Archivist Does Writing! (Surprise!)

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

Hello, friends. I made an SU asking if I should do this and three people said yes, so here I am.

I wrote the beginning of a story/novel about three or four months ago, based on a very loose premise that I came up with a while before that. Some of you have already seen it. Currently I have a prologue-type thing and two additional scenes. I'll start here with the prologue, the same one I wrote three or four months ago, lightly revised.

Spoiler

Prologue

Alan lay quietly in his bed past midnight, watching the minutes on his alarm clock pass by, at once alarmingly fast and numbingly slow. He wasn't sure why he couldn’t sleep. He didn’t feel tired. He just was, alone in his room with nothing to do except methodically replace future minutes with past ones.
    It was just one of those nights.
    Slowly, something began to change. A small wave of invisible motion, a gentle feeling of acceleration. Finally, sleep. How strange that I can never remember what it feels like when it comes.
    The odd sensation continued, and he felt like he was moving rapidly in some unknowable direction, though he could clearly see and feel his room around him, stationary. He was just beginning to think that something wasn’t quite right when there was a violent lurch, and his room was no more.
    He gasped, suddenly on his feet, stumbling. He was in some sort of enclosed space that was moving alarmingly fast, shaking and bouncing on… tracks? The subway. He was in a subway car, alone, windows flashing the many miles of concrete that made up the tunnels. The transition left him terribly confused, like the moments just after waking up as you struggle to separate reality from a dream. This all felt so real. Was this the dream, or had he just woken up?
    Alan sat down, tightly gripping a metal pole as he tried to make sense of it, heart pounding from shock. Must be a dream… but it feels like I should have woken up from this. Maybe this is always what it’s like, and I’ll forget it in the morning. He sat, and let himself relax, looking around the car. Everything seemed about right. The advertisements, the little warning signs on the doors, the placement of the seats. It was indistinguishable from any of the dozens of subway cars he had ridden in over the years. Isn’t something supposed to be off when you’re dreaming? Alan pushed the thought away, and continued to wait.
    And wait…
    He sat still, feeling the familiar bumps of the track, feeling the metal pole grow warm, then go cold again when he shifted his hands.
    Just when the ride was beginning to feel a bit too long, he felt the familiar lean of deceleration, then a final lurch as the car came to a halt. Curious as to where his dream had led him, Alan waited for the doors to open.
    They did not.
    He felt himself lean the other way, feeling oddly nervous as the train once again picked up speed. Just a dream, idiot.
    As he watched, fidgeting slightly, the concrete outside of the windows fell away, to be replaced by void, an endless yet tangible nothingness. He felt the acceleration come again, then again, but there was no frame of reference to give him any idea how fast he was really going except for the increasingly violent vibrations of the car. He once again gripped a pole, getting his teeth nervously. This is ridiculous.
    The ride continued, unchanging, for several minutes. Alan began to grow uncomfortable in the seat, and he stood up to pace the car. There wasn’t a lot of room for it. This isn’t a very fun dream. Feeling another moment of absurd doubt, he pinched himself. It hurt. That wasn’t right, was it? He tried elbowing the wall, resulting in a clang and a sharp pain up his arm. He gritted his teeth, cursing himself.
    I’d really like to wake up now.
    The endless void did not answer him. What had he been expecting?
    He felt his chest grow tight, his breath short. Panic. He forced it down. There was no reason for that. Yet it remained, burning his lungs as he tried to think of something, anything except the stupid subway car.
    I’m seventeen now. That’s cool. I can move out if I want. I probably won’t, it’s too expensive to get my own apartment. Still, it’s nice knowing that I could, in a weird sort of way.
    Next year I can vote. That’s… also cool. I should probably start learning a little more about politics or something. Maybe I could talk to Norman about it. He’s always wanted to be a politician, the lying bastard.
    Oh, and college. He felt his chest tense further in spite of himself. It’ll be fine. You’ll figure it out.
    After thinking about that, he was pulled out his intentional distraction. He didn’t try again. It was far harder to get distracted on purpose than by accident. Anyway, he was feeling a bit better.
    There was a sudden, mind-bending slam as Alan lost all of his velocity in an instant. Somehow, this time, the change in motion had no effect on his body, except for a sick feeling in his stomach. His heart was beating furiously, which he found he could feel in a way that was, again, off-puttingly lucid.
    The doors opened to a dark train platform suspended in the void.
“Alan Russ.”
    Alan squinted to see a woman sitting on one of the benches in the platform. Her face was obscured by the hood of her unusual medium-gray robes, and she held a tiny object that glinted in the light of a small electric lamp beside her. Other than the lamp, the platform was dark.
    “I—uh, yes.” Alan watched her uncomfortably, stepping out of the car and onto the platform.
    “Welcome, Geldur.” She stood up briskly. “This must be quick. The window is limited. Take this.” She held out the object, which upon closer inspection appeared to be made out of some sort of glassy substance.
    Really weird dream. Alan took it hesitantly. It was barely the size of the diamond on a wedding ring. It was also warm to the touch, unusually so.
    “Eat it. Now.”
    “What?”
    “Do it!” The woman was clearly adamant.
    Seeing no harm in going along with whatever this was, he put the little thing in his mouth and swallowed. Immediately, his body began to tingle slightly. “So, uh, what’s this about?” Alan asked, almost jokingly though something about it still made him uncomfortable.
    “No time.”
    She grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him back into the car. The doors slammed shut. For a moment, Alan held his breath, waiting.
    Then, the car began moving again, just as incredibly fast as when it had stopped. There was a horrible screeching, and he could see sparks flying up from the car in the window. Everything burst into flames.
    Alan screamed, then woke up.

I hope you like it, at least a little. It's still pretty rough, so feedback greatly appreciated if you have the time. Or you could just briefly let me know what you think. Or you could do none of those things and not read it at all! It's up to you.

I hope you read it, though. It's not that long ꟼ:

As for plans with this, I honestly have none. Like I said, there are two other scenes, which I wrote yesterday and will post here soon probably, but this story is absolutely being made up as I go. Will it end up as a disjointed mess? Probably. Will I only post here like twice a year? Most likely. But... I'll try. We'll see where my short supply of creativity and motivation take me.

Edited June 7, 2023 by The Aspiring Archivist

[Edema Rue she/her]

13 hours ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

this story is absolutely being made up as I go. Will it end up as a disjointed mess? Probably. Will I only post here like twice a year? Most likely. But... I'll try. We'll see where my short supply of creativity and motivation take me.

Hey Archie that’s how I write toooo!!

it’s really good, very intriguing. I’m excited to see what comes next!

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

3 hours ago, Edema Ruh said:

Hey Archie that’s how I write toooo!!

it’s really good, very intriguing. I’m excited to see what comes next!

Do you have any feedback or particular things you liked/disliked?

[Edema Rue she/her]

18 hours ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

Do you have any feedback or particular things you liked/disliked?

Hmm…well, this is probably just personal opinion, but I thought it was hard to tell when it was his thoughts (I’m assuming it was his thoughts, because it switched to 1st person). A few of the transitions felt a little jerky and forced too, just between paragraphs and things. But again, this is all just my opinion.

Overall I think it was super intriguing, I’m very excited to see what comes next!

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

36 minutes ago, Edema Ruh said:

Hmm…well, this is probably just personal opinion, but I thought it was hard to tell when it was his thoughts (I’m assuming it was his thoughts, because it switched to 1st person). A few of the transitions felt a little jerky and forced too, just between paragraphs and things. But again, this is all just my opinion.

Overall I think it was super intriguing, I’m very excited to see what comes next!

Thanks! People's opinions are why I'm sharing this in the first place!

I think the problem with the thoughts thing is that the italics did not transfer from my google doc to the Shard, which I hadn't realized. I'll fix that right now, and you can skim over it again to get a better idea of what was what. And the transition thing makes sense. I'm not the best at making stuff flow, really. Hopefully that can be improved in the event of later drafts.

Thanks again!

[The Sibling she/her]

On 6/5/2023 at 10:13 PM, The Aspiring Archivist said:

He just was, alone in his room with nothing to do except methodically replace future minutes with past ones.

I really love this sentence. 

On 6/5/2023 at 10:13 PM, The Aspiring Archivist said:

A small wave of invisible motion, a gentle feeling of acceleration.

And this one too. 

You're a really great writer! Just some feedback, maybe when you write Alan's thoughts you could put them in italics or something like that to separate them a bit more from the actual narrative.

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

3 minutes ago, The Sibling said:

I really love this sentence. 

And this one too. 

You're a really great writer! Just some feedback, maybe when you write Alan's thoughts you could put them in italics or something like that to separate them a bit more from the actual narrative.

Thanks!

See the above post of mine regarding the italics

I fixed them now.

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

I just realized that even though I wrote more for this over 3 months ago, I never posted it here. I haven't done anything since... I don't know. Maybe I will at some point. I might as well share it now though, I guess.

Spoiler

Part 1

 

Turner took a sip of coffee. After years of insisting he would never drink it, it had somehow managed to become a morning routine. He still despised the taste, but there was no denying that it helped him focus. It had been a lot harder to focus recently.

Alan was sick. That much was obvious. Turner had been the first to notice the way he withdrew, the way his face got pale and his posture slouched. Of course, what no one could figure out was why he had fallen ill. Tested for every condition under the sun, and all the doctors had were a few tenuous possibilities.

One common suggestion was that it was somehow neurological, some sort of extreme reaction to anxiety. Turner figured that could make sense, though his brother insisted that he hadn’t been stressed or anxious when the symptoms arose.

Alan wasn’t getting any better, either. He slept most of the day, but when he was awake, he was practically lifeless. He still talked to them, but his voice was quiet and mumbly, and he hardly ever seemed to move except occasionally to shift around in the hospital bed. He would ramble about a weird dream he had, something about a woman and the subway.

Turner tried not to worry much. He’ll get better.

He took another sip. It burned his tongue, but at least that dampened the flavor.

Hopefully.

 

Marylyn Park watched the boy closely, taking notes. Subject is growing worse daily. No observed signs of manifestation.

The staff at the hospital knew her as Mary Green, a transferred nurse from an establishment in Maine. It hadn’t taken too many pulled strings to get her supervising Russ. She somewhat wished it could have been more difficult; watching over the sickly teenager wasn’t the most engaging job she had taken.

She chided herself for that thought. It might be boring, but it’s the most important job you’ll ever take. Maybe that anyone in the Circle has ever taken. It was an honor, of course. Thinking about the true ramifications that this work would have still nearly made her tremble with a mixture of exhilaration and stark foreboding.

Still, it shouldn’t have been so much waiting. Her superiors had assured her that it would take about twelve days at most for the crystal to properly take effect. She hadn’t even been certain that she would have to take up this role as a nurse. Now, over a month later, the same superiors were getting nervous. Had the crystal been flawed? They had spent decades making sure it wasn’t.

Marylyn found that she couldn’t help but begin to blame herself. She had administered the crystal. Had she mishandled it? Did her presence somehow disrupt its function? The magic used by the Circle was complex and sensitive, but nothing they knew suggested an adequate cause. Sometimes, she felt as confused as all the doctors that came in to examine the boy.

A sudden, piercing noise jolted Marylyn out of her idle thoughts. Was that… Great Ancients! Alan’s heart monitor had flatlined.

She sprung into action, scrambling from her chair to the bedside, and beginning CPR as a real nurse burst through the door, urgently yelling something that couldn’t penetrate the panicked haze. Next thing she knew, someone was pulling her back and–

There was a flash of bright light, and a quiet hum. The four people in the room, two nurses, a doctor, and Marylyn, gaped at the boy, whose heart had started beating again and whose skin had begun to glow red. Marylyn’s heart was still pounding, but she began to calm down. There are more witnesses than I hoped for, but it’ll have to do. She had just grabbed her Memory crystal when a nurse touched Alan’s arm.

The hum amplified into a sharp buzz for a brief moment. Then, Marylyn watched in horror as the young nurse stumbled back, and began to bleed. The dark red liquid poured from his eyes, nose, and mouth. Lacerations spread up his hand and arm from where he had touched Alan, and they too began to bleed excessively. He collapsed, blood speckling the white tile floor with crimson. The other nurse screamed, and the doctor called for help, trying to push past Marylyn to the door. Quickly, she induced Memory, and there was a flash of green light.

There was a sudden, brief moment of silence as the two living staff in the room forgot everything that had happened in the past fifteen minutes. She was in far too much distress to fine-tune it as she normally would. They were dazed, but it didn’t take long for the scream to pick up again at the sight of the nurse’s mangled body. As Marylyn let the doctor run out, she began to scream as well. It was for effect, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that she was downright terrified.

A bit disturbing, and probably not very good. I don't really want to read it again right now, though. Let me know what you think, if you want!

[Edema Rue she/her]

Oooh! That wasn't at all what I was expecting after the first couple lines, it was disturbing and I loved it!

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

3 minutes ago, Edema Ruh said:

Oooh! That wasn't at all what I was expecting after the first couple lines, it was disturbing and I loved it!

Thanks! See you back here in two years!

But also, any particular feedback? It's okay if not.

[Edema Rue she/her]

Hmm...

I would probably clarify where it says Russ instead of Alan, that took a good minute to understand, for a bit there I thought it completely changed characters. I also think the transition from "everything's normal, coffee is gross, this dude is very sick" to "BOOM MAGIC AND THINGS ARE GLOWING AND OOOOH YOU CAN DIE NOW" (two very common tropes) was a little abrupt, it almost felt forced? I did really love the end though, and that last sentence was epic.

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

5 minutes ago, Edema Ruh said:

Hmm...

I would probably clarify where it says Russ instead of Alan, that took a good minute to understand, for a bit there I thought it completely changed characters. I also think the transition from "everything's normal, coffee is gross, this dude is very sick" to "BOOM MAGIC AND THINGS ARE GLOWING AND OOOOH YOU CAN DIE NOW" (two very common tropes) was a little abrupt, it almost felt forced? I did really love the end though, and that last sentence was epic.

Oh yeah, I just looked at it and got confused myself because I forgot what his last name was. And yeah, it is pretty abrupt. If this were to be an actual novel, I would probably make the Turner scene longer and give the Marylyn scene more preamble, maybe find a better transition? I don't know. Maybe another scene from some other perspective to ease it.

I think this is probably going to end up being nothing more than some practice/a proof of concept. Either way, I'm glad you liked some of it.

[Edema Rue she/her]

1 minute ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

I think this is probably going to end up being nothing more than some practice/a proof of concept. Either way, I'm glad you liked some of it.

I did! That's what most of my writing is, I don't have the skills to write a full novel yet, so I just write scenes, and scenes, and more scenes, and create characters, and write things with only dialogue and things with no dialogue and then I write poems and then I keep writing and it never ends. It's a fun way to write  

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

Just now, Edema Ruh said:

I did! That's what most of my writing is, I don't have the skills to write a full novel yet, so I just write scenes, and scenes, and more scenes, and create characters, and write things with only dialogue and things with no dialogue and then I write poems and then I keep writing and it never ends. It's a fun way to write  

I wish I could be nearly that consistent. I write like 4-6 scenes a year. I used to write poems a lot but I don't even really do that anymore

[Edema Rue she/her]

1 minute ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

I wish I could be nearly that consistent. I write like 4-6 scenes a year. I used to write poems a lot but I don't even really do that anymore

Yeah. I think for most people it just depends what you're putting your time into, I write because it's the easiest way for me to keep thoughts from getting jumbled up and spiraling into something I can't control, and I honestly enjoy it. If given the chance to watch literally anything or write something, I'd probably choose to write. A lot of people aren't that way, or if they are they don't have time, and that's just fine.

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

Oh yeah that scene

It's a very good one and I'm still curious to where you're going with it.

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

Well, I have not added to the story I have in theory been working on, but I did do a little scene based on a prompt @Edema Rue gave me. Here it is, for anyone who's interested. Thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

Spoiler

Paul sat alone in his apartment, reading a book. It was some time he liked to set aside for himself each day, to get away from things. Not to think. He could do that whenever he wanted, and it didn’t tend to end well. “Directed relaxation,” he called it. If he allowed it to become indirected, it would quite possibly end in chaos. He let the featureless gray walls become a neat little environment for perfect inaction. He set down the book for a moment on the small square wooden table in the middle of the empty room, and leaned back in his singular, uninteresting wooden chair to take a sip of tea. He gently lifted the white ceramic coffee mug to his lips, tilting it in order to let the caramel-colored liquid flow…

The simple white door into the apartment burst open without so much as a knock. Paul found himself startled, and his mug-holding hand jolted with his surprise, sending a few newly airborne tea droplets flying onto his good gray coat. It didn’t hurt, for the tea wasn’t hot so much as just above lukewarm, but it would certainly leave a stain. He set down his mug on the coaster, and looked up with mild annoyance to see whoever it was that had so rudely and abruptly disrupted his directed relaxation.

It was Jacob Salwick from work, he thought, and that much was true, though it also happened to be all Paul knew about the man. They must have seen each other every day, but Paul had never given Jacob so much as a passing glance and a few short words. “Could you spare a pencil?” sprang to mind; it was a common phrase for Paul to use, as he had a frustrating tendency to lose his own. He almost said it right then, as it would have felt natural in the face of such an unnatural occurrence. He didn’t, however, as he found it would be a strange thing to say considering his lack of need for a pencil.

Some other questions sprang to mind, not ones that he had asked of Jacob but rather ones brought up by the unexpected scenario. Why was Jacob here? How had he gotten Paul’s address? What made him so desperate as to eschew such common practices of politeness and decency as door-knocking? Paul almost spoke those questions too, but in the time it took for his mind to form all of these thoughts, Jacob had apparently become primed to speak.

“Do you ever think about life, Paul? And how it ends?” Jacob’s voice was a hoarse rasp, far removed from its normal monotone smoothness. He staggered forward towards the table, and leaned onto it across from Paul, holding himself up with both hands. This caused the relatively small and light table to inch forward into Paul with a small squeak of wood on wood. It also, to Paul’s dismay, sent more droplets of tea flying, some of which landed on the pages of his open novel. He scooted back in his chair, relieving himself from the discomfort of the sharp edge pressing into his chest. There was another source of discomfort that was less difficult to remove, that being Jacob’s stance and expression. The man wore his dressy work clothes, and they looked rather disheveled. He loomed over Paul, who met his gaze, which might have been called crazed or unhinged. This seemed odd to Paul, as the man had never been anything more than calm, quiet, and controlled at work.

He considered how to answer the question. It seemed like an intense one to ask of someone you had rarely spoken to, not to mention the fact that Jacob had just more or less broken into Paul’s apartment. He could ask one of his own questions, but he found within himself a strange urge to answer Jacob’s. Here was some direction for him, if not an unexpected one for the evening to take. It didn’t strike him, as one might expect, that this sort of interaction was liable to become dangerous.

“I suppose I do. Don’t most people?”

“Constantly Paul, I think about it constantly. It consumes my day, my every waking hour. All of these questions, these vast, existential questions that no one ever properly looks to answer until it’s too late! You could die today, Paul, do you know that?”

Paul pondered this, meanwhile carefully closing the cover of his book to protect it from further damage. Not a moment too soon, as the table rattled, tremors momentarily coursing through Jacob’s body and into the surface he grasped. Paul began to consider moving the mug. “That’s true, certainly. It’s true of everyone. An unfortunate fact that we all have to live with. I imagine if we were all too acutely aware of it, it might drive us… insane.” Paul continued to meet the man’s wild gaze. Jacob’s eyes were bloodshot.

“What if it wasn’t, Paul?”

“Excuse me?”

“What if it wasn’t true? What if I could answer that question, Paul?”

Paul raised his eyebrows. This was surely one of the more interesting conversations he’d had lately.  “I imagine that would cause quite a shift in things. In how people think about mortality. What kind of answer do you mean?”

As though in response, Jacob took one hand off of the table, reaching into his back pocket and pulling something out. Paul caught a glint of metal. A… key. Jacob held it out for Paul to see, then set it down in front of where he sat. “Under my desk. Don’t let anyone see you. The answer, Paul.” Jacob was consumed by tremors again, more intense than the last. Paul regretted his earlier inaction as the coffee mug tipped over and plummeted from the table, spilling the tea across the hardwood floor. He was thankful that it didn’t shatter, though he would later discover that the lip had been chipped.

Paul noticed something on Jacob’s face again as he again pondered how to respond. A small streak of dark liquid had exited from between his coworker’s lips and ran down to his chin, then under it and onto his neck. It left a red streak behind it, and Paul recognized it as blood. How odd, he thought. Blood did not typically come out of one’s mouth, after all. At least not in his experience. “Are you alright?”

Jacob broke their eye contact, stumbling away from the table and crashing sideways into one of the walls with a loud thump. A droplet of blood dislodged itself from his mouth, not unlike the tea from the mug, and made a crimson mark on the gray wall. It was left there like an adornment, a meager population of the featureless plane, and a convenient answer to Paul’s question as Jacob slid to the ground in a full collapse. Paul quickly rose from his chair, instinctively pocketing the key as he approached the fallen man. It took no more than a minute to discern that Jacob was not breathing, and had no pulse.

With urgency, though not frantic haste—it was, after all, his time for directed relaxation—Paul removed his phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1. He put the dispatcher on speaker and explained the situation as he initiated CPR. Paul knew that those who received CPR were more likely to survive once paramedics arrived, though he guessed that the blood which was now making a small pool on his floor didn’t aid those odds. Almost without thinking, he discretely left out the details of their conversation, and the key. Discretion, he noted, had practically been the dead man’s final request.

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

4 minutes ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

Well, I have not added to the story I have in theory been working on, but I did do a little scene based on a prompt @Edema Rue gave me. Here it is, for anyone who's interested. Thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

  Hide contents

Paul sat alone in his apartment, reading a book. It was some time he liked to set aside for himself each day, to get away from things. Not to think. He could do that whenever he wanted, and it didn’t tend to end well. “Directed relaxation,” he called it. If he allowed it to become indirected, it would quite possibly end in chaos. He let the featureless gray walls become a neat little environment for perfect inaction. He set down the book for a moment on the small square wooden table in the middle of the empty room, and leaned back in his singular, uninteresting wooden chair to take a sip of tea. He gently lifted the white ceramic coffee mug to his lips, tilting it in order to let the caramel-colored liquid flow…

The simple white door into the apartment burst open without so much as a knock. Paul found himself startled, and his mug-holding hand jolted with his surprise, sending a few newly airborne tea droplets flying onto his good gray coat. It didn’t hurt, for the tea wasn’t hot so much as just above lukewarm, but it would certainly leave a stain. He set down his mug on the coaster, and looked up with mild annoyance to see whoever it was that had so rudely and abruptly disrupted his directed relaxation.

It was Jacob Salwick from work, he thought, and that much was true, though it also happened to be all Paul knew about the man. They must have seen each other every day, but Paul had never given Jacob so much as a passing glance and a few short words. “Could you spare a pencil?” sprang to mind; it was a common phrase for Paul to use, as he had a frustrating tendency to lose his own. He almost said it right then, as it would have felt natural in the face of such an unnatural occurrence. He didn’t, however, as he found it would be a strange thing to say considering his lack of need for a pencil.

Some other questions sprang to mind, not ones that he had asked of Jacob but rather ones brought up by the unexpected scenario. Why was Jacob here? How had he gotten Paul’s address? What made him so desperate as to eschew such common practices of politeness and decency as door-knocking? Paul almost spoke those questions too, but in the time it took for his mind to form all of these thoughts, Jacob had apparently become primed to speak.

“Do you ever think about life, Paul? And how it ends?” Jacob’s voice was a hoarse rasp, far removed from its normal monotone smoothness. He staggered forward towards the table, and leaned onto it across from Paul, holding himself up with both hands. This caused the relatively small and light table to inch forward into Paul with a small squeak of wood on wood. It also, to Paul’s dismay, sent more droplets of tea flying, some of which landed on the pages of his open novel. He scooted back in his chair, relieving himself from the discomfort of the sharp edge pressing into his chest. There was another source of discomfort that was less difficult to remove, that being Jacob’s stance and expression. The man wore his dressy work clothes, and they looked rather disheveled. He loomed over Paul, who met his gaze, which might have been called crazed or unhinged. This seemed odd to Paul, as the man had never been anything more than calm, quiet, and controlled at work.

He considered how to answer the question. It seemed like an intense one to ask of someone you had rarely spoken to, not to mention the fact that Jacob had just more or less broken into Paul’s apartment. He could ask one of his own questions, but he found within himself a strange urge to answer Jacob’s. Here was some direction for him, if not an unexpected one for the evening to take. It didn’t strike him, as one might expect, that this sort of interaction was liable to become dangerous.

“I suppose I do. Don’t most people?”

“Constantly Paul, I think about it constantly. It consumes my day, my every waking hour. All of these questions, these vast, existential questions that no one ever properly looks to answer until it’s too late! You could die today, Paul, do you know that?”

Paul pondered this, meanwhile carefully closing the cover of his book to protect it from further damage. Not a moment too soon, as the table rattled, tremors momentarily coursing through Jacob’s body and into the surface he grasped. Paul began to consider moving the mug. “That’s true, certainly. It’s true of everyone. An unfortunate fact that we all have to live with. I imagine if we were all too acutely aware of it, it might drive us… insane.” Paul continued to meet the man’s wild gaze. Jacob’s eyes were bloodshot.

“What if it wasn’t, Paul?”

“Excuse me?”

“What if it wasn’t true? What if I could answer that question, Paul?”

Paul raised his eyebrows. This was surely one of the more interesting conversations he’d had lately.  “I imagine that would cause quite a shift in things. In how people think about mortality. What kind of answer do you mean?”

As though in response, Jacob took one hand off of the table, reaching into his back pocket and pulling something out. Paul caught a glint of metal. A… key. Jacob held it out for Paul to see, then set it down in front of where he sat. “Under my desk. Don’t let anyone see you. The answer, Paul.” Jacob was consumed by tremors again, more intense than the last. Paul regretted his earlier inaction as the coffee mug tipped over and plummeted from the table, spilling the tea across the hardwood floor. He was thankful that it didn’t shatter, though he would later discover that the lip had been chipped.

Paul noticed something on Jacob’s face again as he again pondered how to respond. A small streak of dark liquid had exited from between his coworker’s lips and ran down to his chin, then under it and onto his neck. It left a red streak behind it, and Paul recognized it as blood. How odd, he thought. Blood did not typically come out of one’s mouth, after all. At least not in his experience. “Are you alright?”

Jacob broke their eye contact, stumbling away from the table and crashing sideways into one of the walls with a loud thump. A droplet of blood dislodged itself from his mouth, not unlike the tea from the mug, and made a crimson mark on the gray wall. It was left there like an adornment, a meager population of the featureless plane, and a convenient answer to Paul’s question as Jacob slid to the ground in a full collapse. Paul quickly rose from his chair, instinctively pocketing the key as he approached the fallen man. It took no more than a minute to discern that Jacob was not breathing, and had no pulse.

With urgency, though not frantic haste—it was, after all, his time for directed relaxation—Paul removed his phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1. He put the dispatcher on speaker and explained the situation as he initiated CPR. Paul knew that those who received CPR were more likely to survive once paramedics arrived, though he guessed that the blood which was now making a small pool on his floor didn’t aid those odds. Almost without thinking, he discretely left out the details of their conversation, and the key. Discretion, he noted, had practically been the dead man’s final request.

Ooooooo!!!

What was the prompt out of curiosity?

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

Just now, The Wandering Wizard said:

Ooooooo!!!

What was the prompt out of curiosity?

Write a dialogue between two characters that ends with one of them dying.

It ended up not being that much of a dialogue...

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

2 minutes ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

Write a dialogue between two characters that ends with one of them dying.

It ended up not being that much of a dialogue...

It was a fair amount considering someone was already dying when the conversation started.

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

Just now, The Wandering Wizard said:

It was a fair amount considering someone was already dying when the conversation started.

I suppose. Any thoughts, feedback?

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

1 minute ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

I suppose. Any thoughts, feedback?

He feels British to me and some sentences seem to run on, BUT it fits with the British personality and his view that kind of feels slightly snobbish a bit. That’s at least what it felt like to me.

[The Aspiring Archivist any]

Just now, The Wandering Wizard said:

He feels British to me and some sentences seem to run on, BUT it fits with the British personality and his view that kind of feels slightly snobbish a bit. That’s at least what it felt like to me.

Interesting. I was kind of going for sort of unusual thought processes that don't seem like normal human reactions. Having that from a perspective character is an idea I borrowed from a short story I really like called "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. I guess the vocabulary and tone I used could be sort of British. The ultimate goal was strange, off-putting, maybe creepy. I don't know.

[The Wandering Wizard he/him]

3 minutes ago, The Aspiring Archivist said:

Interesting. I was kind of going for sort of unusual thought processes that don't seem like normal human reactions. Having that from a perspective character is an idea I borrowed from a short story I really like called "To Build a Fire" by Jack London. I guess the vocabulary and tone I used could be sort of British. The ultimate goal was strange, off-putting, maybe creepy. I don't know.

It did feel like a strange thought process.

[Edema Rue she/her]