how to dodge. You’ve learned where their territories are. You know how to defend yourself.

But then one night you are sleeping in your shelter. You’re in a tree covered temperate part of earth. It seems benign. There are been no sightings of the dreaded “hippos” around. Not even any bears. But there is a slight rustle of the undergrowth. You try and ignore it telling yourself it is just the wind.

Then you hear the rustle again. closer this time.

You peer out into the darkness but see nothing amongst the trees.

The rustle again and now you realise you can smell something. It’s musky and slightly foul. It’s the smell of an omen, a warning. But what of? Where is this smell coming from.

You sit up, but it’s too late. The foul smelling creature is on you. You are hit with 17kg of coarse fur and vicious bites. Long dark claws tear in to you and you are pinned down white the striped creature tries to bite your throat.

It takes some doing but you manage to wrestle free. Blood drips from your wounds and already they itch with the sign of infection. The creature has a bloodied snout, rust rad, mingling with the black and white hairs. It lets out a terrifying growl from the back of its throat and looks to attack again. It’s between you and your knife, so your only choice is to back away.

Eventually the creature gives up and snuffles off in to the undergrowth, down a hole near your shelter you hadn’t noticed before.

When you make it back to your base you once again consult the captive human.

“Badger.” they say, with a solemn nod.

[jabberwockypie]

One word: Moose

[myurbandream]

“Our vehicles are far superior to the local human models, in range, speed, armament, and any other metric you care to name! Nothing could possibly-”

BAMrumblerumblethumpcrash!!!

“That’s called a moose.”

[morebadbookcovers]

Wolverines.

Also.. dolphins.

[ohgodshesloose]

The invasion is going slowly. The humans have caught on and are actively destroying information on the planet’s flora and fauna before Intelligence can capture and process it. All that they have are survivors’ accounts. Bears. Hippos. Badgers. Moose. It is becoming obvious this mudball planet is a full-on Death World to the unprepared, and you are so very unprepared.

You lost Jaxurn to a plant. Not even a mobile or carnivorous plant, just one that caused a vicious allergic reaction on contact that killed him in less than a rai'kor. Commander Vura'ko died to an insect bite, a tiny local pest that sucked a tiny bit of her blood and apparently replaced it with a bit of its last meal, which was full of disease. Backwash. She died to bug backwash. And yet you honestly envy them after that… thing you encountered…

When you got back to base the quarantine officer refused to let you inside. They had to roll a containment tank outside to put you in, because you all knew there would be no chance of eliminating the smell if it got into the ship’s air ducts. Smell. You wonder if your nasal slit will ever recover from this stench.

And the smell would. Not. Leave. After incinerating your gear the Q.O. had you use every cleansing agent they could think of, including a few janitorial ones, and still everyone fled the stench if they were downwind of your tank. Desperate to protect everyone’s nasal slits from the smell the quarantine officer interrogated the humans. From them, a glimmer of hope: there was a cure. Somehow the juice of a certain fruit on this mudball was the only thing that could break up the chemicals in the little horror’s spray. Immediately the Q.O. sent a team to recover buckets of the stuff and made you bathe in it. That was hours ago and it didn’t seem to be working, though. All it was doing was turning your blue skin an interesting shade of purple.

Sighing in frustration you wave the med-assist on duty over, who only approaches after checking the wind direction. Annoyed, you flip on the tank`s vox speaker.

“The humans did say it was “grape” juice that removed “skunk” stench, right?“

[majingojira]

Every night. 

It came for someone almost every night. 

Any soldier alone was a viable target for this native monster that moved unseen by any but the security viewers, usually only spotted in hindsight.  They were taken as silently as this earth-monster moved.  Sometimes they’d find the remains in the morning taken up a tree and hung there, mostly eaten, as if it were a grisly reminder that the monster was still there, waiting unseen, to strike again. 

What little they saw of the monster on the vidfeed showed true horror.  Yellow eyes that shone with all the light it could gather.  It had fangs as long as his grasping digits.  Claws half that size formed curved hooks that allowed it to climb up their fortifications with impunity.  And in the underbrush, its spots made it almost impossible to see clearly in the undergrowth, if it could be seen at all.

Even the native sentients, the humans, had a healthy respect and fear for it. 

The earth natives called the monster a leopard.  

It was a constant fear that muddied the senses, and let the monster hunt even more effectively as the soldiers were always on edge.  Sleep deprived with fear, it made them even better targets for the monster. 

But rumor was that there was worse on this planet.  Rumors of a monster like a leopard but larger, and bigger in every imaginable sense. Stripped instead of spotted, which leaped from the underbrush with a sound.

A sound that burst eardrums, paralyzed entire units, and let the monster kill with impunity.  While the Leopard wrestled soldiers down and ripped their throats out.  This other monster, the Tiger, killed with its pounce alone.

[lyricwritesprose]

“We’ve been through this,” Group Leader 455 snapped.  “The dissection of an Earth life form will help the scientists make weapons to combat the rest of this planet’s hellbeasts.  And these are domesticated.  Harmless.”

The troops were not-quite-looking at her in the way troops do when they don’t want to be seen to contradict a ranking officer, but can’t quite muster a correct Expression of Enthusiastic Assent.  “The name of this species,” she pointed out, “is synonymous with dullness and slowness in the language of the Earth barbarians.”  Well, one language out of several thousand—these creatures needed Imperial guidance more than any other world on record—but there was no point in confusing the rank and file.

More not-quite-looking.  455 bubbled a sigh and consulted her scanner.  “That one,” she decided.  “Alone in the separate pasture.  Scans suggest that it’s a male, which means it’s probably weaker.  Possibly it’s kept isolated so that the females don’t eat it before mating season.  And yes, I know some of you are here on punishment detail, but you’re still soldiers of the Imperium.  This squad is perfectly capable of handling a lone, helpless, pathetic male cow.”

[petermorwood]

I’m enjoying this immensely. Wait until the aliens try Australia for size…

[scp-230]

It was a strange creature Tar'van glimpsed at on the vast island known to the humans as ‘Australia’.

“I would warn you not to fuck with us, mate.” Their forced guide, a prisioner, had warned with a chilling grin upon capture. “If you think a moose is bad, wait until you tango with a red back.” To this day Tar'van fears the creature known as the red back, and what horrors it would bring.

The prisioner turned out to be of little help,the stubboness of his people causing them to refuse the danger that the captured human warned of. Tar'van recalls a moment when one of his squad members approached a creature know as a dingo, insistent they had seen these creatures before and they were tame. They barely escaped with 5 of the original 7 members of his squad.

Another moment Tar'van recalls was the brutal mauling they witnessed by the hands of a creature called an ‘Emu’

“Don’t feel too bad,” the prisioner mocked. “We lost a war to the Emu’s as well.”

Now with only 4 members of their squad left, including themself, Tar'van had learned to listen to the prisoner, to be wary of the simplest of creatures. This human was of the sub-species of ‘Zookeeper’ after all.

The ‘Zookeeper’ looks off to the distance, where the creature is.

“It’s a kangaroo, leave it be and you’ll be fine.” Tar'van nods, a human signal of acknowledgement if they are correct. The human smiles a bit.

“That creature cannot possibly harm us.” Tar'van’s squadleader protests. “It is so docile. I will aproach it and bring back it’s head to show this human is a fearmongering liar.”

The human reels back, a look of disgust crosses their face and anger passes through their eyes.

“Fucking do it mate, I dare ya.” The human hisses. The squad leader puffs up their hoinn gland, a sign of pride to their species, and aproached the so called ‘Kangaroo’.

“This will be unpleasant.” A squadmate mutters as they watch their leader raise their fist and bring it down on the creature. The ‘Kangaroo’ looks a little stunned by the impact, before it raises itself upon its strong tail and uses its powerful heind legs to launch their squadleader backwards through the air.

Their squadleader lands upon the ground, unmoving with black blooded oozeing from them. It appears Tar'van is the squads leader now.

“I don’t know what they expected.” the human says, smugness filling their tone. “Kangaroos are fucking shreaded. 8-pack and all.”

Tar'van steps forward to the human, whom inches back in a sign of fear as Tar'van pulls their blade from its holster, and in their first act as leader, frees the human of the bonds around their hands.

“Please,” Tar'van bags. “Get us back safely.”

[collectivized-apiary-deactivate]

As the surviving human guerrillas destroy more and more zoological information, the invaders must turn to older and much less reliable sources to aide their strategy-making. After scouring many particularly old documents, a group of researchers found references to a horror that all other Earth-Beasts pale in comparison to. Causing quite a stir, more research was directed specifically towards these rare creatures, and these endeavors uncovered that these monsters have many detailed and complimentary references across thousands of cultures and thousands of years, including many contemporary ones. 

Compiling the common features, the aliens set about crafting a new weapon that would be designed specifically to combat this as-of-yet unseen foe. Chief Engineer Cho-lo’ack, upon the completion of the prototype, personally escorted a human pilot around the experimental hangar, on the advice of a friend currently moving through “Os-t’raylee-ya.” 

“Human, I would like to introduce to you our new fighter, the TY-0001 ‘EhgsK’al-aber’ after your primitive legends. It’s hull is perfectly curved at every angle, and has been reinforced with five times the average heat shielding, in addition to a liquid-nitrogen environmental temperature regulation system.” The ship hovered in the hangar, bobbing up and down gently, as the human eyed their own reflection in the sleek hull. Reaching out their hand, the human pilot touched the surface and found their fingers sliding off uncontrollably. 

“Speaking of the environment system, the two pilots are seated here, in the rear of the craft, and are completely sealed in.” The alien gestured several tentacles towards what apparently was the back of the fighter. “The cabin is entirely invisible from the outside as a result, thus making it impossible to target the pilots themselves.

“In addition to these passive defensive measures, we have armed ‘ EhgsK’al-aber’ with a number of active defensive and offensive armaments. For example, these here are ‘air-o’ class projectiles.” The human turned to face the missile-like objects held in suspension beneath the glass floor. “Using precise heat-seeking capabilities modeled after several of your own human armaments, these weapons are able to detect missing armor plates, penetrate the exposed surface, and explode inside the target.

“Defensively, these spouts here are designed to allow two different chemicals to pass through the hull of the vessel.” The alien ducked below the craft and led the human to an exposed port in the hull. “The secondary pilot chooses either a harsh spray of liquid nitrogen or a flame-resistant foam that is able to force any penetrating objects from cracks or breaks in the vessel’s hull that may form from combat damage.

“Finally, the last defensive measure.” Withdrawing a small screen from their robe, the alien shows a scale model of the fighter. Suddenly, the hull of the model begins to crack and turn gold, soon sloughing off of the craft altogether and fragmenting into a dazzling array of gold specks fluttering through the air in a dense cloud. “When escape becomes the only option for the craft, either pilot will trigger the top layer of heat shield to crack and flake off of the craft, similar to many of your Earth-Beasts “molting” habits. The underside of this shielding layer is coated in purified gold flakes, gold having proven a suitable distraction, and allowing our pilots to escape.”

The human eyes the features of this strange vessel once more before speaking to the expectant captor. “This is all well and good, but what is it for?”

The alien clicks confidently before speaking.

“Dragons, of course.”

[dragon-of-sapphire]

Karda’en had been sifting through rubble on zir research recovery expedition. Karda’en and their troop were scavenging a ‘Thee-ah-tar’ for information on the advice of their human captive, that may contain information they were looking for.

The human ‘Kim-bra-lee’ had already proven very useful in avoiding highly dangerous creatures that were seemingly harmless. Such as the ‘wra-bits’ creatures. Upon first spotting one, Kib-bra-lee had shouted “Run away!” repeatedly while attempting to flee. Karda’en after hearing of the many horrors that plague this planet knew better than to doubt the small female, and with her, xi and zir troops fled the area. The small creatures were, Karda’en was later told, able to decapitate a single human in a moment and could fend off large numbers of attacking humans with ease.

In zir expedition, they had already uncovered a wealth of information stored on rudimentary ‘Cel-oh-fane’ disks and viewed with light projectors. Kim-bra-lee showed them a wealth of information on creatures they had yet to encounter.

Among them were amorphous creatures able to consume and digest any bio organism within moments leaving no trace behind; which would explain the countless missing they had. Limbless creatures that could detect you by movement and swam underground as if it were water, solid stone and elevated structures were their only weaknesses. Relentless aquatic beasts able to sink moderate aquatic vessels that had too many teeth and were hard to kill. Parasitic organisms that gestate in it’s host body before violently bursting out of their chest cavities and grew into even deadlier beasts with acidic blood.

Worst of all was a creature that loomed over entire city structures. Kim-bra-lee had shown them a horrible beast called a ‘God-zil-ah’ a creature of their own creation by accident that, no matter what they did, they could not be rid of it. Even the violent fiery doom of a volcano could not stop this singular creature from returning.

It lives deep in the ocean, which explained why a creature of such mass avoided detection, but also the sheer exoskeleton crushing weight that it could endure spoke of it’s resistance to their weaponry. A single step could crush several dozen troops. Then there was the antenna quivering fact that it could breath massive beams of plasma that could certainly wipe out an entire fleet.

With hearing all the stories from injured troops, Karda’en was uncertain that invading this planet was a good idea, upon seeing the horrific creatures Kim-bra-lee showed them, Karda’en was now curtain it was not. For they had only scratched the surface of a world made of Monsters.

[chungkingosaurus]

Ra’charr had been assigned to a mysterious land called “Louisiana.”  He and his troops traversed through a hellish land called a “swamp.”  Bizarre clumps of grayish stringy plants hung in long strands from the trees.  Ra’charr quickly learned not to brush against the stringy things, for when he did, tiny red bugs, too small to see, would cover his body.  The bugs spit a substance on his skin that liquefied the skin cells, leaving tiny pits and a horrendous itch.  The itch was so tormenting that Ra’charr wanted to rip his skin off.

This “swamp” was filled with blood-sucking insects that were so numerous that Ra’charr and his crew breathed them in with every breath. Many of his soldiers were felled by the bite of a legless, slithering reptile with a short, fat body and a bright white mouth.  The horrendous beasts were everywhere in great numbers.

After a few days of trekking, Ra’charr came across a human woman sitting on the front porch of her wood shack.  She was wearing overalls and as soon as she sighted them, she grabbed her primitive projectile weapon .  “Git off mah property!” she yelled.  

Ra’charr pointed his paralyzer device at the woman and pressed a button.  She instantly froze.    Ra’charr noticed a fenced-in area containing large reptiles.  He said, “Human, I will unfreeze you, but you must tell me what those creatures inside the fence are.  We have heard about the many monsters of Earth and you must instruct us on them.  If you attempt to use your projectile weapon on us, we will kill you.”

Ra’charr pressed the button again on his paralyzer.

The woman blinked.  “Dem’s gators.”

“What are they for?”

“Fer eatin’.”

“Eating?  We could use these gators.  It has been days since we had protein nourishment.  Hand over the gators.”

The human looked shocked and then a slow smile spread over her face.  “Okay.  Now, you want dem gators, just go up in they pen.  They’s real nice like.  Let you go on up to dem an’ pet dem an’ such.”

Ra’charr nodded.  “Thank you for your cooperation, human.  For this, I will spare your life.”  He led his men to the gator pen.  Once inside, one alien reached for a gator, and it grabbed his arm, dragged him under the water, and drowned him.  The aliens screamed, but it was too late for most of them.  The gators were grabbing the men and drowning them.  Some were ripping off limbs.  The gators were immune to the paralyzers, having primitive brains, and no matter how hard the aliens punched or kicked the gators, they could not get free.  The gators’ mouths gripped their prey like a vice.  Many gators were fighting each other for scraps of alien flesh.

Only Ra’charr and two other men made it out alive.  They ran in terror, and heard gunshot as they fled.  Devious, wicked human!  She had lied!  Clearly, these swamp people were some of the toughest humans to live in this wretched place and to view the horrible gators as a tasty treat.

[explorerrowan]

I love how this keeps expanding. And yes, that is my swamp people.

[systlin]

Ma’thek and his squad wondered, when they first saw the human residence, why it had not been destroyed like many of its neighbors. The rural areas of this world were proving somewhat…difficult…to pacify, but this area had been more or less swept clean. 

However, there was one area that was still marked blank on their maps. A captured hu-man, when asked about the place, had just said “Oh, well, that’s the Phillips place. Nice people, buy honey from her now and then” 

He’d then cackled. “You think you’re goin’ there? Boy, if you thought the farm was bad…”

He’d refused to say anything else. Ma’thek had consulted with Investigations and discovered that ‘honey’ was a sweet sugary food product somehow distilled from flowers, though the process was vague. He’d learned by now not to underestimate this planet, but apparently this food product was not made from toxic plants. He agreed to take a squad in. 

The human home, when they found it, seemed ordinary. Isolated, with much land around it. Oddly, the land was dotted with dozens of painted wooden boxes. In among the boxes a female hu-man was working at something. 

The boxes seemed to contain insect colonies. Ma’thek was instantly suspicious. However, some extended observation of the female reassured them. She was not wearing any sort of protective clothing, and the insects were swarming around her without any apparent harm. 

They advanced. The hu-man female looked up. She seemed neither surprised nor intimidated by their pretense. 

“I thought you lot learned your lesson the first three times.” She said. Ma’thek was poor at deciphering the more subtle inflections of hu-man speech, but she was smiling. That was usually a sign of welcome, wasn’t it? Oddly contrasting to her words…

“We have come to take you into custody.” He chirred, and revealed his trap-gun.

“Yeah. Figured.” The hu-man calmly turned back to the box and the swarming insects. “Sorry, girls. You know I hate doing this.” 

She seemed to be addressing the insect colony. Odd..

And then, in one smooth motion, the female lifted a box off of the stack she was working on and hurled it at Ma’thek. He quickly shifted back from the poor attack, clicking in amusement. 

And then his pheromone receptors caught a hint of…something. 

Insects boiled out of the box. Angry insects. As the hint of pheromones grew stronger, insects began swarming from the nearby colonies too. 

And then they began stinging. 

The following few minutes were pandemonium. Ma’thek and his team fled, shrieking, but the insects chased them. Every sting injected more venom, and they began choking and stumbling one by one, unable to breathe. 

One of the last things Ma’thek saw before he asphixiated was the human female ambling over. The small insects were swarming around her, but she seemed only mildly irritated. She leaned over and picked up his trap-gun.

“Sooner or later.” She said. “You lot are going to learn to stay away from me and my girls.”

“How…” He managed to croak.

She grinned again, and Ma’thek belatedly remembered that showing teeth was a display of dominance and aggression in primates as well as a greeting. “Beekeeper. I’m immune any more. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put that hive back together. Thanks for the gun” 

[bigwordsandsharpedges]

In a desperate effort to reduced the casualty rate, the Admiral of the renowned 45th System Expeditionary Division approved aerial reconnaissance drones, both piloted and remotely controlled. 

The initial peacekeeping operations on each landmass had used nanobot swarms, but the volatile humidity levels and sheer numbers of microbial life forms caused too much interference for the swarms to remain cohesive. Strategic intelligence analysis at the Fleet level had determined that the most efficient option was to provide each squad with their own drone. 

This decision was not without some debate, as many suspected that squads with true-born leadership would be shown favoritism over lab-born squads. Legally, the supply chain was free from discrimination, but alleged “clerical errors” still occurred on occasion. 

Eventually, the Admiral agreed to the controversial resupply plan. Xe had no other options if the peacekeeping forces were to make up for lost time. Field units on every major landmass were behind schedule, and the Admiral already had strained relations with the Internal Inquisitions Department. Failure would not be tolerated any longer.

The barbarian natives had no difficulties misleading them, because even they were generally unaware of the fatal flaw in this plan. Although an appreciable number of them had used primitive combustion-based flying machines, their own records reported good safety statistics. They hadn’t developed advanced nanobot swarms, and in fact they had barely started using inefficient remote-controlled aircraft for combat.

Nobody ever saw it coming:

To the shock and horror of all involved, more than 65% of the reconnaissance drones had been damaged or destroyed within 20 rotations. Even after the Intelligence Analysts had assured Fleet Command that “dragons” were fiction, a mere “distraction meant to waste production resources”, it was revealed that “eagles” were both very real and very widespread. In fact, small numbers of the natives would claim to know of training eagles for cooperative hunting.

There would be a crackdown for this collective deception, of course, but it couldn’t return the wasted time or erase the controversy. Many of the natives had allegedly shouted “The eagles are coming! The eagles are coming!”, which was eventually traced back to a common light projection erroneously classified as “fantasy”. It was re-categorized as “history” immediately, calling the classification of “dragons” into review. 

With stoic, resigned purring, the Admiral surrendered the ceremonial war hammer of xis bloodline to be ejected into interstellar space. It had been determined that ritual suicide was not required for this level of shame, but the failure still warranted exile to an imperial colony world. Admiral no more, xe and all of xis genetic descendants would be removed from the glorious warrior caste.

[throwawayforbeautiful]

Quig’thip was, well, not precisely lazing at their post, but definitely not paying as much attention as the surroundings dictated; when a loud screaming noise caught their attention.  Their head snapped up towards the sound, an eerie keen coming from the forests nearest the small outpost’s wall.  The famed fog of this island was out this morning, and they could barely make out the trees.  

Even though they couldn’t see the source of the screaming, wailing sound, they knew better than to trust that it was benign.  They sounded the alarm immediately, calling to their fellow defenders.  They heard the sounds of the soldiers scrambling behind them in the open yard of the outpost seconds later.  They weren’t entirely worried, after all, the yard and outpost were surrounded by meter-and-a-half high fencing and surely none of the hellbeasts of this land could jump that high.  

The keening was close now, the loudness of it almost piercing their ear membranes, and it was now accompanied deep, thunderous rumbling.  They squinted at the fog and the trees, searching for the source of the sound.  

When it finally burst out of the tree line, it was like nothing they could possibly have prepared for.  Tall, dark, four legged creatures covered in metal were running out the tree line, fog clinging to them as they ran directly at the outpost.  As they watched the invaders coming on, they realized the source of the wail - there were humans astride these creatures.  The one in the front was carrying a long pole with a strange piece of cloth on it - Red with many horizontal and vertical stripes in varying colors and thicknesses.  

That one, the one with the flag, his bellow reached even to the watchtower, “FOR SCOTLAND!”

Humans.  That explained the metal, these must be robotic modes of transportation that the natives kept hidden.  Well, they’d be no match for the energy weapons, and they’d never get those heavy things over the walls.  Quig’thip was comforted by that thought, relieved that they weren’t real animals.

Until the first shot was fired, and it fizzled against the surface of the metal, not even leaving a scratch.  In disbelief they used their HUD to zoom in on the oncoming horde.  There was nothing on this planet like that, how had it deflected the energy blast? The metal wasn’t smooth and even, it was pieced together, and all too late they realized that the humans had scavenged the metal from fallen warriors.  Their first assessment was correct - those weren’t robots at all, but creatures wearing armor.  The humans were wearing it too.  

Still, there were the walls.  There was no way those huge, heavy creatures would make it over the walls.  They clung to that thought until the first of the charge jumped, easily sailing over what now seemed like laughably low walls.  The beast reared up and kicked the nearest defender in the chest, sending them flying back against the wall of the outpost.  They didn’t get up.  

Another defender fell to the ground, blood pouring from a bite.  Why wasn’t their blood coagulating? It should have stopped bleeding.  Was there yet another creature on this accursed planet that carried poison in its mouth? Or were they simply more vulnerable to the microbes in its mouth?

The rest of the human-beasts made it easily over the wall.  On those beasts they towered over Quig’thip’s comrades.  Worse, the huge animals seemed to be obeying commands, and had all to much intelligence in their eyes for Quig’thip’s liking.  Combined with the deadly effects of the animal’s hard feet - which Quig’thip realized were shod with metal - and their powerful bites on the defender’s unprepared anatomy, the outpost was devastated.  They stayed as long as they could before hitting eject.  The tower doubled as an emergency escape pod, and they were taken back to the nearest orbiting ship.  

On the ship, after reporting to their superior, they were tasked with questioning a native.  One of the other soldiers recognized the strange animals from the outpost, they’d seen them in the southwest of a country previously called “America”, and pointed Quig’thip towards a prisoner from that part of the world.  

“I demand to know what this is!,” they said in the rough speech of the humans from that part of the world, holding up a hologram taken by the outpost’s emergency recording system.  

The female in front of him gave what they’d come to know as a smile.  They weren’t proficient enough in human body language to tell nuance, but something about this look made them distinctly uncomfortable, “Someone called the cavalry.  Literally.”  

“I don’t know what that means, female.  Explain your colloquialism,” they were getting frustrated now, nerves frayed by the loss of their fellow soldiers.  

“Did your commander tell you about what they ran into in Arizona?,” she asked, her voice sounding suspiciously reasonable.  

“The large four-legged pack herbivores? Yes.  What of it?,” According to the commander, they’d been merciless with the squadron that had been caught in the path of the herd, trampling them to death, and biting whole tentacles off of those that weren’t trampled.  They’d been listed as a Class Eleven threat due to their size and strength.  Was it possible that the humans had domesticated them?

“Well,” she said, her disturbing smile widening, “Those ones were wild.  These ones work with us.  You think our wild animals are bad? You’ve seen nothing, C’thulhu.  Our domesticated ones are worse.  One of them has been shaped by people for thirty thousand years.  We call that one ‘man’s best friend’.  And I can’t wait until the raptor handlers get ahold of you.  Or even the corvids.  They’ll pick the eyestalks off your head because it’s fun.  You may have taken our planet, but you’ll never keep it.”

Raptor handlers? They’d thought all of those reptiles were dead, surely she was lying.  She sat back on her cot, and it was obvious she’d say no more.  At this point, the invective that came out of their speaking gland was a human one they’d heard that somehow felt strangely appropriate, “Fuck this planet, and the horse it rode in on.”  

( @space-australians )