Strangers.

Friends.

They still have the same negative and positive connotation.

But they have a whole new meaning now.

Decades ago, a new flu shot was developed. It was announced it would be more effective against illness. Millions of people got it all over the world, anticipating the flu season.

That shot had a side effect in some people. In about a 1/3 of individuals that received it, unwarranted abilities began to emerge.

These people with unrestricted powers became known as Strangers.

And the rest, the ones that remained the same, were labeled Friends.

Everyone were scared of Strangers. They were dangerous and had weird abilities that you couldn’t predict. You couldn’t trust Strangers.

Want to know what terrified Friends the most?

Strangers looked like everyone else.

Over the years, paranoia and suspicion grew until known Strangers were almost completely ostracized. Imprisoned if possible. Killed when necessary.

It quickly became quite clear that Friends valued normality. No matter the cost.

——— (A little blurb for a new series I’ve been thinking of! Another one with powers because I love the fantastical element of them!)

The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and everyone is rushing around the crowded cobblestone streets of Marta’s Park, a small village of the Hinora Empire, dresses swishing behind them, pointy ears twitching to hear the next big sale. My own ears, round and hidden beneath my pale peach working bonnet, are doing the same. My mate, Yale, a forest faerie, is beside me, auguring with a vendor who won’t lower the price on her beets.

“What do you mean ‘one of a kind’? They look like any other shitty beets I’ve seen! Stop spewing out bullshit like this and sell them to me for two jenkis!” Yale slams her hands on the stall, causing it to shake. The vendor doesn’t shrink back, but instead yells for the Forces to come get this “bitch”. I sigh, wasn’t it yesterday that I had to bail Yale from prison? The noise around us is getting louder, and I turn to see a crowd forming to watch Yale’s display.

“It’s happening again.” I hear someone murmur. I don’t go with Yale to the town an awful lot, so I’ve been wondering what’s been going on to make her public enemy number one.

I push Yale back, stepping in front of her. Instantly, a smile spreads unconsciously onto my face—my cherry sweet one. The vendor’s face starts to smoothen. _Good. _

“I’m sorry for my mate, she can be a trouble sometimes.” I open my bag and find ten jenkis. I place them in the woman’s hand, then start to put the beets into my basket. “I really am sorry for the inconvenience, ma’am, we’ll be going now.”

Yale is silent behind me, face probably in a frown, but understands the situation. The crowd is dispersing, whispering about how different I am from my mate.

If only they knew.

——

“You’ve wasted your money, Opal, because I’m not eating that shit-eating bitch’s beets!” Yale is, again, frowning. Arms crossed and mouth set on being sealed even as her eyes stare at the plate of food in front of her hungrily.

I click my tounge. “Language, sweetheart, language. Anyway,” I slice a beet with my fork, raising it to my mouth, “it’s your money anyway.”

Yale pauses at that. I swear I see her eyes bug out. She’s angry for a moment, then her face slacks out into sort of a forced calm. I almost laugh at her strange expression as she starts to eat her food stiffly.

“Oh yum, yummy shitty beets from an equally shitty witch. Paid for by my own money. Yay.”

I laugh, a full on tumble. “Yale—shut up and eat.” My laughter dies down as I realize that I have something to ask her, something that’s been nagging on my mind for months, years really. “I have something I want to ask you after dinner.”

Yale tilts her head to the side, short hair curling at the ends. “Oh? And why can’t you tell me now?”

“Because you’ll need a full stomach for it. Trust me.”

——

(So I’ll finish this tomorrow. My wrists are tired from typing and playing rhythm games. Yes, I daydreamed this and the whole story plot actually—MALADAPTIVE DAYDREAMING YA’LL!

Thanks for reading and have a great day!)

In a world of make-believe Don’t you wish for something real? Real people with real lives Not identities that they copy or steal.

How can we really say That we value honesty above all When all we see on Facebook Is only meant to enthrall?

Big smiles, happy couples Perfect children, dream holidays Hiding the sad reality That a quick photo betrays

Yes, you went to the gym How amazing you’re so fit Keep squeezing that tummy That just had a banana-split.

We also love your flawless looks When you wake up in the morning I guess that the beauty sleep term Has acquired a whole other meaning.

And here we are all Pros at making-believe Registering “milestones” We don’t really achieve.

“Why hello there! You’re probably wondering how you managed to find us here. Don’t worry, you’re one of the lucky few that do. Let me be the first to congratulate you on ending your journey here. My name is........”

  That’s where the talking voice on the screen stopped. It welcomed me to this place that I have no idea how I got here. The last thing I remember I was finishing up my drink before last call, when suddenly my vision went dark. Next thing you know I’m standing before this screen with the talking head, who’s name I don’t know.  
  Am I dreaming or am I dead? At this point I prefer the latter. I have nothing really to live for, no job , no friends, no love life , pretty much no reason to get up in the morning. Which is why you’ll find me drinking my non existent life away at the bar every night, hoping this will be the night I’ll drink myself to death. 
  If this dark hole of a place is death, wow does this suck more than my actual life.  Either way I’m not surprised. Why would things all of sudden work out for me and I would actually end up in a place Im happy to be in.
   Even in this dark whole of a place I can’t seem to find the energy to look around and try to figure out where I am. So I do what I do best, I sit down,pull out my flask and drink.
    It wasn’t until after about what seems like an eternity that the voices began whispering. I passed it off as me being drunk but as soon as I sobered up and had no more alcohol to drink, the whispers started to become real. As far as I can tell there’s nothing around. Instead  of a plain white room like in that movie it’s an all black room. 
    I really don’t see any point in trying to get out of here, as far as I know I’m probably blacked out drunk still at the bar. This is merely just me hallucinating. But then the whispers start up again. 
    At first they start off very faint where I can’t make  out a word.  Then they’ll pick up clear enough to hear a word or two. 
  I’ll hear, “Tall”, “Blue”, words that make no sense to me. But then I hear two more words that scare me, “John Wolf” , my name. 
  “Who’s out there?”, I yell. “What do you want from me? “How do you know my name ?” 
     Nothing, no reply. Am I still hallucinating? Am I really dead ? Where the hell am I ? Just then a speaker turns on...

  “Hello, my name is Barbara, welcome to Wolfsville, where we’ve been anxiously waiting for your return! We’ve been waiting years and you’re finally here ! “ 

   And just like that, with a flick of the switch, the lights go up and all around me are figures that resemble people staring back at me.  But these aren’t people at all. From what I can tell they’re little grey creatures with large heads dressed as if they were humans, and they have the most menacing smiles on their faces. 

“Please tell me I’m dead”, I blatantly whisper to myself.

 The crowd laughs as one giant creepy monotone voice. 

“ Why you’re not dead silly. You’re here with us in our town of Wolfsville and we’ve been waiting a very long time for you. “

“ Whats Wolfsville?,” I ask. Once again the crowd erupts in one long laugh.

“John you’re so silly. Wolfsville is our society that’s built and founded on the practices and beliefs of our founding father. The one man that made us who we are. The only man that we love and idolize.”

“Who’s that?”, I manage to whisper out.

“Why It’s you silly !”

Flags. In my opinion we place too much value on our flags in America. We had no idea how our government was using them. They were restricting access to the enemies flags but at the same time as the government does, they were buying and selling them amongst themselves, without anyone knowing. To put it simply, They were buying the very the thing that they had denied other countries. Whole events would be nameless without their countries flag. While we were buying the enemies and our own flags. My sister worked for the Rebel Flag Recovery program which reclaimed foreign countries flags. She recounted how she had been assigned to steal flags from President Finkelhoff’s bedroom. She snuck into his bedroom and retrieved the flag that was held in place over his bed. On the way out, she was apprehended by one of the guards. “What are you doing here?” “I’m here to replace the flag over the presidents bed. It’s wearing out.” “Okay but I better see you with another flag to replace this one.” My sister walked to the front of the door before the guard yelled “hey.” The van was waiting to escort my sister back to the Flag Emporium where she worked. Stacey, that was my sister’s name, ran across the lawn as fast as she could to the retired veteran with a bullet proof vest and a weapon. She made it back to the flag Emporium. Her arrival to the cleverly disguised sound proof building was greeted by her supervisor saying “Stacey Welcome. I see you’ve brought the flags.” “Yes, I managed to reclaim one from communist China as well.” “Excellent Work Agent Chang. This is the 127th flag that you have reclaimed. You are an invaluable resource to us.” Stacey smiled and as soon as she stood up straighter an alarm blared. “It’s president Finklehoff’s guards looking for the flags.” An alarmer ran in shouting. She braced for whatever lied in store along with the rest of the Employees at The Flag Reclamation project. Stacey was always amazed at the sheer number of people who worked in the organization. This had been the 100th raid this week. She was used to prejudice at this point. She had been called “rebel scum, flag junkie and worse things. The guards got rougher every time. She swore President Finkelhoff had told them to throw around the “Flag scavengers”. The guards burst into the Flag Emporium and held their weapons which were bigger than last time and looked 3D printed to their heads. Stacey was thrown in jail. Later that night under the cover of darkness I snuck into the the jail the guards were asleep at their posts, there were no covers for the sleeping guards. I had quietly slipped the key off the main guard. Careful to watch for his snoring. “Stacey!” I said “I’m here to get you out. We ran out of the jail and drove off into the night.

The world values stupid things like Beauty over empathy an flashy and expensive over practical

This world consists of three levels. The Upper, The Middle and The Lower. It is artificially created so that it forms almost a pyramid. There is naturally, or unnaturally depending on how you look at it, less space the further you rise.

There are worlds where the rich and the poor can walk past each other on the streets. Whereas, this world called Mastaba by its architects, segregates the rich, the average and the poor. If you are discovered to be in the wrong level, you are an outlaw and immediately are sent to the Lower. Any possessions are auctioned based on the items value or thrown in the Lower if deemed useless.

The purpose in life for the habitants of Mastaba is to earn and rise levels, usually by exploiting the level below. However, for the habitants of the Lower, scavenging is the most common occupation.

In some ways, Mastaba is just like any society, but in other ways, living here is either exhilarating or it is like living in hell.

‘The EC Cult is probably one of the most unusual, yet unbelievablely interesting secret societies that we’ve ever had to investigate. A society formed of outcasts from all across the universe.’

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION - DO NOT SHARE

We began our investigation roughly about two weeks ago. Before we took this case, there were numerous rumours made of a highly unusual group around the local area. At first, people chalked it up to it just being a random group of shady adults lurking around town, but then people noticed that there were certain ‘hotspots’ that the group seemed to always gather at. These ‘hotspots’ were an abandoned theater and a hospital that had been closed down for several decades.

While I was reluctant to take the case at the start, since I didn’t declare it worth investigating. However, when an old friend of mine contacted me regarding the cult (a fellow investigator), I decided to take the case on and help him out. For privacy reasons, I will refer to my friend as G throughout my report.

At first, we started to follow the odd group. They all looked to be dressed very formally, which was odd giving that they frequented such desolate, decrepit amd dirty places. We followed them to the abandoned theater. We carefully watched them as they walked into the theater, still dressed very formally. We peeked through the door as they started to quietly mutter amongst each other.

“Leader Ripple said he would meet us here... Right?” One member whispered to the others. “Yeah, he did... He must be one of the screen rooms...” Another replies.

We quietly listened to their conversation until they started to walk away from the snack bar. When we thought the coast was clear, we stealthily sneaked into the theater, careful not to let the door squeek too much. Me and G immediately started scanning the area for clues on what was going on, but we couldn’t find anything. The group had went into one of the screens, it would appear, although we couldn’t tell which one they had went into, so we sneaked into each of them, cautiously making sure to be as quiet as possible.

First Screen: Empty Second Screen: There was nobody there, but there was a golden bow-tie sitting in one of the chairs. Third Screen: Empty Fourth Screen: They were there.

We heard their whispers as we entered the huge room. The room was dimly lit up and the group who we saw outside seemed to be chanting “Leader Ripple” over and over. We tried our best to get as close to the scene as possible. Eventually, me and G hid in behind two seats.

Just as we leaned behind the seats, the room started to become very cold. We looked over and were greeted with the sight of a large yellow cloud hovering through the screen, phasing through it like a ghost. It was wearing a sparkling gold bow-tie, just like the one we found...

i am not sure what to say. considering, i am consumed within a society that values the oppressor more than the oppressed.

In a village in China, women value long silky hair and they use rice water to make their hair silky, smooth and healthy. They ferment rice in water and rinse their hair in natural springs.