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Author Topic: My Lucky Day  (Read 4394 times)
Darth Cephalus
Supreme Heresiarch of Inadvisable Saber Techniques
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Who watches the watchmen?


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« on: April 03, 2014, 03:52:21 AM »

So I just heard back from the people over at the Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland and *insert drum-roll here* my story was the overall winner of the microfiction contest. They will be publishing me in their program and in a chapbook anthology. My story will also be read aloud at the festival by one of the celebrity guests. Not sure which one but I am hoping for Doug Bradley (the guy who played Pinhead in Hellraiser). Thought I would share the story though it is not SWU related. Enjoy.

My Lucky Day

Bob opened his eyes. He’d been trying to sleep, but the pounding sound on the roof was proving too much for his exhaustion to overcome. It was raining again…but what was it raining? You never knew these days.

Things were supposed to have been different when the Old Ones returned. The end cults said it would be fire and madness and a quick trip down the cosmic drain. Quaint, but far from the truth.

Sure, there was some violence—a city or two lost—but total destruction just wasn’t part of the plan. The Old Ones had set up shop and things got quiet: that is, except for the voices.

First it was little things like Don’t panic and Things will all work out. The voices weren’t coming from anywhere exactly, but everyone heard them, and they were encouraging really. Chin up and Keep on truckin' helped you cope. Pretty soon, though, people started to realize that coping wasn't optional.

The first time Bob tried to kill himself, the voice told him not to. That didn’t stop him from putting the cold barrel of the gun to his head and tightening his finger around the trigger. That was when the voice became more than a voice. It was a command; an impulse that sucker punched him right in the brain. Put down the gun…he did. Go back home and take a nap…he did. Everything will be OK…like hell it will.

After that, he tried to poison himself twice and tried to jump off a building once. Each time, the voice stopped him. Eventually he gave up and moved on. He even found a girlfriend. The voice told him she was good for him. He guessed he agreed.

He wasn’t alone. People didn’t kill themselves anymore—or each other—but they still died. They got up one morning and walked out of their lives and across town, right into the mouth of whatever corpulent, pulsating middle-management beastie was closest, and they smiled while they did it. Everyone else just kept on keepin' on, as instructed.

Bob had watched a lot of people go that way. He’d even seen it happen on his way home from a walk downtown the voice had told him to take. There was no screaming, just a wet chewing sound as a line of people marched into a circular maw in the basement door of an abandoned brewery.

Bob got dressed and went outside. He looked up: rainworms against a red sky. A small swarm descended and sank their abdominal hooks into his face for a quick snack. He winced but let them. You learned to let them. If you tried to pull them off before they finished, it was much worse.

Soon, it wouldn’t matter. He’d won the lottery. Bob smiled—as best he could around the worms, anyway—and wondered if he remembered how to get to that old brewery. He was pretty sure the voice knew the way.
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Deceptae
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« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2014, 07:19:26 AM »

I assume that was for this Cthulhu Mythos I keep hearing about. In any case, I don't know how to handle that information. Someone please point me in the right direction, suggest a book, that I may attempt to grok.
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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Darth Cephalus
Supreme Heresiarch of Inadvisable Saber Techniques
Knight Commander
*

Force Alignment: -915
Posts: 1567

Who watches the watchmen?


WWW
« Reply #2 on: April 03, 2014, 09:35:04 AM »

Best place to start if you just want the gist is a web/Wikipedia search for Cthulhu Mythos. If you want the source material, the H.P. Lovecraft stories "The Call of Cthulhu" and "At the Mountains of Madness" should give you a pretty good foundation; if I were you though, I would start with "Dagon". It is fairly short and will give you a feel for Lovecraft so that you can see if this is something you would like to pursue. If you are more movie inclined, I recommend Hellboy and In the mouth of Madness. My story is an original though. All you need to know about the Cthulhu Mythos to get it is that the Old Ones are ridiculously powerful evil space aliens locked in a separate dimension while humans, who they consider a minor science experiment gone wrong, run around on their planet like they own the place. They bide their time and wait till they can come back and set things straight. It is actually a lot like Norse Mythology. Where Old One read Jotun.
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Deceptae
Knight Commander
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Force Alignment: -90
Posts: 2004

Power, Passion, Strength


« Reply #3 on: April 03, 2014, 07:46:11 PM »

Hellboy? I loved that movie! Is that what those squid-things were?

I will look for those stories, point incoming.
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Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

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