1. |
Woo-Loo-Loo
03:17
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He wasn’t particularly tall or short, neither fat nor thin, with features that fit together cleanly but not too cleanly. If it wasn’t for his eyes you’d pass him on the street without thinking twice about it.
But it was hard for you to ignore the thick flames pouring out from the empty sockets, hungry and sickly yellow, lapping at his unremarkable brow without leaving so much as a blister.
Where had he even come from? He’d appeared so suddenly….
Even outdoors with a biting wind, the smell of sulfur was overwhelming. It burrowed through your nose and sat deep in your gut, pungent and stagnant.
When he spoke, it burrowed through your ears and sat somewhere near the base of your neck, deep and unyielding. Like he wasn’t speaking them at all, that they were only ideas that you were just now coming to understand. Like everything he had ever said and would ever say was written on a stone tablet covered in grime and ash and you were shoveling away heavy handfuls of the stuff, uncovering a word at a time.
And when he told you he could give you the world, you believed him.
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2. |
Snakeskin Boots
03:36
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He yanked on the boots. Sweat dripped from his face, stinging his eyes and darkening his shirt. He couldn’t even feel his feet any more.
The scales on them shimmered in the fading sunlight as he fought to remove his feet, bending and stretching the snakeskin that had been so meticulously and masterfully sewn together. It looked like they were alive. The garish taxadermied snake heads attached to the toes stared up at him blankly, taunting him.
Exhausted, he gave up and flopped on his back. His thoughts were swimming, and his hands were starting to get numb from pulling so hard for so long. What were his options here?
He remembered his hunting knife stashed in his truck. He would just have to cut them off.
As he walked to the truck, his knees kept buckling, his legs bending in strange ways that should have hurt. Maybe he’d dislocated something. His hands were weak as they opened the car door and grabbed the knife from the glove box. The long, clean blade glinted.
Sitting with his back against the wheel, he laboriously pulled a foot up so he could reach it. As he did, his leg flopped to the ground like a well-cooked noodle, like his bones just weren’t there any more. Something was wrong. Could an ambulance even make it out here?
His fingers weren’t bending any more, so he sandwiched the knife in his palms and stabbed. A blinding pain ran up his leg. He must have stabbed too hard. He could see blood starting to pool around the knife. He sawed his hands back and forth, trying to cut the snakeskin off. Every time he moved the knife, a new wave of pain shot through his body. He gritted his teeth, but finally he couldn’t take it any more. He collapsed back against the tire, and as he watched in horror the snakeskin slowly mended itself, closing the long gash and ejecting the knife cleanly to the ground beside him.
He tried to reach for the knife again but he couldn’t move his arm. He looked over at it. The skin on his arm was...patterned. Scaly.
It shimmered in the fading sunlight.
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3. |
Low Tide
03:37
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One by one, they awoke.
One by one, they started humming.
The thin whir of small pieces of metal rapidly moving across other small pieces of metal bounced off the surf and echoed around the empty beach, inundating the air with wall upon wall of rippling mechanical activity.
The sun bounced from their metallic skin to the shimmering water and back again, turning shades of purple and blue and white with brief flashes of colors that have never been seen on this planet.
The ocean spray whipped around their motionless forms, splashed against their broad backs, into their open unseeing eyes, and across their slack unmoving lips. As the spray touched them, the water droplets exploded into gently fading clouds of steam. Around them the water started slowly bubbling.
Finally, the last one started whirring.
One by one, they blinked.
One by one, they took a step forward, in terrifying and beautiful unison.
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4. |
Catfight!
03:16
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Jesus, what the hell happened out here?
That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.
The radio fell silent, its faint static accompanied by ragged, nervous breaths
John?
Yeah, sorry. I don’t even know how to describe what I’m seeing.
First off, everyone’s dead.
What? Everyone? How are you sure?
Trust me. No one made it out of there alive.
Structure’s been completely demolished.
Looks like it was turned inside out and flattened.
There are….pieces everywhere. Bodies.
John, I need you to go in there and look for survivors.
There were good men in there.
There were.
There was a long pause, punctuated by the occasional grunt and scraping noise.
John?
Yeah.
Anything?
No.
Listen, John, I need you to give me a little more here.
I’m trying to document this incident and-
More? You need more? They’re all eviscerated Hank.
Ripped apart. Torn to shreds.
I’m looking at a man’s fucking head and part of his shoulder
staring at his guts spilling out from the rest of his body ten
fucking feet away. There’s blood everywhere.
How many people were here? A hundred? Hundred twenty?
There’s a hundred twenty people’s worth of fucking blood
covering this whole place and I am getting the fuck out of here
so you can document that.
Ok, Hank? You can fucking document--
The radio went silent again, its static again accompanied by ragged nervous breaths.
John?
It’s a cat.
What?
It’s a goddamn cat. It’s back it sees me. Tell-
John? A cat?
John?
Hello?
John?
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5. |
Kyu-Jyu-Kyu
03:37
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The moon was a thin sliver in the black sky, like the darkness had given itself a silver lining.
Far below, an emperor unexpectedly breathed his last, staring horrified at the sword that had suddenly burst through his sternum.
The assassin standing behind him was ecstatic. He couldn’t help the stupid grin that crept onto his expression, threating to burst past the confines of his face.
Ninety-nine! He counted the notches on his scabbard again to make sure.
This was legend-worthy. Song-and-dance-worthy. Triumphantly-crow-from-the-top-of-a-mountain-worthy.
He did a silent dance as he wriggled the sword out of his target and let the bright blood drip from its tip. He looked at his reflection in the blade. Now there was the face of an assassin. That’s the kind of face that makes it was into scrolls and tapestries, sneering and grinning and stabbing, surrounded by expressions of shock and intrigue.
How would history remember him? As a great champion against tyranny? As a great menacing beast? It didn’t matter, as long as he was great.
He was so lost in thought he didn’t notice when the door opened, and barely flinched when the arrows pierced his armor, traveling through him and hitting the wooden wall in front of him with heavy THUNKs.
Maybe they would build a statue of him. He couldn’t stop grinning. This was a great way to go.
Far above, the moon was a thin sliver in the black sky, like the darkness had given itself a silver lining.
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6. |
Animado
03:33
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7. |
Bananas con Platano
05:59
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8. |
Hava Nagila
03:06
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She inhaled, and the tip of her long cigarette glowed a rich orange, casting soft shadows across the crests and valleys of her face.
As she inhaled, she looked away, her thick lashes furtively shielding brilliant green eyes as they gazed deeply and thoughtfully into nothing. Her chest swelled and back slowly arched as she fought to draw in every bit of the hot, earthy smoke, filling her lungs and her mouth and her nose with stuff.
She held it all in for a moment, frozen except for the tendrils of blue-grey smoke starting to spill and curl past her dark red lips.
She exhaled, wrenching her eyes out of memory and into focus, meeting yours with an alarming intensity.
The smoke poured out of her, filling your senses with its exotic presence, clouding your vision and judgement with its brazen huskiness.
Your heart thumped in your throat. It was hers for the taking.
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