Apples R scrumptious
Hello there stranger;) I think today is going to be a great day for you <3
Apples R scrumptious
Hello there stranger;) I think today is going to be a great day for you <3
Hello there stranger;) I think today is going to be a great day for you <3
Hello there stranger;) I think today is going to be a great day for you <3
The lake is cold, slimy, and filthy.
You stand at the edge of the dock on a bleak cloudy day, looking out over the thick murky water.
Something isn’t right with this lake. It almost looks like it’s _breathing. _
The fog swirling over the surface. The forest on the other side beckoning you to run across the water to join the shadows.
You catch yourself from falling forward over the edge. You only came out here to check for your dog, but you can’t see or hear her anywhere. You turn in a circle on the dock and call for her.
You hear a faint bark echoing across the lake. You look across the lake and see your dog, standing at the edge of the dark forest on the other side. Her silhouette is wagging her tail. She wants you to follow her.
You don’t intend to jump in the lake of course, but you don’t know how you will get your dog to come back. You call her to come, but she just barks in reply and wags her tail.
You notice a little canoe on the shore close to you, and you decide to have a little adventure. You’ve never used a canoe before, but how hard could it be?
You pull the canoe over to the dock, and get in. There’s a paddle inside. When the paddle is thrust through the water, it feels like pushing through slightly congealed jello. You keep paddling, but the conoe isn’t moving very fast.
Your dog is looking a bit bigger now. She isn’t wagging her tail. Her shadows seem longer.
A splash of dark sludge in your canoe. The canoe is sinking, being pulled bellow. You try to use the paddle to come back to shore.
Your dog is coming to save you… running across the water? No, _slithering _across the water. The fog around you thickens. You can’t really see anything anymore. Something cold and wet touches your feet. There’s nowhere you can go… suffocating… petrifying… calm.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A couple hours pass and a hiker walks onto the dock. He looks out over the cold lake and marvels at how beautifully the sun reflects off of the water. The forest on the other side is perfectly green and frames the lake in a pretty way.
He notices a little canoe floating around in the middle of it. There’s no one in it, and the paddle is bobbing a few feet away. He walks off the dock and sees a pair of shoes placed on the shore. He wonders who’s canoe and who’s shoes these are, but he doesn’t have time to wonder. He appreciates the mistical wonder of this sunny lake. He takes one more look at the beautiful picture nature has painted, and walks off on the trail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As he walks off, you watch him go with a little longing. You wish he would stay longer. The hiker brought a sense a familiarity to you.
You wonder why he didn’t notice you looking at him from everywhere… watching… waiting… craving…
You wish he had noticed you, for you feel so lonely…
“Identification, please.”
I fumble for my fake ID card, my hands so sweaty it slips out of my hand a couple times before I can yank it out of my too-small pocket. I’m wearing a business suit that makes me look like some kind of boss-woman. It’s extremely uncomfortable.
I press the card to the scanner, my heart beating so loud in my head I can hardly hear the approving beep. The doors slide open and I’m faced with yet another long hallway.
Gratitude wells up in me for some more time before I get to my destination. I don’t know behind which door the people I’m supposed to see will be — my tiny gps only tells me which turns to take, not anything as advanced as how far I have left to go.
I stride through the hallway with my nerves just about bubbling out of me, but I mask it with a fake confidence. I glance out the windows to the left lining the hallway, and I can see the city sparkling with the sunset. I look higher and I can see cameras lining the top of the walls. Seeing the cameras I get even more nervous.
“KEEEEEAAAAWWWW”
I wince a little as the screeching sound fills my right ear. I try to stop my hand from flying up to touch my earpiece too quickly. I tap it once and pretend I was scratching my neck.
“Hello???” I whisper, moving my lips as little as possible.
Some static, and then a familiar voice:
“You alright, Falessia?”
A small sigh of relief escapes me, and I almost laugh. Not visibly though, I’m sure. The tension in my body leaves as suddenly as it came 10 minutes ago.
“Glad you’re back,” I mumble, “would’a been toast without you.”
“Yeah sorry about disappearing like that; something cut off our signal, but we’re all good now.”
I’m almost at the end of the hallway, taking the last few steps with genuine confidence rather than fake now. I glance out the windows again and see a small drone fly by at my level, surprising me a bit. Interesting.
_ _I reach the end of the hallway and there’s another door with an ID scanner. I tap my earpiece.
“Naomi?” I breathe.
Her voice blares into my ear, breaking up a bit: “Behind this— ~s another hallway; you’ll come to a turn, and when you get there, I’ll ~ell you wha— next.”
I tap my card to the scanner. As the doors slide open, I can see that the hallway ahead is much darker than the ones I’ve walked through so far. Some of the windows are even shaded. I take a step through the door.
“The hallway’s dark,” I mumble, “should I —“
Before I can finish my sentence, the doors slam closed behind me.
I almost jump out of my skin; the doors never slammed like that. They always eased closed, smoothly. It also became darker without the light from the previous hallway leaking into this one.
“What was that, are you ok?” Naomi asks.
“Yep I’m fine.” I breathe, steadying my nerves.
“Ok just keep going to the turn.”
I cautiously start walking through, quickening my steps gradually. A few of the windows let the sunlight in, but there are no lights on inside. Strange.
And then all the light disappears from the hallway simultaneously. Every window somehow gets blocked.
I freeze.
“The lights gone,” panick starts to rise in me again.
“Wha— you mea—? How—“
The rest I don’t hear, because something hits the side of my head so hard I fall to the floor on my knees. The hit had painfully jammed my earpiece into my ear, and when I tap it I can feel it’s been crushed.
My heart begins to race, and I can’t see a thing. I look around wildly but all there is is black. How is it so dark? Who hit me? Where are they now???
I crawl over to what I think is the left until I feel a wall. I try to feel for the window so I can uncover it, but suddenly a hand covers my mouth and someone grabs and holds me down.
I can’t help some tears begin to form in my eyes. My heart is beating so fast. I’m beginning to feel dizzy. I’m bracing for the worst, and then my attacker says something unexpected:
“Calm down, I’m not gonna hurt you,” Their voice is low and terrifying. “I’m gonna explain everything later, I promise, but right now we have to go.”
My mind is racing, and I don’t know what to think. The person is behind me, their one arm somehow not allowing me to move both of mine. My body is pinned the wall and the floor, and I can hardly move. I feel suffocated.
“Trust me, please…”
They release their hand from my mouth.
“What d’ya want?” I say in a quiet but savage tone.
“It’s too much to explain right now, but all you need to know is that who you’re working for is dangerous. And you’re in danger. So you can either come with me willingly or I’ll drag you out, but I’m not gonna let you die today.” He whispers this really fast close to my ear. “So will you make this easier for me or do I have to force you?”
“I don’t know who the heck you are! You think I’m stupid!?” I whisper-shout, my voice quivering. I try to struggle free while his grip is loosened, but he shoves his hand in my face again.
My captor sighs sadly. “Alright then”
It’s still completely dark, and I realize he’s shoved a cloth to my nose. It smells strange, and I feel my nerves fade away. I kind of feel relaxed. My eyes droop. My head spins. So sleepy…
A light appears, and I’m being carried into the wall…
Too sleepy…
I don’t dream of anything at all.
There she was, my target number 52. It was surprisingly easy to find her. Unlike my previous targets, it didn’t seem like she was trying to hide. She was just sitting on a rock at a park, out in the open. Someone else was sitting next to her, and they were talking. To a regular onlooker, she looked carefree. But I could see her tense demeanor and the way her eyes darted about. She was nervous.
I was told she had been targeted at least 40 times before, and no one had ever finished the job—evidently. And no one new why, because everyone who took on the task of assassinating her had disappeared in the effort of trying.
This information didn’t scare me though. I knew _I _could do it. I was more experienced then them, and I believed I had the intuition and the wits to do anything I put my mind to. I mean, how hard could be? I could have shot any moment and she would have been none the wiser. Or so I thought…
I was aiming and my finger was resting on the trigger. I had thought about what to do with my target’s friend. I had come to the conclusion that I would shoot her first, then him right after. There was no one around, and that would tie up loose ends.
I took a deep breath, and then she looked at me.
_ She looked at me. _
Her friend glanced my way, too. He whispered something to her. She mumbled something back.
Her eyes pierced my soul. I knew she couldn’t see me, because I was wearing advanced camoflage gear and I was exceptionally gifted in hiding. But her stare still made me feel uneasy. I was sure she was just looking back in this area for a different reason. She wasn’t looking at me…
Her eyes flashed red. In the split second I had left I thought I had imagined it. But before I could think another thought, it felt as though her eyes really were peircing my soul. I felt a searing pain surge through my body. I dropped my gun and crumpled to the ground.
I stifled a cry, trying not to give away my location—for what reason I don’t know, for it was quite obvious now that she knew where I was. My tears started blurring my vision, and as I looked through the grass to my target, I realized she wasn’t on the rock anymore, and her friend wasn’t either.
She was now standing over me, her eyes glowing bright red, her face twisted in a kind of fear. Her friend was standing to the side, his eyes full of hate.
“I’m not afraid” were the last words I heard anyone say, and they were spoken with the very thing they claimed not to be. Her voice was shaking, and as I took my last breath, my thoughts were full of fear and shock. It happened too fast
_ What was going on?_
The pain escalated to the worst I had felt in my life,
and then all of it was over, and I was gone.
I looked into the big mirror on my stark white wall. My room was like a cubicle cell, like a prison. Completely clean, no imperfections. It was suffocating.
The mirror that took up half the wall made it seem a little bigger than it was, but I hated it. Because I knew what it was really there for.
“I know you’re watching me.” I said clearly, my voice bouncing off the walls in a weird way.
All I saw in the mirror was me: my hair a blonde birds nest on my head, scratches and bruises all over my skin, and wearing a dirty hospital gown. I looked terrible.
I knew I couldn’t cry at that moment, because then I would look weak, and they would see it. So I just thought about grass, and the sky, and the sun.
“If you’re there, mom, please, let me out.” My voice cracked, and I could feel a painful lump forming in my throat.
“Please… for your daughter’s sake. Don’t you love me?”
The stars were what she loved most about the sky, and then they started to fall, one by one.
Her mother, in a car accident.
Her father, from despair.
Her sister, from disease.
Her friends, because she pushed them away.
And she would look up at the sky and see the stars slowly but surely falling. They kept falling. They wouldn’t ever stop falling, she was sure of it. It was inevitable. Because whenever she would claim a star as valuable, it would fall.
And so the days flew by in a haze, and she kept watching the stars fall. She would notice each and every one, every star’s descent more painful than the last.
And one day, her final star fell, and now she was finished.
She was done.
There was no point any longer. Her bones were weak and weary, so she lay down for her final and eternal rest, with defeat ravaging her heart.
But right as she was taking her final breath, a bright star was born in her sky.
She felt it, and suddenly an irrational hope ignited in her, that maybe this star would stay. She could see this star in her ended future, multiplying and creating a beautiful, shining sky.
but it was too late.
She had already let go, and she couldn’t go back.
If she had held on a little longer, maybe she would have had another chance. Maybe she would have restored her life of heartache and sorrow to a beautiful sky.
But she had chosen her path, and now she would never get that chance.
I now ask you, when all your stars are gone, will you give up, and lose the chance of ever seeing one again, or will keep looking for the light, even though it is clear there is none?
I promise you, there is.
Have faith that you will find it, and you will.
I BELIEVE IN YOU 🫶
Today is a particularly foggy and misty day. The sun in hiding behind the thick clouds and everything feels gloomy. The chill seeps right through me all the way to my bones. I’m standing near the edge of the cliff where the waterfall runs down, the crashing water creating all this cold dampness in the air. I feel very damp already, even though I was only out here for about 10 minutes. Where I can usually see the clear water far bellow, I only see a never ending whiteness. I wonder how it would feel to fall through it…
I catch myself inching closer to the edge.
_“Gosh! What do you think you’re doing, Esra?” _I mumble to myself. “People will think I’m trying something questionable.”
I’m only a foot away from the edge, looking out over the ravine. I turn around to face the majestic castle behind me.
I contemplate going back inside to my stuffy room and the big, grand walls confining me. I picture my father sitting me back down in front of my schoolwork. My heart fills with distaste at the the thought.
I turn back around to the beautiful mystery of cold fog and jagged rocks. I can see pink trees peeping through the white fog on the other side of the large expanse of mist. A dark shape I didn’t notice at first, perched on the pink branches, leaps down into the fog-filled ravine.
This, I didn’t expect to see. It takes me by surprise.
My body stiffens.
The shape looked unlike anything I’ve seen before. It was definitely not some kind of small animal. It looked weirdly humanoid.
Whatever it was, it will have undoubtedly crashed to pieces on the sharp rocks down below by now. I feel sorry for it.
Then, before I can think another thought, something rips out of the fog right in front of me and soars high into the air. I look up, but I can’t see anything. I stumble backwards, trying to find the thing that’s shot into the sky only half a second ago. I just can’t see it anymore.
I stand there frozen. _Was that all in my head? _My mind races. Am I crazy?
I hastily turn back to the castle, feeling very shaken.
Better go back, I think to myself. In case there really is something dangerous out here.
As I start to trudge mindlessly up the hill, my brain occupied by recent happenings, I hear a sound that I’ve dreaded hearing all my life: the distress horn.
It can only mean one thing: someone has broken into the castle by force, and they are definitely not there to have a friendly chat.
My previous worries evaporate as I think of my family in danger. I charge up the hill, but before I can make it even 5 strides, someone grabs my clothes from behind and starts lifting me up, up, into the sky.
I start screaming and kicking, and I try to hit my captor, not even wondering at the moment how we are flying. After a long while of kicking and screaming done by me, I start to notice my situation.
I can hear large wing beats on either side of me. I can hear someone huffing and puffing above me. I look down and I can see the world so far below me I almost throw up. I quickly look up so I don’t get sick.
“Put me down right now, you evil flying demon!” I yell.
“Don’t worry,” he sounds mildly annoyed. “I’m saving you. You would’ve died if you went into your fortress.”
“I don’t believe you! Let me down!”
“Tisk, tisk. Always so ungrateful.” My captor sighs, and we fly on, me continuing to resist and yell for a very long time, until I somehow unknowingly fall asleep.
Thrust. Push. Scratch. Leaping out. I’m flying. Out. Out into the foggy air. So freeing. So happy. So weightless. I can see nothing ahead of me. Nothing behind. Nothing anywhere. I’m so free. I have no worries. No thoughts. Just…. Freedom. I can fly forever and ever. And ever. And ever. And I never have to land. I am completely alone. I have no burdens. I swoop up and down and around the nothingness. Just white fog and cool crisp air. The air. It penetrates every part of me. My lungs first, then the rest of my body. It sinks in. I am one with the world. I am one with everything. I am free.
The wind is blowing through my hair and it’s hitting my face and whipping my clothes around and I’m screaming.
Screaming from the top of the cliff that looks over the destroyed city and into the world.
This obliterated husk of a world.
I’ve been keeping quiet for so long, staying hidden and trying not to be killed.
But I’ve decided to give up.
I can’t do this any more. I don’t care what happens. I don’t see any point in surviving, when my life and everyone I ever cared about is all gone.
The earth has died, so why shouldn’t I?
I’m screaming. My heart is bursting with sadness and grief and fear and the relief of letting go.
I’m free. I don’t have to try any more. I’m done.
The earth has died, and now I shall too.
The sand was everywhere. In Monte’s hair, in his eyes, in his clothes, in his mouth…
The hot wind threw it around as if enjoying itself, though it was rather violent. He could feel blisters forming on his feet as the hot sand rubbed against them in his shoes.
Monte questioned again why he was even bothering to trudge after this strange girl. He had encountered her a couple times before, and she always struck him as hardheaded and full of herself, but at the same time not the brightest person you could find. She always spoke of non-existent places and objects, none of which were ever proven to be real or true. But it was particularly for this reason Monte decided to ask her for advice. Her peculiarity seemed to match that of the round, glossy object weighing inside Monte’s pocket.
He stuck his hand in his pocket and turned the glassy ball around a couple times. In this heat, Monte would have thought it would at least be warm, but it was cool to the touch.
The girl turned around abruptly to face Monte (Monte was still not sure how, but he kept forgetting her name), and Monte almost bumped into her.
“Can I see that?” Her dark hair was being whipped around her face and her eyes were stern. Monte was surprised at how wide she kept them; Monte was struggling to see, squinting, the hot sand making his eyes water.
“No.” Monte tried to look stern as well, but it was hard when he couldn’t even open his eyes all the way.
She glared at him and and swiftly turned and continued walking forward into the sandy winds.
Finally Monte spotted old ruins up ahead. Sudden excitement bloomed through him. But it died as soon as they entered the broken building, though the break from the sandy winds was a relief.
The girl’s face lit up when she set eyes on the interior of the ruins, though Monte could not tell why: the walls were crumbling and there were piles of sand blown in through the holes and gaps of the building. The girl set off through the ruins, poking around with enthusiasm.
Monte shook off what sand he could and glanced around.
“Hey,” Monte called for the girl, (he still couldn’t remember her name) “I don’t think there’s anything in here.”
“Well how do you know that untill you looked around?” Her voice came from somewhere nearby. “You’re just standing there.”
Monte picked his way over to her. She was inspecting a mound of sand.
“I can just tell.” He said.
She looked at him and rolled her eyes. Then her face became serious again.
“You _do _have that creepy eyeball right?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Monte said, exasperated.
“I’m just making sure, since you seem like the type of person to forget something important.”
Monte paused. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, you did forget my name.”
Monte stared at her blankly. He didn’t know what to say. He _did _forget her name.
Monte was surprised to see the girl was looking pleased with herself.
“What are you looking pleased for?”
“Oh, nothing.” She smiled sweetly, and continued examining the mound of sand.
Monte scowled.
Suddenly, he felt a hot burning pain on his thigh.
“Gaahhh!” Monte flung the now burning eyeball out of his pocket. It was glowing fiery red.
“What’s wrong?” The girl turned around, looking excited.
“That eyeball burned my pants!”
As soon as the girl spotted the glowing yellow eyeball on the ground, she gasped and froze, staring wide-eyed at it with her hand hovering close to her mouth.
Then, breaking the girl’s silent astonishment, the sand pile she was examining only a few minutes ago suddenly erupted like a bomb.
Monte was blasted off his feet and was suddenly on his back, momentarily stunned.
When he sat up, he was met with a surprise: there was another person, stooping down to pick up Monte’s glass eyeball. It was a beautiful woman, her hair silky and dark, her skin healthy and perfect.
Though there was one unmistakable flaw in her features: in the spot where there should have been a match to her bright green right eye, there was an empty eye socket.
“Hey, that’s mine.” Monte hastily got to his feet.
The girl who had brought him there was suddenly in front of him, and her foot met his chest and she kicked him back down. Monte felt a stinging on his shoulder and now he couldn’t get back up. He was paralyzed.
The woman standing a few feet away had just pushed Monte’s glowing eyeball into her empty eye socket. Now she had one green, and one fiery eye. When she spoke, her voice was low and smooth: “Come now, Samena. You did good.”
And Samena, the girl who kicked and paralyzed and _used _Monte, turned and followed the glowing-eyed woman out of the ruins, leaving Monte lying helpless in the middle of the desert, sand slowly gathering on his clothes and face.
My breath tore at my throat and lungs. An ache twanged harshly every time I pounded a foot down. The path in front of me was starting to spin and wobble. The air ripped past me.
Why oh why did I give it to her? Why did I let her believe she could do anything? Why was I such a failure?
I couldn’t let her do it. I had to stop her before it was too late. I had to save her. I had to _stop _her.
As I hurled myself through crowds of people I focused on one thing only: to get to ANT.
_Why was this facility so big? Were they usually this big? _
The lights glaring overhead bathed everything in the facility with robotic white light.
Good. She didn’t do anything yet.
Just as I thought my tired and sore legs couldn’t carry me any further, my heart dropped all the way down to the pit of my stomach: the lights had turned red and the cold, unforgiving voice I was dreading reached my ears: “Citizen 2046: threatened to disrupt the system. Penalty: imprisonment and work in the WALL.”
_NOOOOOOO! _ _I was too late! _
I squeezed the remaining energy I had left into running faster than I ever ran in my life. As I finally stumbled into the space the crowd had opened for ANT and my sister, I knew it was too late. ANT was a monster. ANT gave no room for error. And what my sister just did was a big mistake. Now she would have to spend the rest of her days working in the WALL among criminals to provide energy to the whole city. She was only 12. And this was all my fault.
Why oh why wasn’t I more careful?
I threw myself to Kaia, my sister, screaming in a voice that didn’t sound like mine: “NO PLEASE! TAKE ME INSTEAD! I’M THE ENEMY, I GAVE IT TO HER! IT WAS ME! ME!”
As I started to throw myself at Kaia, ANT’s cold, steally grabber appendage shot at me and wrapped it’s robotic fingers around my arms and torso. I flailed and screamed, but it was useless. This was ANT I was struggling against. Winning a fight with ANT was impossible.
When I looked at my sister through my tears of rage, I was surprised to see her eyes, not scared or crying, but confident and determined. She was staring straight at me,as if telling me with her eyes: “don’t worry, I’ll fix everything.”
But she was only a child. I knew she wouldn’t be able to fix _anything. _
Then a realization hit me. Getting into the WALL was probably to _best _way to destroy ANT. She had the kill-code, and when she got inside the WALL, she would have the clearest path to the heart of the city. Kaia was smarter than I gave her credit for. If she was careful and calculated every move, she could be able to save us all.
But I wished so badly I was the one going into the WALL, not Kaia. She was still a child. She had a life to live. It should’ve been me.
As I looked up at my sister again, her stare still unwavering, I realized the only way she was getting out of ANT’s grip was for me to trust her and hope against hope she would be smart enough to survive. And although this thought hurt my heart, I knew it was true. I would have to be strong for her.
I stared into her eyes with the same determination I saw in her’s, still unwavering even as ANT built a cage around her. She was lifted into the air and swept to the great, big wall surrounding the city, far far away.
A tear rolled down my face.
This was all my fault.